"During the last half of the 19th century there was a marked fall in the crime rate with a substantial decrease in both crimes of dishonesty and violence, and in the illegitimacy rate, and the beginnings of a fall in the incidence of drug and alcohol abuse. It was a period of striking moral reform in personal behaviour which transformed Britain from being a violent, dishonest and addicted society into a peaceable, law-abiding, respectable and essentially moral realm that endured for much of the 20th century."