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In 1836, the Scottish geologist, chemist, and agricultural improver Sir George Stewart Mackenzie was concerned about what he called the recent atrocities of violent crime in the British penal colony of New South Wales, Australia.
The root cause, he thought, was a failure to manage which criminals were transported to work in the colony especially the two-thirds of convicts who worked for private masters. At present they are shipped off, and distributed to the settlers, without the least regard to their characters or history, Mackenzie wrote in a representation [PDF] to Britain s Secretary for the Colonies, Lord Glenelg.