El ejercito, la policia y el mantenimiento del orden publico en Inglaterra (c.1750-1950)

There is an assumption that the society of mainland Britain, and particularly England proper, was essentially non-violent during the nineteenth century and at least up until the end of the Second World War. Part of the assumption focuses on the development of an unarmed, civilian police institution that took responsibility for dealing with public order and obviated the need for summoning the military. There were no nrevolutions, civil wars, and no pronunciamentos in England during this period, though there remains doubt about the extent to which this was the result of accident or good sense on the part of the people and the government. The question of what constitutes a violent society and the extent to which recurrent public and political violence is the result of contingency or design are central here; and they are of continuing fascination for historians and social and political scientists. Thjis essay does not address these questions directly, rather it aims to present a brief chronological narrative of the related and equally important issue of the shifting public order roles of the military and the police in England

El Ejército, la Policía y el mantenimiento del Orden Público en Inglaterra (1750-1950)

There is an assumption that the society of mainland Britain, and particularly England itself, was essentially non-violent during the nineteenth century and at least up until the end of the Second World War. Part of the assumption focuses on the development of an unarmed, civilian police institution that took responsibility for dealing with public order and obviated the need for summoning the military. There were no revolutions, no civil wars, and no pronunciamentos in England during this period and there is debate about the extent to which this was the result of accident or good sense on the part of the people and the government. The question of what constitutes a violent society and the extent to which violence is the result of contingency or design are central here and of continuing fascination for historians and social and political scientists. This essay, however, will present a chronological narrative of the related and equally important issue of the shifting public order roles of the military and the police in England.Se suele asumir que, durante el siglo XIX, la sociedad de las islas británicas, y en particular la de la propia Inglaterra, era en esencia poco violenta, y que siguió siéndolo, al menos, hasta después de la II Guerra Mundial. En parte, esta suposición usa como referente el desarrollo de la institución policial inglesa, civil y desarmada, que al ocuparse de los desórdenes públicos hizo innecesaria la intervención del Ejército. No hubo revoluciones, guerras civiles ni pronunciamientos en la Inglaterra de ese periodo, aunque es objeto de controversia la delimitación de hasta qué punto esta situación era accidental, o si, por el contrario, resultaba del sentido común de su población y del gobierno. La interrogación sobre qué constituye una sociedad violenta y sobre la medida en que la violencia pública y política continuadas resultan de la contingencia o del diseño sigue fascinando a historiadores, científicos sociales y politólogos. Este ensayo no aborda estas cuestiones directamente, sino que presenta una breve narración cronológica de un aspecto próximo e igualmente importante: el cambio, en Inglaterra, de los roles en el mantenimiento del orden público por parte del Ejército y la policía

Godfrey (Barry S.), Cox (David J.), Farrall (Stephen J.), Serious Offenders : A Historical Study of Habitual Criminals

What makes a serious habitual offender ? What can a criminal justice system do to contain, punish, and reform such offenders and protect other citizens from becoming their victims ? In this book, a follow up to their earlier study of the lives of offenders in the railway town of Crewe, Godfrey, Cox and Farrall address these questions for the period from roughly 1850 to 1940. The data and the broad conclusions are rooted in a historical experience, but the authors have their eyes on the contem..

Malcolm Anderson, In Thrall to Political Change : Police and Gendarmerie in France

In Thrall to Political Change is an ambitious book. In it Malcolm Anderson addresses a series of ostensibly basic, but in reality highly complex questions : how did the various forms of police in France develop into their contemporary forms ? How have these institutions reacted and responded to events, to social and political pressures and change across the period since 1870 ? Why do the Police and the Gendarmerie appear so often to be violent, incompetent and a threat to civil liberties as w..

Heather Shore, London’s Criminal Underworlds, c. 1720 – c. 1930. A Social and Cultural History, Houndmills Basingstoke, Palgrave Macmillan, 2015, 286 p., ISBN 978-0-230-3404-8

The ‘underworld’, ‘criminal class’, ‘organised crime’ are popular terms in the media. They suggest an alien ‘other’, that claims many of the attributes of ordinary society and ordinary members of society, but that has its own, alternative structures and norms following an alternative life style and the expense of everyone else. Some criminologists and historians of crime have provided definitions of such terms. The problem with providing a definition in such an instance is that, if the author..

