This book provides a comprehensive history of police reform, charting its history from its origins in the early 18th century to the most recent examples in the 21st century of the Labour, Coalition and Conservative governments. Each key reform programme is explored in the social, political, and intellectual context of its time, how the necessary legislation was passed, how each programme was implemented, and what its legacy has been. This is the first study that concentrates on the key reforms that shaped the modern police service, their enduring legacies, and their underlying flaws. It is an essential read for police historians, criminologists, police academics, policy makers, and everyone interested in police history.

A comprehensive history of policing from the eighteenth century onwards, which draws on largely unused police archives. Clive Emsley addresses all the major issues of debate; he explores the impact of legislation and policy at both national and local levels, and considers the claim that the English police were non-political and free from political control. In the final section, he looks at the changing experience of police life. Established as a standard introduction to the subject on its first appearance, the Second Edition has been substantially revised and is now published under the Longman imprint for the first time.

This engaging textbook provides a broad and unique coverage of the key historical events that shaped ideas in criminology, criminal justice and policing from the late seventeenth century to the early twenty-first century in England and Wales. It vividly illustrates the multi-disciplinary nature of criminology and penology by providing important insights into the social and political issues that shaped the development and operations of the criminal justice system and its responses to both crime and disorder. Using key text boxes, this book highlights key people, theorists, foundational principles and events throughout. Part One discusses the nature of crime and forms of punishment between 1689 and 1750 and the penological concerns regarding the aims of punishment. Part Two focuses on crime and disorder between 1750 and 1850, examining the impact of urbanization on criminal activity and it considers the background and state responses to key episodes of public disorder. Part Three covers the development of policing 1689-1856 and the contribution to policing made by reformers and the implementation of police reform. Part Four deals with a number of issues affecting crime and punishment between 1850 and 1920 including episodes such as Irish Home Rule within the context of ‘high policing’. It evaluates changes to the nature and role of prisons that occurred in this period. This student-friendly book contains end of chapter questions which summarise and enable further discussion.

Focusing on the evolution of a policed society in 19th century England by examining the arguments surrounding police reforms and the popular response to the police, Taylor provides an introduction which sets modern policing in a wider context.

The establishment of ‘new police’ forces in early Victorian England has long attracted historical enquiry and debate, albeit with a general focus on London and the urban-industrial communities of the Midlands and the North. This original study contributes to the debate by examining the nature and process of police reform, the changing relationship between the police and the public, and their impact on crime in Cambridge, a medium-sized county town with a rural hinterland. It argues that the experience of Cambridge was unique, for the Corporation shared co-jurisdiction of policing arrangements with the University, and this fractious relationship, as well as political rivalries between Liberals and Tories, impeded the reform process, although the force was certified efficient in 1856. Case studies of the careers of individual policemen and of the crimes and criminals they encountered shed additional light on the darker side of life in early Victorian Cambridge and present a different and more nuanced picture of provincial police reform during a seminal period in police history than either the traditional Whig or early revisionist Marxist interpretations implied. As such, it will support undergraduate courses in local, social, and criminal justice history during the Victorian period.