Throughout the nineteenth century, it is clear that the main role and responsibility of the police was to regulate behaviour in the streets of towns.[1] The new police in a district resulted in increasing levels of arrests for petty offences and misdemeanours. Street traders were moved along as were prostitutes, vagrants and youths, street gambling was stopped, drunks were made to sleep it off in cells, traffic was controlled, drivers were stopped from loitering, drunk driving and driving horse-drawn carts without reigns were reacted to. [2] The Municipal Corporation Act of 1835 forced local authorities to formally introduce policing. [3] This meant that more police up and down the country saw the problems of drunken behaviour and prostitution caused since their primary role was maintaining order. [4] For example, over the period of the 1880s little changed in Manchester and Salford in the way Chief Constables reported, expressed or policed their areas in terms of assault, breaches of the peace, robbery, drunkenness, vagrancy, prostitution and nuisances. [5]
The regulation of working class behaviour was a particular role of the police. Police are seen by historians as ‘agents of the middle class’. They were in charge of implementing middle class morality on the resistant working class. The working class were singled out as targets and working class cultural activities suffered as a result. [6] Police were ‘empowered to arrest any transgressors’. [7] In a newspaper article from 1828 on the establishment of the police and what their responsibilities would be, this is clear. The article originally featured in The Observer in the day previous and it outlines a report presented to the house of commons about the police. [8] The article argues that an ‘Increase of commitments’ for the police ‘was to be attributed proportionate increase of crime, whether much as it might not reasonably be supposed to emanate from circumstances and changes in society’. [9] To tackle this problem, a committee classified crime into different classes in order to distinguish ‘ordinary occurrences’ and those that need to be persecuted. The 1st class was murder, manslaughter, shooting, stabbing and poisoning. The 2nd class was burglary, embezzlement by servants, frauds, highway robbery, receiving stolen goods and the 3rd class was cattle stealing an
d horse and sheep stealing. These two classes in particular seem to target protecting the property of the rich and of landlords which could have led to the impoverished becoming particularly targeted as suspects for these crimes. The 4th class was rape, assault with intent to commit rape, assault with intent to commit. It is unclear from the article whether the classes are being ranked in order of importance but if it is, it shows what was deemed in important in the nineteenth century, property and possessions were more important than a woman’s body. Finally the 5th class consisted of arson, bigamy, cattle maiming, child stealing, game law offences, rejury, piracies and murder, sacrilege, sending threatening letters, treason, trafficking slaves, transports at large, felonies and misdemeanors not otherwise described and the 6th class included coining, coin putting off and uttering, forgery, and uttering forged instruments, possession of forged bank notes.
The article also gives some indications of what was deemed to be a cause of the rising levels of crime which also shows how the working classes were criminalised. The rising population and urbanisation made classification necessary. [10] Some of the reasons given for this redefining of crimes and the responsibilities of the police include ‘Low price of gin a cause’, ‘neglect of children’ and ‘general want of unemployment’. [11] The article also claims that ‘Officers of justice’ had a duty at this time to constantly observe the extent of the ‘magnitude of evil’ and one Officer of Justice went further by saying that ‘Since the police has been formed there has been a wonderful alteration’ and that police need ‘vigour and consistency’. [12]
One way this was done was by using surveillance.Surveillance was a key tool for the police in achieving this aim. [13] Storch argues that the aim of ‘the police was to place working-class neighbourhoods under a concentrated and multifaceted surveillance’. [14] Emsley also argues that police performance was essential to placing town under centralised control. [15] Mclaughlin claims that the police were the ‘most visible representation of state sovereign authority in civil society and police officers are authorized to use their considerable powers to take action against crime and disorder in a manner that is both fair and impartial’. [16] Daniels in his unpublished thesis argues that the ‘fundamental role of the police will be found to be in maintaining public order’.[17]