Detection and prevention: the old English police and the new 1750-1900

Traditionelle historische Darstellungen der englischen Polizei bestehen darauf, daß die Gründung der Metropolitan Police von London 1829 eine bedeutende Wendung des Polizeisystems zum Besseren hin bedeutete. In dem Beitrag wird dagegen angeführt, daß das alte System nicht so untauglich war, wie generell behauptet wird, daß es ein beachtliches Maß an Kontinuität zwischen der alten und der neuen Polizei gab und daß das Metropolitan Modell nie als Ideal für viele provinzielle Polizeieinheiten akzeptiert wurde. Obwohl sich die Bemühungen der New Police eher auf die Verhütung als auf die Aufklärung von Verbrechen konzentrierten, ist ihre Leistungsfähigkeit auf diesem Gebiet äußerst schwierig einzuschätzen. Sicher war sie aber nicht so erfolgreich, wie die Traditionshistoriker im Einklang mit der Großtuerei zeitgenössischer Polizeichefs behauptet haben. (KWübers.)'Traditional histories of the English Police have insisted that the creation of the Metropolitan Police of London in 1829 heralded a major change for the better in the policing system. This paper argues, in contrast, that the old system was not as inefficient as has generally been maintained, that there was a considerable degree of continuity between the Old Police and the New, and that the Metropolitan model was never accepted as the ideal for many provincial forces. While the prevention, rather than the detection, of crime was central to the New Police, its effeciency in this area is extremely difficult to assess; certainly it was not as successful as the traditional historians, following the boast of contemporary chief policemen, have maintained.' (author's abstract

Aurélien Lignereux, La France rébellionnaire : Les résistances à la gendarmerie (1800-1859)

Twenty or so years ago few serious academic historians would have considered studying the French police or gendarmerie. In most social history the police and gendarmes made an entrance largely in the role of repressors of the plebeian and peasant classes. What a difference two decades makes ! Work in this area in France is now second to none ; much of the research into the gendarmerie is the result of the group clustered around Jean-Noël Luc at the Sorbonne, backed by General Georges Philippo..

Violent crime in England in 1919: post-war anxieties and press narratives

In the immediate aftermath of the First World War a variety of commentators in England expressed concern that men returning from the war had become so brutalized and inured to violence that their behaviour would continue to be violent at home. But, while the stage was set for a ‘moral panic’ with the brutalized veteran as the new folk devil, no such panic materialized. This essay makes a detailed study of two contrasting newspapers to assess how violent crime was assessed and interpreted after the war. It notes an increase in the use of the concept of the ‘unwritten law’ (the traditional ‘right’ claimed by many men to chastise a disrespectful wife or a man that despoiled or dishonoured a wife) in the courts and the press, probably as an element in re-establishing pre-war gender roles. It also describes how the idea of shell-shock was deployed as a defence in criminal cases, something that probably contributed to a popular recognition that men might suffer mental breakdowns as easily as women. In conclusion, it suggests some of the factors that may have inhibited the press in identifying the violent veteran as a new folk devil

Heather Shore, Artful Dodgers : Youth and Crime in Early Nineteenth-Century London

In the contemporary popular imagination the juvenile offender can be placed anywhere on a spectrum ranging from a loveable cockney rascal, such as'the Artful Dodger'of Lionel Bart's 1960s musical Oliver ! (as opposed to Charles Dickens'original), to the two ten-year-old'monsters'who murdered two-year-old Jamie Bulger in Liverpool in February 1993. More often than not attitudes veer towards the latter end of the spectrum, especially as the popular press feeds its readers on a diet of teenage c..

L. Perry Curtis, Jr., Jack the Ripper and the London Press

The classic English detective/murder story always ends with what is now popularly referred to as ‘closure’. The detective unmasks the murderer and explains to the bewildered other characters, as well as to the reader, how the deed was done and why it was done. Order is restored. The survivors, and the reader, can get on with their lives since everything is resolved. One of the most striking, if not the most striking thing about the Jack the Ripper story is that there has never been closure. N..