Make sure first you have enough peasents to work the gaurd towers adn place the gaurd
towers near the granary if you place them randomly around your castle it wont do any good
catching criminals. Criminals auto-matically target the granary so when building up your
castle before you surround your granary with farms save some space to put gaurds. Other
wise stick to the punishments that are quick but do not have to have a tortuers guild to
work (killing peasents is the fastest for dealing woth their crimes). Tortures in the
guild for some reason take Forever! to do there work. try this maybe it will help

if you place 2 near the granary and 1 near the hovels you get them when they get their
bags to steal whit or when they are about to steal.

p.s. if you place the court house near the hovels it goes faster.