Policing Structures

Colin Rogers

• Editorial: Routledge
• Año: 2020
• ISBN:
  9781000196238
• Edición: 1
• Categoría: Scienze sociali
• Categoría: Criminologia

This book examines the structures that support the policing organisation internally and externally, including its partners within the criminal justice system. It has been written for students of policing, especially those undertaking qualifications under the new Police Education Qualifications Framework (PEQF), undergraduates who study the police as part of a criminology or criminal justice degree or similar, and those with a general interest in the police organisation in England and Wales. It includes chapters on:

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• The historical context of police structure.
• Accountability, governance, and control in the police.
• Local, national, and international police structures.
• The partnership between the police and the criminal justice system.
• The future structure of policing.

Throughout the chapters are 'important point boxes' which emphasise the key parts of each topic. At the end of each chapter are reflective questions, useful websites, and a further reading list, all of which reinforces students' knowledge and furthers their professional development. Written in clear and direct style, this book will appeal to students of policing, criminology, criminal justice, cultural studies, and law. It is essential reading for students taking a degree in Professional Policing.

Chapter 1

Policing structure—historical context

Introduction

The famous historian David Lowenthal suggested that the past was a foreign country and that they did things differently there (Lowenthal 2011). This reminds us that it is sometimes difficult for us to comprehend decisions made many years ago, or to fully appreciate the complexities of society at the time. From our current standpoint, it would appear that the organisation we refer to as “The Police” has been embedded in our society and communities since the dawn of time. We accept their presence as something necessary for us to fulfil our lives and believe they are there to protect us, our rights and also to protect the vulnerable. However, as Reiner (2010) points out, the formation of the modern police as we know and interact with was a protracted and painful struggle, faced with bitter resistance and open hostility. At the turn of the 18th century, “the police idea was fiercely controversial” (Reiner 2010: 39).

The history of the introduction of the police in England and Wales is, therefore, a contested issue. Reiner (2010) highlights this fact in his discussion concerning the orthodox and revisionist approaches to police history. The orthodox approach involves the “informative” version of policing introduced as the March of Progress, and as a rational response to the pressures in society brought about by urbanisation and the Industrial Revolution. Opposition is seen as evaporating during the 1830s, and the police gained “public approval” through their good work in communities (Ascoli 1979: 105). The revisionist perspective challenges the traditional view of police history by situating its introduction within a “Marxist” framework, and as an integral part of the capitalist system. This approach involves the “control” of workers with this system, and a fear of a working class as a threat to the ruling elite. The “dangerous classes” (Silver 1967: 3) needed to be kept under surveillance and closely controlled. Therefore, this perspective sees the opposition to the police being strongest amongst the working class, expressed through small-scale conflicts, as well as anti-police riots against the “plague of the blue locusts” (Storch 1975: 94).

Palmer (1990) suggests that the “New Police” should be considered within the wider context of increased government centralisation. Whatever the reality surrounding the introduction of the “New Police” under the 1829 Metropolitan Police Act, we must not assume that there was no police provision whatsoever prior to this. Indeed, some of the services provided by the “Old Police” were equal to, if not better than, the “New Police” in some areas.

Important point

The history of policing in England and Wales is a contested one between orthodox and revisionist views.

The old police

For the purposes of this chapter, the “old police” under consideration will be that provided during the 18th and early 19th century, immediately prior to the Metropolitan Police Act 1829. The reason for this is primarily that the “old police” provision has been considered by many police historians as being one of the main reasons for the introduction of the New Police. Emsley (1996) suggests that during the 18th century, there were growing concerns over crime and disorder in England and Wales. Traditionalist Historians such as Melville Lee (1971) believed that at the dawn of the 19th century, the country was immersed in one of its darker epochs of criminality. Before the establishment of the New Police under the introduction of the Metropolitan Police Act 1829, policing depended on magistrates, parish constables, and night watchmen. These suffered from a bad reputation. Reith (1938) for example refers to these as corrupt, and utterly useless in the way in which they carried out their duties. Reith was not alone in his criticisms, and regularly these individuals were lampooned in popular culture of the times. Despite this, there were several developments that occurred, mostly in and around London. For example, in the middle of the 18th century, Henry Fielding, the Bow Street Magistrate, started to consider the causes of crime, linking it to employment (Emsley 2001).

Legislation in the early 18th century allowed parishes to reorganise their night watches, and increasingly metropolitan parishes utilised this to recruit fit, relatively active men, and by the turn of the century some parishes actually had watchmen patrolling beats in greater numbers than the “New Police” when they were introduced (Pacey 1989). The quality, therefore, of these men and their work is now a matter of debate. Traditionalist historians have tended to dismiss constables and night watchmen as bumbling, inept, corrupt, or illiterate fools (Melville Lee 1971). The office of constable had become so onerous that it had become common to hire deputies (Critchley 1978). Many magistrates, it was believed, exploited their offices for fees, and the members of the old policing arrangement who were effective, were represented as corrupt, using their offices for rewards and fees. Thief takers became thief makers, and the most famous of all, Jonathan Wild, had a team who “Stole on commission, and surrendered what they had taken to Wild who then returned goods to their rightful owners” (Rock 1977: 215). The “old system” therefore was said to be uncoordinated, uncertain, reliant on private and amateur effort, and riddled with corrupt practices.

