Research supports the Foucauldian identification of police as a major entity within the newly emerging science of discipline. He found that as public order ‘was gradually established’ the emphasis in police work ‘began increasingly to be placed on enforcing the law against those groups of people who were responsible for sustaining various immoral activities’. The police came more and more to use ‘methods such as supervision, surveillance, clandestine investigation and information gathering and co-operation with the Home Office, Foreign Office and Inland Revenue’.
Does this comment refer to policing the disturbances that we saw in London yesterday (26.3.11)? Or the inner city disturbances of the mid 2000s or early 1980s? No – this comment refers to policing from 1829 onwards and is from research undertaken by Petrow (1987). And yet this piece could have been written about any of the above order maintenance situations. It is interesting to see Petrow refer to the police science of discipline and one wonders how the discipline of ‘kettling’ would have been seen or considered by counterparts in the 19th Century. In fact one wonders whether the police of the 1800s would have coped better with the disturbances that they suffered. Although Facebook, Twitter and the gamut of social media applications did not exist in those days, it is reasonable to accept that those involved in disturbances would have been able to communicate with each other quickly and with relative ease. Similarly, the police of the day would not have had the protective kit of the modern day officer, but certain officers in the 1800s carried cutlasses and pistols, and I have no doubt that they would have been used!
We often equate crime fighting and a police service ethos with modern day policing. Certainly the Operational Policing Review jointly undertaken by ACPO, Superintendents Association and Police Federation in 1990 pointed to the fact that the police of this time had to become ‘passionate’ about service. However, according to Adlam (2000) the service orientation emerged as a core module of police experience in the mid nineteenth century. To what extent did dealing with riot distract the ‘new’ police from giving a quality service?
Apart from accepting that once again policing in this postmodern society of greater consumerism and chaotic reform can learn lessons from the 1800s, we should be conscious of the never ending cycle of police reform and attempts to re-invent the wheel; a fact that many have built their reputation and career upon.
So, as one looks for ideal descriptions of policing, perhaps one of the best comes from Bunyard (1993) a former commandant of the Police Staff College at Bramshill, who stated that the police were described by others in the criminal justice system as ‘difficult artisans’.
For further information see Adlam (2000)
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