The Historical Context of Policing

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The Historical Context of Policing

• Mike Kilroe
• January 2008

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THE HISTORICAL CONTEXT OF POLICING

• THE POLICE
• The bureaucratic and hierarchical bodies
  employed by the state to maintain order and
  prevent and detect crime
• (Emsley 1996)

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THE SITUATION PRIOR TO 1829

• Most small communities self-policing
• 11th century sees the first use of the world
  constable
• Constable (Comes Stabuli) (Count of Stables) Rome
• Rural areas have Tythings (10 people)
• 13th century sees the emergence of High
  Constables, Parish Constables and Royal
  Constables (Kings Peace)
• JPs unpaid - usually wealthy farmers keepers
  of the peace
• Manorial courts 16th century
• Ecclesiastical courts 17th century (moral
  regulation)
• Crime as a sin
• Urban street crime and forgery
• Rural poaching, smuggling
• More executed in London for forgery than murder
  (early 19th century)

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THE SITUATION PRIOR TO 1829

• Watchmen in urban areas drunken buffoons
  (Critchley 1978)
• Constables continue through Tudor/ Stuart periods
  ill -educated, corrupt, inefficient
• Penny pinching led to the use of men who were
  scarcely removed from idiotism ( Critchley 1978)

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THE SITUATION PRIOR TO 1829

• Late 17th early 18th increase in constables in
  urban/rural areas
• Better trained
• Uniformed
• Supervised
• Growth of mercantile capitalism
• Guarding docks/highways
• The institutionalisation of private policing
• Thames River Police 1798-private

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THE SITUATION PRIOR TO 1829

• Early 1800s
• The development of professional thief takers
• Bow Street Runners- The fielding brothers -Bow
  Street Magistrates Office
• A degree of professionalism but still accusations
  of corruption

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THE SITUATION PRIOR TO 1829

• 1822 Home Sec, Robert Peel introduces legislation
  for creation of Metropolitan Police 1829
• Not a popular development
• Connotations with continental models repressive
  etc
• A threat to English liberty!

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THE WIDER HISTORICAL BACKDROP

• THE INCREASE IN INDUSTRIALISATION
• The breakdown of aristocratic paternal control
• Breakdown of family
• Growth of urban areas
• Growth of trade unionism

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THE WIDER HISTORICAL BACKDROP

• THE FEAR OF REVOLUTION
• American /French Revolutions late 18th century
• 1848 revolutions Europe
• Marx the Communist Manifesto 1848
• Middle class have no vote till 1832
• Emerging working class
• 1791 Thomas Paine The Rights of Man-denouncing a
  system of government based on privilege/birth
• Pro-republican marches led by middle class
• State response cake and ale mobs
• Reformists, m/c threatening republicanism
• Chartists , w/c wanting the vote/reform

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THE HISTORICAL BACKDROP

• The Aftermath of war
• War with Napoleonic France 1794-1815
• Ex soldiers trained in firearms/combat
• No work
• Only the army to deal with unrest
• The Manchester Patriotic Union Society (radical
  political reform)
• The Peterloo Massacre Manchester 1819
• Dangerous places, groups, classes
• England passing through an epoch of criminality
  darker than any other in her annals (Lee 1938)

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The Sociological View

• Durkheim
• Societies move from Mechanical Society to Organic
  Society
• Division of labour in organic society
• Division of labour highly developed requiring
  high degrees of skill and ability

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The Sociological View

• Weber
• Rationality
• The growth of bureaucracies
• Foucault
• State Power
• Disciplinary power
• Institutions
• Social control
• Surveillance
• Normalisation

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THEORETICAL MODELS

• THE ORTHODOX MODEL
• Reith 1955,Walker 1977,Critchley 1978
• Themes
• Old systems corrupt, inefficient
• Threats, Urbanisation
• A police of and for the people
• General support/consensus
• Provision of protection for all-rich and poor
• Moral regulation
• Brogden (1978) Operating with minimum force,
  good natured tact and absolute impartiality

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THEORETICAL MODELS

• THE REVISIONEST ACCOUNT
• Storch 1976,Cohen 1981
• Themes
• Urban discipline
• Social control - Confronting the emerging middle
  class
• Instrument of bourgeois class oppression
• Surveillance
• Resistance to police by working class

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THE REVISIONIST ACCOUNT

• Storch 1981
• They (the police) were placed among the working
  class to monitor all phases of working class
  life, trade union activity, drinking, gambling,
  sports as well as political activity. The overall
  mission of the police was to place working class
  neighbourhoods under a constant and multifaceted
  surveillance

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POLICING 1830-1919

• A haphazard uneven development
• Lack of centralised programme
• Met develops as protectors of monarch and
  government
• By 1880 specialist departments such as CID but
  only in MET
• Hence the phrase, This is a job for Scotland
  Yard
• 1883 sees emergence of Irish special Branch
• Scraton (1995) surve-llance of ALL potential
  threats
• Critcley (1978) A quest for efficiency
• Brogden (1988) Many members of society saw this
  as start of secret police state
  watching/monitoring oppositional elements
• Particular groups targeted
• No go areas

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WHO JOINED THE POLICE?

• Metropolitan Commissioner and chief constables
  from upper classes and later from military
• Ranks below working class
• Many former soldiers
• Male culture
• Barrack culture
• Women introduced during World War 1
• No power of arrest
• Women largely segregated from men until the
  1970s
• Real policing

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Early 20th century

• Home Secretary (Winston Churchill) sends police
  from Met to Wales- striking miners
• The Police strike 1918/1919 and its consequences
• London and Liverpool
• Lloyd George PM
• Lawlessness
• Dismissals
• Special Constables
• Fear of Bolshevism/revolution
• British capitalism skating on thin ice (Hutt
  1937)

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Early 20th century

• Following the events of 1919 we see Police Act
  1919
• Centrally guided system
• Under control of Home Secretary
• Standardised pay
• Illegal for police officers to form union
• Illegal for anyone to induce officer to strike
• Established the Police Federation but prohibited
  from associating with trade unions