Another area of regulating behaviour that the police were responsible for regulating was in the suppression of protest. For many, the first experience of the uniformed police where when they were deployed as a riot squad in 1830s and 40s. [18] This main role as to attend and stifle riots was present even into January of 1850 where Lincoln protests about high rent were assisted by 20 Metropolitan police. [19] Emsley claims that the ‘new police were much more useful in the suppression of riot and serious disorder.’ [20]
Finally, an important role and responsibility of the police was being able to identify criminals. Stanford argues that the police were actually very poor at identifying criminals. [21] As has been previously discussed, this is probably because there was an emphasis placed upon the working classes as being the focus of arrests as they were the ones who needed their moralities to be changed, guided and criminalised were needed. An obscure way criminals were identified was scientifically. French Scientist, A.J.B Patent-Duchậtelet, concluded that prostitutes could be medically identified and were ‘victims of poverty’ making up parts of the ‘urban proletariat’.[22] His research was aided by Parisian police files and interviews. [23] If a policeman identified a prostitute she had to have an internal examination and confined under lock and key if she had gonorrhea or syphilis after the Contagious Diseases Act in 1864.[24] Wendelin argues that this was about regulating health rather than behavior or morality. [25] However, it is fair to say that morality and behaviour often came into play when the police were beginning to identify prostitutes. While the main role of the police was clearly to regulate and monitor the behaviour of the working classes, as well as identifying criminals, it was still widely believed that it was the responsibility of the individual to reform their behaviour and self-respect and to ultimately find their redemption. [26]
[1] Croll, A. ‘Street disorder, surveillance and shame: Regulating behaviour in the public spheres of the late Victorian British Town’ Social History 24:3 (1999) pp.250-268 p253
[2] Emsley, C. The English Police: A Political and Social History 2nd Ed. (London: Routledge, 2014) p60
[3] Daniels, D. ‘Watching and Policing in Manchester and Salford 1880-1980’ p10
[4] Daniels, D. ‘Watching and Policing in Manchester and Salford 1880-1980’ p93
[5] Daniels, D. ‘Watching and Policing in Manchester and Salford 1880-1980’ p133
[6] Croll, A. ‘Street disorder, surveillance and shame: Regulating behaviour in the public spheres of the late Victorian British Town’ p253-4
[7] Croll, A. ‘Street disorder, surveillance and shame: Regulating behaviour in the public spheres of the late Victorian British Town’ p267
[8] ‘The Police of the Metropolis’, The Morning Chronicle (London, England) Monday, July 28, 1828; Issue 18368. British Library Newspapers, Part I: 1800-1900.
[9] ‘The Police of the Metropolis’
[10] ‘The Police of the Metropolis’
[11] ‘The Police of the Metropolis’
[12] ‘The Police of the Metropolis’
[13] Croll, A. ‘Street disorder, surveillance and shame: Regulating behaviour in the public spheres of the late Victorian British Town’ p253
[14] Daniels, D. ‘Watching and Policing in Manchester and Salford 1880-1980’ PhD Thesis, Manchester Metropolitan University, 2018. p5
[15] Daniels, D. ‘Watching and Policing in Manchester and Salford 1880-1980’ p5
[16] Daniels, D. ‘Watching and Policing in Manchester and Salford 1880-1980’ p12
[17] Daniels, D. ‘Watching and Policing in Manchester and Salford 1880-1980’ p15
[18] Emsley, C. The English Police: A Political and Social History p65
[19] Emsley, C. The English Police: A Political and Social History p56
[20] Emsley, C. The English Police: A Political and Social History p60
[21] Stanford, T.G. ‘The Metropolitan Police 1850-1914: targeting, harassment and the creation of the criminal class’ PhD Thesis, University of Huddersfield, 2007. p2
[22] Wendelin, G. ‘The Prostitute’s Voice in the public eye: Police Tactics of Security and Discipline within Victorian Journalism’ Communication and Critical/Cultural Studies 7:1 (2010) pp.53-69 p54
[23] Wendelin, G. ‘The Prostitute’s Voice in the public eye: Police Tactics of Security and Discipline within Victorian Journalism’ Communication and Critical/Cultural Studies 7:1 (2010) pp.53-69 p54
[24] Wendelin, G. ‘The Prostitute’s Voice in the public eye: Police Tactics of Security and Discipline within Victorian Journalism’ p55
[25] Wendelin, G. ‘The Prostitute’s Voice in the public eye: Police Tactics of Security and Discipline within Victorian Journalism’ p55
[26] Auerbach, S. ‘Beyond the Pale of Mercy: Victorian penal culture, police court missionaries and the origins of probation in England’ Law and History Review 33:3 (2015) pp.621-663 p654
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