8 Dealing with early complaints against the police
Policing in the early nineteenth century was frequently contentious. Outright antipathy to the introduction of the ‘new police’ was common. For the first c.75 years of policing in its modern form, however, forces had no formal complaints mechanisms (other than via the courts, if an officer’s conduct was deemed criminal).
Figure 12 : The controversial arrest of Elizabeth Cass in Regent Street, 1887 [Description: Black and white drawing of Miss Cass in Victorian dress, hat and umbrella, being apprehended by a uniformed police officer. Miss Cass looks alarmed. The caption reads ‘She is stopped outside Jays.’] Source: https://go-gale-com.libezproxy.open.ac.uk/ps/retrieve.do?tabID=Newspapers&resultListType=RESULT_LIST&searchResultsType=SingleTab&retrievalId=89104e7a-670f-4596-af90-7107d09c06b8&hitCount=6&searchType=AdvancedSearchForm¤tPosition=1&docId=GALE%7CBA3200804838&docType=Article&sort=Pub+Date+Forward+Chron&contentSegment=ZBLC-MOD1&prodId=BNCN&pageNum=1&contentSet=GALE%7CBA3200804838&searchId=R5&userGroupName=tou&inPS=true&aty=ip
In the counties and boroughs, complainants were usually directed to the Chief Constable, who would decide if and how he wished to investigate. A partial exception was the Metropolitan Police, which was answerable to the Home Secretary. This meant that, on occasion, concerns over police conduct in London could be raised in parliament. In general, then, policing had ‘highly ineffective accountability mechanisms, strongly biased against complainants’ (Johansen, 2011).
A good example of this is the case of Elizabeth Cass, from 1888. Cass was arrested and charged with solicitation while simply out shopping in Regent Street in 1887 (see Figure 12). The arresting officer asserted in court that he had been watching her activities over several weeks, but her landlady and employer both confirmed she had only recently arrived in the country and had been at home every evening. The magistrate dismissed the case on evidence her good character. HP: cross-reference back to Week 4 where Cass is also discussed? https://www.open.edu/openlearn/mod/oucontent/view.php?id=162449§ion=10
Cass’s landlady later complained to Scotland Yard and, eventually, the case was debated in parliament. While the arresting officer was put on trial for perjury, the outcome of the debate in parliament was inconclusive. It clarified, however, that there were no satisfactory mechanisms for handling non-criminal complaints against the police.
Activity 5 Critique of police complaints
Concerns were expressed in the later decades of the nineteenth century about the lack of appropriate mechanisms to handle complaints of misconduct against the police.
Read the excerpt below from a 1907 pamphlet about the London Police Court system, written by the barrister H.R.P. Gamon.
What does this extract say about the tendency of police officers to protect one another when accused of misconduct?
Policemen are quick to help their comrades, and ready to avenge them. It is this confidence that sends the P.C. walking quietly into a rough, excited crowd [...]
The police system is calculated to produce a strong esprit de corps. Coming as they do from all parts of the country, many of them perhaps have not a friend in London. They join the force as a whole; they cannot choose their post, but are allotted at haphazard among the divisions. They are a semi-military body, with a drill and discipline of their own. Their club is the station billiard-room; many of them – perhaps 20 per cent – are lodged in the various station-houses, where they are provided with cubicles in large dormitories. It is natural that their friends should be chiefly comrades. Their life is necessarily a life apart. They are always among the people, but not of the people.
[...]
the chief tenet is fidelity to comrades, and that tenet is allowed to override other moral tenets of greater importance: the same sentiment of honour actuates boys, big and small, old and young. It has its parallel in the police division, and here the superintendents and inspectors are at one with the men. The police shield each other against their superior officers and against the public. If one of them gets into trouble the others will do what they can to extricate / him. I have been told of the case of a woman who on taking out a summons against a P.C. received a visit from his comrades and £2 to persuade her not to proceed. And it is to be feared that the pressure of their own public opinion upon them does at times crush the truth. It is not so long since three or four constables in Worcestershire were found to have perjured themselves in endeavouring to exculpate an inspector.
In a court it is interesting to watch how the police gather together and exchange glances, when a counter-charge of at all a serious nature is made against one of them by a witness or a man in the dock. And if the inspector is requested to look into the charge, the result of his inquiries is usually such as effectually to damn the complaint and set the complainant’s own guilt.
[...]
There is nothing perhaps radically wrong with the police conscience; but its delicacy is a little blunted – it has lost its perception of halftones. It is the natural outcome of a solidarity, untempered by alien thought, of isolation and professional needs. But it is none the less to be regretted.
Discussion
The extract recognises the tendency of police officers to ‘close ranks’ in the face of criticism or accusation, but it recognises also the reasons behind this – the difficult job the police do and the esprit de corps this requires. The extract ends with an assertion that there is nothing ‘radically wrong’ with police standards but that this tendency to close ranks when faced by challenge is, nonetheless, regrettable.
The open discussion of concerns over police misconduct, even if no effective remedy was found, did reassure the public. Confidence in the police remained higher than in other European countries during this period. Concerns persisted, however, over what was seen as an increasingly inadequate complaints system.