Despite this view, it has been challenged by revisionist historians, especially that the old police were driven by corruption and were inefficient. For example, the idea that thief takers were corrupt being situated before 1829, opposed by those who point to current day corruption amongst detectives (see Hobbs 1998 for example). With regard to claims concerning the efficiency of the old system, writers such as Brogden (1982) and Foster (1974) suggest that what was represented as inefficiency or corruption may have been the attitude that the old police would have had too much empathy with their own communities. This would have made them unreliable for the policing of morality, crime, and disorder as these issues became politicised. The loyalty of working-class police in the old structure, could not be depended upon by those controlling industry, it was thought. This was especially so in the case of controlling riots; thus it was important to introduce a police system that would effectively control and regulate workers.

Important point

The view that the old police were unreliable is now challenged by some who see the introduction of the new police as a political move.

The change from the Old Police to the New Police is often viewed as a linear process, the one developing into the other overnight. However, there were several important developments upon the journey that need to be examined before we consider the Metropolitan Police Act of 1829. The first of these is the Bow Street Runners.

Bow Street Runners

Responsibility for the policing of London was highly localised and diffused, with attempts to establish some form of centralised control being carried out by concerned individuals, rather than Government (Palmer 1990). In 1729, a Justice of the Peace, Thomas de Veil, who had responsibility for the entire metropolis set up his office in Bow Street, Covent Garden. Shortly after his death, Henry Fielding and later John Fielding, his brother, filled the post of Magistrate at the Bow Street Office. The Fieldings were never in favour of a single large police force, but they did introduce reform at Bow Street. In 1750 Henry Fielding hired his first official police officers—four plain clothes men, known as thief takers, and two “horsemen.” The Bow Street thief takers were seen as an improvement on many of their contemporaries and a degree of professionalism did develop among them (Emsley 1996). By 1780, Bow Street had six detectives and a small loosely organised, irregularly patrolling foot patrols, with a brief experiment into “horse patrols” having lapsed some years previously (Palmer 1990).

Within the City of London, Thomas Gates, the city Marshall, organised a small regular patrol, which in 1791, was given a uniform, and gradually increased in number. In 1824, according to Emsley (1996), it consisted of 24 men divided equally into day and night patrols. Against a background of new legislation, parishes in London improved their “watch” facilities, mainly to protect property. From similar reasons, the Fieldings experimented with patrols for the main roads so that, by the 1790s, an armed patrol of about 70 men, based at Bow Street, was watching the main roads into the centre of London every evening until midnight. By 1828, this patrol had developed in scope and size and consisted of a horse patrol of 54 men and 6 officers, a dismounted patrol of 89 men and 12 officers, the night patrol of 82 men and 12 officers and the day foot patrol of 24 men and 3 officers. These functioned under the control of Bow Street until 1836, when it passed into the control of the Metropolitan Police (Cox 2008). Developments such as the Bow Street Police office in the last years of the 18th and first quarter of the 19th centuries took place against increasing debate about the state of policing. This debate was influenced by some key contributions, such as Colquhoun’s “A Treatise on the Police of the Metropolis,” first published in 1796.

Important point

For their size and resources, the Bow Street Runners were seen as reasonably effective.

Patrick Colquhoun

Patrick Colquhoun was born in Scotland on 14th March 1745 and educated in a local grammar school. In May 1792, he applied for the office of a stipendiary magistrate position in London and was accepted in 1797 at Worship Street, later transferring to Queens Square where he remained until retirement in 1818. During this time, he was also attached to the Thames Police Office (Radzinowicz 1956). Colquhoun discharged his duties as a Magistrate conscientiously, having little sympathy with those who wished change through riots or disturbances. He was, however, greatly concerned with the extent of crime in London, and continuously produced pamphlets on the topic, as well as devoting time to the study of social and economic problems. However, he is most remembered for his work entitled “A Treatise on the Police of the Metropolis,” which was an important document and contribution to the study of crime and the methods that should be utilised for the maintenance of public order (Colquhoun 1969).

The reception of the work was remarkable, and it contributed significantly to the debate around crime and policing at the time. It was the first time that an attempt had been made to give a comprehensive survey of the state of crime in the Metropolis, including the state of existing police organisation, its administration, and the penal system. The treatise was remarkable as it was based upon fact and observation, which provided a basis for a detailed plan for more effective prevention and detection of crime. He included figures and statistical information on almost every aspect, which had not been achieved before. However, as Radzinowicz observes, “the data has often to be accepted with reserve” (Radzinowicz 1956: 222). However, this work was the first to be written in the English Language on the subject of police (Radzinowicz 1956). Consequently, Colquhoun was, for a period of time, considered an expert on police and crime, and was consulted by Government and other agencies. However, despite this, when introducing the Police Bill in 1829, Robert Peel made no reference to the valuable work conducted by Colquhoun and others, in t...