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Preventive police is that aspect of law enforcement intended to act as a deterrent to the commission of crime. Preventive policing is considered a defining characteristic of the modern police, typically associated with Robert Peel's
London Metropolitan Police The Metropolitan Police Service (MPS), formerly and still commonly known as the Metropolitan Police (and informally as the Met Police, the Met, Scotland Yard, or the Yard), is the territorial police force responsible for law enforcement and ...
, established in 1829. In recent years, however, British police have abandoned the idea of preventive policing in favour of "quick response".


Historical development in the UK


Reliance upon executions

In the century following 1688, severe punishment was the legal mechanism in England for preventing crime, which included the designations of hundreds of crimes as
capital crime Capital punishment, also known as the death penalty, is the state-sanctioned practice of deliberately killing a person as a punishment for an actual or supposed crime, usually following an authorized, rule-governed process to conclude that ...
s, punishable by death. Public executions were part of the formula, designed to deter criminals by demonstrating the brutal consequences of crime if apprehended. Reformers argued that this method of prevention was ineffective, advocating instead punishments that, in the mind of the criminal, fit the crime.R. J. Marin, "The Living Law." In eds., W. T. McGrath and M. P. Mitchell, ''The Police Function in Canada''. Toronto: Methuen, 1981, 18-19. Police Magistrate
John Fielding Sir John Fielding (16 September 1721 – 4 September 1780) was a notable English magistrate and social reformer of the 18th century. He was also the younger half-brother of novelist, playwright and chief magistrate Henry Fielding. Despite bein ...
, head of the
Bow Street Runners The Bow Street Runners were the law enforcement officers of the Bow Street Magistrates' Court in the City of Westminster. They have been called London's first professional police force. The force originally numbered six men and was founded in 1 ...
, believed that "It is much better to prevent even one man from being a rogue than apprehending and bringing forty to justice." Fielding's Bow Street "thief takers", however, were a stipendiary force, and were primarily relegated to policing crime after it was committed. Despite the introduction of the Bow Street Runners and other paid professionals, private citizens were still overwhelmingly responsible for initiating criminal charges against culprits. Research suggests this reliance on the public to exercise Judicial discretion may have put immigrant groups such as the Irish at a disadvantage.


In practice

The practical application of the concept in the English policing system is attributed to
Patrick Colquhoun Patrick Colquhoun ( ; 14 March 1745 – 25 April 1820) was a Scottish merchant, statistician, magistrate, and founder of the first regular preventive police force in England, the Thames River Police. He also served as Lord Provost of Glasgow 1 ...
, who presented his ideas in ''A Treatise on the Police of the Metropolis'' (1797). Colquhoun founded the
Thames River Police The Thames River Police was formed in 1800 to tackle theft and looting from ships anchored in the Pool of London and in the lower reaches and docks of the Thames. It replaced the Marine Police, a police force established in 1798 by magistrate ...
to counter the significant losses from the theft of cargo being shipped in and out of the Port of London on the River Thames. In contrast to the Bow Street Runners, the river police acted as a deterrent by their continual presence on the riverfront, in addition to being able to intervene if they spotted a crime in progress. The Thames River Police and the Bow Street Runners were absorbed into the Metropolitan Police in 1839.


