4 Police misconduct in the nineteenth century
The challenge of professionalisation was significant in the nineteenth century. Policing was a tough, physically demanding job. Recruits were mainly drawn from the unskilled and semi-skilled working class and, while the pay was reasonable, forces sometimes had trouble recruiting and retaining officers when better paid jobs in other industries were available (Emsley and Clapson, 1994, p. 282). Training was rudimentary and the conditions of service could be onerous.
Figure 6: ‘Trial of the Detectives’ in the Turf Fraud Scandal of 1877 [Daily Telegraph, 9 November 1877, p. 2] [Description: A black and white engraving showing a scene from the Central Criminal Court in London during the Trial of the Detectives in 1877. The judge sits to the right and all round on raised benches are seated men – probably jurors, witnesses and members of the public. In the centre are two lawyers in wigs, a man stands in the witness box and a row of other men are seated at a large central table.] Source: https://go-gale-com.libezproxy.open.ac.uk/ps/navigateToIssue?volume=&loadFormat=page&issueNumber=1916&userGroupName=tou&inPS=true&mCode=1ZTS&prodId=BNCN&issueDate=119001103
Given these conditions, it is perhaps unsurprising that the daily practice of policing was not as professional as the orders issued to officers might lead us to imagine. Research confirms the following:
During the period 1842–1852, almost 1,000 Met officers were prosecuted for misconduct, resulting in 240 convictions.
Such cases were regularly reported in the press, but the biggest police corruption scandal of the time was the ‘turf fraud scandal’ of 1877, which led to the ‘trial of the detectives’.
A criminal gang conducted an elaborate swindling fraud related to horse-racing, with some victims losing thousands of pounds. During the course of the investigation, it was noticed that the gang were repeatedly able to avoid arrest. Three long serving police detectives were found guilty of receiving bribes and perverting the course of justice (see Figure 6). The case was closely followed by the press and was damaging to the image of detective departments. The Daily Telegraph thought that
… the inquiry into the existing condition and organisation of the Metropolitan Police may lead to that thorough and radical reform of Scotland-yard which, it is obvious, has long been needed.
Cases of corruption persisted in the latter part of the century. The biggest provincial scandal concerned the Manchester police force where a divisional Superintendent was found to have friendly relations with the owners of disorderly pubs and to have protected them from prosecution. Almost forty members of ‘D’ division resigned or were dismissed, and public opinion was that there had been serious mismanagement of the force.
Thus, during the nineteenth century, many police forces grappled with misconduct. While forces tried to cast the problem as one of ‘bad apples’ slipping though the net, the scale and persistence of some of the issues revealed by scandals persuaded many members of the public that the problems were more systemic.
But what about the twentieth century? Surely by this time forces were reaching greater levels of professionalism?