At the start of the 1800’s crime, law and order became a major increasing problem. In 1839 the population of London was 1.5 million and there weren’t enough policemen to serve this population. This then led to the English army breaking up fights instead of protecting their country from invaders. No tactics were created to fight crime. This then finally led to setting up the Metropolitan police in 1829 and this was set up by a man called, Sir Robert Steel. The Metropolitan police were then known as ‘peelers or ‘bobbies’ after him. The duty the Metropolitan police had was to patrol the streets and to prevent crime. This was good as the Metropolitan police may have been imitating. The odd riot was handled by them. The Metropolitan police were also back up by the army.
In the 1830’s the public were getting mixed up with the Metropolitan Police and the army. This then led to the introduction of a new police uniform (still present today) that was blue. The uniform contained; a tail coat, hat and badges. Police were also equipped with truncheon and cutlass. The colour navy was chosen because it was the respectable colour of what the royal navy wore.
Policing improved in 1856 due to the ‘Country and Borough Police Act’ which then meant that all the boroughs through the UK had all set up police forces. This was a large improvement as they were scattered which increased the speed they worked in. However, they lack central communication with London so criminals could leave and enter London without being bothered. Detectives were introduced into policing. They merged with the public by wearing plain clothes.
In the 1880’s policemen had little training and spent little time on enforcement duties. This shows that the police were useless and inefficient. Policemen didn’t have enough training to take care of bigger-major crimes such as murders. This was an advantage for anyone who wanted to mock the police or who just wanted to kill. Police had a terrible reputation as they abused their power by being ridiculously violent. This lead to many things such as; lack of help by the public and vital information witnesses had to give. Many of the public were scared to even approach them. They had 14 exhausting long hours 7 days a week without shifts! This was very stressing and tiring which led to many problems such as dealing with crime properly. They were focusing on meaningless things such as making an impression with the way they were dressed instead of fighting crime. People who lived in these societies stated that they only helped the upper, middle class. In November 13th 1887 policemen were being pressurised as they used violence to stop a demonstration known as ‘bloody Sunday’.
Detectives weren’t effective either as they didn’t rely on forensic science to help them solve cases and find criminals so this just made everything much harder. Detectives were a minority in London and this was a big problem as the population of London was by far populated the most rather than other cities in the UK. However, things did improve when Scotland Yard created a ‘Rogues Gallery’ which was a collection of criminal photographs. In the presence of the late 19th century It was known that detectives or police could identify a criminal by the shape of their heads. This was the main thing the relied on. There were disadvantages to this as criminals could’ve worn face masks to erase the image of their heads.
From 1783-1868 the main punishment was the public executions in London. The offender was insulted and pelted with fruits to show hate and anger. After making the offender feel mentally pressurised the offender was then hung until either their necks broke on first impact of suffocation. This was then banned only because of one reason- crowds of up to 200, 000 came to see the event and this led to more crimes such as; pick pockets and thieves. It was then finally seen as inhumane. Public executions did stop however, executions in prisons were still continuing but only for serious crimes such as chained murders and rapists. Later imprisonment was introduced still not preventing crimes being committed. It was known as the humane method unlike the public executions.
Prisons meant that criminals could improve their way of life and shortage of executions. For weak crimes there were fines and whippings. This meant that the rich could bribe the law and get out of the consequence of breaking a law or doing a wrong. However, It wasn’t as simple for the poor they had no choice but to suffer the consequences of their actions. If crimes were committed by children they would be sent to prison with the adults this then differed as something was noticeable. The adults had bad influences on the children rather then good. This then led to reformatory schools being set up in 1854 for children under the age of 16.
Years later, there were some new prison designs introduced in the 19th century. One of these ideas were to separate system, where prisoners were isolated hoping that they would psychologically break down and create a positive attitude. This was condemned as some prisoners began to become crazy and some began to have suicidal thoughts about the mental torture they were facing.
In my opinion I think that law and order in the early 19th century began pitiful. There was no such thing as protecting the streets. The only major duty there was were hygiene checkers that knocked on doors to see if everything was okay. However throughout the years of the 19th centuries things began to improve as boroughs noticed large increases of crimes and negativity. This was much better then before as before everything was much more disorganised and unsettled. As time went on new rules began to show upon the people. The industrial revolution provoked the poor to steal and kill however this was then dealt with by the set up of the Metropolitan police which did have a huge impact on the crimes. The Metropolitan police finally covered all boroughs and this meant that they could aid and decrease crimes all over different areas in London.
