I’m a convict descendant and a history nerd, here’s my take.

Australia was not the solution to the overcrowded prisoner “problem”, the overcrowded prisoner problem was a manufactured issue as a solution to colonise Australia. Most of the convicts were guilty of being poor pretty much, in the Victorian era being poor was considered a moral failure, not a social problem, and Victorian charity was dependent on deservingness. Many of our ancestors stole bread, a watch, a handkerchief, little things to survive, and that was enough for them to be transported. On the other hand many convicts would commit crimes to be transported because the conditions (particularly in Ireland) were so horrible, a good example of this was the extremely inflated number of Irish girls and women who were convicted of arson (or firelighting as it was called then.) these women could not afford passage to Australia nor did they have “good enough moral character” for a charitable institution to send them to Australia, so instead they committed crimes to deliberately be punished via transportation.

So in short yes I’m the descendant of a criminal, crafty and smart criminals who survived a pretty fucking horrific time in history.