Describe Law and Order in the late nineteenth century

One of the main controversies was the use of force along with drunken policemen. To solve crowd control the police used the baton charge to disperse rioters. This was very dangerous and painful for anyone who got hit. In 1833 at Cold Bath Field in London, PC Cully was killed during the baton charge. The jury acquitted the killers as the homicide was deemed acceptable. The baton charge had caused severe injuries and serious riots had resulted in police and civilian fatalities. Drunken police were very unpopular and tarnished the already damaged reputation of the police. People saw the role of the police to solely deal with street crime and not solve crime. However when the Whitechapel murders occurred people were afraid and questioned the police as to why they hadn’t caught the killer. May critics thought that if the police brought him or her to justice it would be ‘better for their own reputation’.

In 1842, detectives were first introduces by The Met much to dislike of people who did not approve of detectives. These men wore plain clothes and could not be identified and the authorities were afraid that ‘bent’ detectives would surface due to friendliness with criminals. During the 1860s through to the 1880s detectives had been reformed. At first inspectors and sergeants were sent to investigate murders. In 1969 detectives were drafted in full-time in each station by the detective department. This was then reorganised in the Criminal Investigation Department (CID) in 1878. By 1884 they were 294 detectives who made 18.244 arrests.

Guidelines for detectives investigating murder scenes were established. But it was not until the early 20th century that fingerprinting and photography was introduced. These methods were slowly developing and therefore not as affective as they are now.

Little training was given to police and in some cases non-existent. It was up to individuals to use there own skill and intelligence to prevent crime and keep order.

PCs had the worst time, they had to work long hours and walk very long distances while on beat duty this made them fatigued and therefore ineffective police work was the result.

The police force was stretched and there were simply not enough policemen to police the people. The population of London was 5,255,069 in 1855. The police force had 13,319 officers; out of this only 1,383 men could be on beat duty at any one time. For every one police officer there were 394 people to look after. This would have been impossible to look after each and every person on each and very street, road and alleyway in the city and make arrests, run after thieves and walk miles without any proper shifts.

This was the reason that law and order was bad and why people were robbed, raped and killed on the streets of London and England. Petty theft and muggings could have easily been solved if there more men to police the streets and if the policemen weren’t distracted by riots then maybe they could had prevented other simple crimes which occurred freely on the streets.