BRITISH POLICE

British Police

British Police

Statement

From the 1700's, the British Government needed a professional Police Force more than its citizens did.

Introduction

Between 1831 and 1850 Britain experienced a number of economic, political and social problems that threatened to tear the country apart. Pressure to reform the political and social system came mainly from the new middle class who campaigned for economic betterment. Their main aim was to win the right to vote thus giving them a say in the running of the country. Certain reforms had actually been proposed in the late 1700's (Wright, 2002). The Prime Minister, William Pitt, tried to remove some of the smaller boroughs and transfer their seats to the larger counties. However this particular Bill was defeated. Pitt never proposed parliamentary reform again (Reinaer, 2000).

The House of Commons comprised wealthy land owners; these people were able to maintain their positions because of the existence of 'rotten boroughs' and 'pocket boroughs'. These uneven constituencies were basically villages or small towns and by 1790 most were in decline (Oliver, 1997). They had very few eligible voters and could be controlled easily by the land owners, through threats and bribery. Because of the absence of secret ballots, it was easy for this intimidation to continue. The fact that these areas qualified to be parliamentary boroughs was a matter more of history than that of any economic or commercial significance.

Examples of these 'rotten boroughs' were Old Sarum near Salisbury which was nothing more than a field but still had two MPs and Dunwich in Suffolk which by 1832, due to coastal erosion only half of it existed, but still continued to send two MPs to parliament (Mulcahy, 2000). It was becoming clearly evident that a north/south divide was in existence; evidence of this was the booming town of Manchester, which did not have any representatives in Parliament at all. The Industrial Revolution had brought on a new class system and an industrial middle class began to emerge i.e. mill owners, factory owners, entrepreneurs etc. In addition to these new middle classes, were the urban working class, who were rapidly becoming aware of their difference in interests to the landed and middle classes? Nevertheless the lower and the middle classes were calling out for a bigger say in how the country was to be governed.

Early forms of policing in England were localized and unsystematic rather than centralized or systematic (Mawby, 2003). In Saxon England, for instance, family groups belonged to a tithing, who policed their local kinships. The Norman invasion of 1066 led to a little more central control. The offices of constables were created, and these were seen as local representatives of central government. In contrast to modern times, these early constables were part-time and often unpaid.

In 1285, the Statute of Winchester rationalized the system of law by introducing the system of “watch and ward” in towns. The Justices of the Peace Act of 1361 made new magistrates responsible to the crown for local law enforcement (Jason, ...