So, I did my dissertation on these documents working with these same people. I don't really have an argument with Dedeo's argument. Now, my work was mostly qualitative (I tried to infer meaning from the text) than quantitative, but my work relied heavily on quantitative underpinnings. The only argument I have is with the title. In 17th, 18th, 19th century England thievery is never considered worse than murder. Ever. That doesn't mean that people weren't executed for it, but it's usually under what we would call "aggravating circumstances". So, a woman who stole something might be pardoned, sent to the workhouse, or "transported"-- that is, sent overseas. In fact, if you were a young and fertile woman you had a better shot at getting out of trouble-- and the women knew it.
Were people executed for property crimes? Sure they were, but the property crime could have very well been the precipitating legal event, not necessarily the larger "social" crime that the person committed. What do I mean? Well, juries were often a group of men impaneled to sit in on trials throughout the course of a day. They sometimes knew the defendant, sometimes not. During trials, a defendant might call character witnesses to his or her defense. The prosecution might call character witnesses to the character witnesses, and on and on (though usually this was more effort than anyone put in). Character witnesses mattered a lot, because it showed that you were viewed as respectable and therefore clearly not guilty (strains of Calvinism here). If a nobleman stood for you then your chances were pretty good. Now, if no one stood for you, or if people came in to defame you for the prosecution, that showed that you were a transgressive individual. As a transgressor you might very likely be worthy of death. It's notable that a lot of folks who were executed in the 17th and 18th centuries would confess to their crimes on the gallows. And even if they did not confess to the crime for which they were charged, many would admit that they deserved the punishment for other acts they committed. So, judgment in a criminal court case is often the judgment of a person's whole life.
Now, execution was the basic form of punishment in this era because the options are execution, occasionally a workhouse, transportation, the stocks, and ... that's about it. Jail (gaol) was only a place to hold people until they were ready for trial. No one stayed there long term. Okay, well more gradation is needed for punishments. If a man kills another man in a fight then he may deserve to die, but he may simply die by hanging. His end may be gruesome, but if he's viewed as a decent fellow who made a mistake then the hangman may give him a "drop" that actually breaks his neck or the crowd may gather around to pull his body down and thus speed his death. The woman who murders her husband in cold blood was often strangled and then her dead body was burned at the stake. A premeditated murder could see the dead body quartered and hung up in his or her's hometown. The important thing here is what happens to the body after it's dead.
Dedeo's point about the changing nature of society and the role of violence therein is correct. I don't buy Pinker's argument, really, but what Dedeo describes here reflects an accurate understanding of the changes in the English justice system.
A few things worthwhile to know:
* Foucault is the starting point for studying crime, but he's just that, a starting point. His general conclusions are so-so, but he asked really important questions. Anyone who relies on the work of Foucault as a theoretical basis ends up having to expand it to make sure they can derive meaning according to the situation their research is examining.
* We can't talk about class at this point, because this is not a society organized by its relationship to the means of production. We can talk, however, about social orders. There's a lot of gradation and variation on this, but you have a very small elite group and a very large group of commoners. The elite are responsible for justice and protection. The commoners cooperate in this because they believe that the elite (in a general sense) are upholding their responsibilities to fair justice and providing protection. When they disagree this does break down and the elite knew it.
If you have questions, let me know. I'll be in and out all day.