crime

I grew up in a village about three miles from a small town where I went to school and had friends. Like most towns, it had its problems, such as crime, which I always assumed meant theft and other minor issues—nothing too serious. I never thought there was much violent crime, but it turns out I was wrong. One of the criminals from the town was actually involved in a mugging, along with someone else from there. He mugged a local man, and I never imagined such things happened in our small town. I must have had a very sheltered upbringing.  

Last year, I visited Shrewsbury Prison, which is now a tourist attraction, and it turns out the two muggers served time there in the 1980s. I didn’t know this during my visit—if I had, it might have made the trip a bit more interesting.  

I learned about the mugging from one of the men who committed it. He didn’t hide the fact and described what they did. I know it was a long time ago and they’ve served their sentence. I told him that during my visit to the prison, I saw the place where people were once hanged. If they had committed the mugging a few decades earlier, they might have met the same fate. I’m not sure exactly when hanging for mugging ended—perhaps the early 19th century. There was a time when you could even be hanged for stealing sheep.

As I hace said this mugging has shattered my illusion of this town.  I guess I did not grow up in poverty so maybe I did not think things like that went on, and that the mugging was driven by poverty. I know the mugger came from a poor background