Utilitarianism calculations

Colquhoun was influenced by the utilitarian ideas of his colleague,
Jeremy Bentham Jeremy Bentham (; 15 February 1748 Old_Style_and_New_Style_dates">O.S._4_February_1747.html" ;"title="Old_Style_and_New_Style_dates.html" ;"title="nowiki/>Old Style and New Style dates">O.S. 4 February 1747">Old_Style_and_New_Style_dates.htm ...
, who helped make the case for the establishment of the river police. On the subject of policing, Bentham promoted the views of
Italian Italian(s) may refer to: * Anything of, from, or related to the people of Italy over the centuries ** Italians, an ethnic group or simply a citizen of the Italian Republic or Italian Kingdom ** Italian language, a Romance language *** Regional It ...
Marquis Cesare Beccaria, and disseminated a translated version of "Essay on Crime in Punishment". Beccaria placed preventive policing in terms consistent with Bentham's own beliefs, espousing the guiding principle of "the greatest good for the greatest number", which Bentham used as the foundation of his utilitarian philosophy: ::
''It is better to prevent crimes than to punish them. This is the chief aim of every good system of legislation, which is the art of leading men to the greatest possible happiness or to the least possible misery, according to calculation of all the goods and evils of life.''
An 1829 ''London Review'' article entitled, "Preventive police" caught the attention of Jeremy Bentham, and began his mentoring relationship with its author,
Edwin Chadwick Sir Edwin Chadwick KCB (24 January 18006 July 1890) was an English social reformer who is noted for his leadership in reforming the Poor Laws in England and instituting major reforms in urban sanitation and public health. A disciple of Util ...
, that would last until Bentham's death in 1832. Chadwick's article contributed to the debate leading up to Robert Peel's proposal for a metropolitan police force. He argued that prevention ought to be the ''primary'' concern of a police body, which was not the case in practice. The reason, argued Chadwick, was that "A preventive police would act more immediately by placing difficulties in obtaining the objects of temptation." In contrast to a deterrent of punishment, a preventive police force would deter criminality by making crime cost-ineffective, anticipating the "crime doesn't pay" motto promoted by American police reformers in the 20th century. Not only would a preventive police trump punishment as a deterrent, it would also reduce the costs of a criminal justice system over-burdened by prosecuting crimes that have already been committed. In the second draft of his 1829 Police Act, the "object" of the new Metropolitan Police, was changed by Robert Peel to the "principal object", which was the "prevention of crime". Later historians would attribute the perception of England's "appearance of orderliness and love of public order" to the preventive principle entrenched in Peel's police system.


Critical views

More recent histories have considered the preventive principle in a more critical light, attempting to reconcile its introduction with the broader social changes that were underway in late eighteenth century
Britain Britain most often refers to: * The United Kingdom, a sovereign state in Europe comprising the island of Great Britain, the north-eastern part of the island of Ireland and many smaller islands * Great Britain, the largest island in the United King ...
. An obvious problem with the celebratory tone such as the quote above is that Patrick Colquhoun, although he claimed policing was a "new science" and embraced a utilitarian approach to social problems, was not making an original contribution to English order, as he saw it, based purely on scientific insights and British values of liberty. Instead, he looked to France, where, in his view, they had achieved "the greatest degree of perfection" with their police.T. A. Critchley, ''A History of Police in England and Wales'', 2nd edition. Montclair, NJ: Patterson Smith, 38-39. Others have noted that preventive police were sprouting up in Glasgow, where he lived before moving to London, calling into question the significance of his river police as a unique policing innovation. The significance of preventive policing in eighteenth century metropolitan London is that Colquhoun and the other utilitarians were looking not just at the problem of crime, but to the larger problem posed by the poverty of the working class and in securing private property. What Colquhoun was looking to prevent was poor workers falling into the criminal sub-class. His river police were targeting not just the handful of river pirates and "mudlarks", but workers on the docks who treated payment "in kind" as part of their over-all wage that sustained them and their families. Colquhoun estimated that one-third of dock workers were stealing, which is what he sought to prevent. By preventing these workers from stealing, they would become fully dependent on money wages, and be disciplined by the wage system; one of the jobs performed by Colquhoun's police was to set wage-rates of dock workers.Mark Neocleous, "Social Police and the Mechanisms of Prevention: Patrick Colquhoun and the Condition of Poverty," ''British Journal of Criminology'', 40 (2000):719-720. Preventive policing, from this perspective, is therefore significant for its role in developing the class system in industrializing England, as part of the broader movement that included the
enclosure Enclosure or Inclosure is a term, used in English landownership, that refers to the appropriation of "waste" or "common land" enclosing it and by doing so depriving commoners of their rights of access and privilege. Agreements to enclose land ...
s and poor law to England.


See also

*
Community policing Community policing, or community-oriented policing (COP), is a strategy of policing that focuses on developing relationships with community members. It is a philosophy of full-service policing that is highly personal, where an officer patrols ...
* Peelian principles *
Proactive policing Proactive policing is the practice of deterring criminal activity by showing police presence. It includes activities such as the use of police powers by both uniformed and plain-clothes officers, engaging the public to learn their concerns, and ...
* Social alienation


References

Law enforcement theory Crime prevention Law enforcement Law enforcement techniques Types of policing