Britain, Australia

The concept of transportation as a punishment for criminals dates back to before the establishment of the Australian colonies. The first British law establishing transportation as a means of dealing with criminals was the Transportation Act of 1718. This imposed sentences of transportation to the American Colonies for offences seen as too serious to be adequately punished by whipping but not serious enough to merit the death penalty. The American War of Independence effectively ended trans-Atlantic transportation, and felons sentenced to be transported were confined with Britain by means of prison hulks, in which conditions were appalling. Transportation overseas began again with the departure of the first convicts for the new Australian penal colony of Botany Bay in 1787. For nearly eighty years after that date, British convicts were sent to penal colonies in Australia; penal transportation was not abolished until 1857, and even after that date, until...
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