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Wed 23 April
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Fri 25 April
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Wednesday 23 April 2014 16.30 - 18.30
B-4 CRI05 Crossing the Line: European Police Culture across Ranks
Hörsaal 16 raised ground floor
Network: Criminal Justice Chair: John C. Wood
Organizers: - Discussant: John C. Wood
David Churchill : From ‘Blue Locust’ to ‘British Bobby’? Relations between Police and Public in Leeds, 1850-1900
Many years ago, Robert Storch famously argued that the police were perceived by the urban working class as ‘blue locusts’ – as unwelcome ‘drones’ who lived by the labour of others. Following large-scale, violent popular opposition between the 1830s and 1850s, Storch argued that the policemen remained objects of contempt ... (Show more)
Many years ago, Robert Storch famously argued that the police were perceived by the urban working class as ‘blue locusts’ – as unwelcome ‘drones’ who lived by the labour of others. Following large-scale, violent popular opposition between the 1830s and 1850s, Storch argued that the policemen remained objects of contempt throughout the remainder of the century. More recently, however, several historians have argued that, while problematic, relations between police and public were far more complex and contingent than Storch suggested. For some, the maturation of urban-industrial society and the increasing professionalism of the police led to the development of ‘policing by consent’ by the turn of the century.
This paper will intervene in this key debate based upon research on one of England’s largest industrial cities of the period. While recognising that popular perceptions of the police were not uniformly negative, it will argue that there remains much truth to Storch’s suggestion that everyday encounters with the police remained tense throughout the nineteenth century. By reviewing the statistical record of assaults on police officers, the evidence of contemporary newspapers and police occurrence books, this paper will portray a world which knew little of the cheerful ‘British Bobby’, as imagined in patronising middle-class affection.
The paper will first challenge the reliability of official statistics, which suggest a diminution in assaults on police officers in the final third of the nineteenth century. Storch assumed that these figures were accurate, as the police were by definition aware of all such crimes committed. However, the testimony of senior officers and police autobiographies both indicate significant under-reporting of violent encounters. One cannot, therefore, take this statistical trend as evidence of improving relations between police and public.
Thereafter, the paper will analyse in close detail actual encounters between policemen and ordinary people. These episodes point to a number of conclusions. Firstly, police violence was often perceived as cowardly and illegitimate. Despite the ‘rough-and-tumble’ of everyday life in the nineteenth century, attitudes towards violence were highly context-specific, and police violence was especially resented. Secondly, the level of violence on the beat was exacerbated by the insufficiency of police manpower, and the primitive technological basis of nineteenth-century policing: both of these factors rendered police authority contestable on the street, making policemen vulnerable to instrumental attack (for example, to free prisoners). Lastly, the idea of the policeman as ‘blue locust’ lived on in the insults directed at policemen in the 1870s and 1880s. Angry exchanges on the street, recorded in police occurrence books, indicate that radical notions of policemen as parasites, and the police as an unconstitutional violation of English liberty, lived on in late nineteenth-century popular culture.
In these ways, this paper seeks to inject new life into a long-running historical controversy, and marshal fresh evidence on popular opposition towards the new police. (Show less)

Jonathan Dunnage : Gender and Sexuality in the Italian Police, 1900-1940
The paper proposes a study of the sexual attitudes and conduct of Italian policemen as a reflection of the institutional environment of the Interior Ministry police (Pubblica Sicurezza), and of the ideas and feelings related to gender and sexuality which dominated this institution between 1900 and 1940. The study ... (Show more)
The paper proposes a study of the sexual attitudes and conduct of Italian policemen as a reflection of the institutional environment of the Interior Ministry police (Pubblica Sicurezza), and of the ideas and feelings related to gender and sexuality which dominated this institution between 1900 and 1940. The study of inspection and investigation reports, which bring to light 'negative' conduct registered in headquarters or among individual police officers and officials, reveals a common concern among commanders about the frequency among personnel of 'illicit' (extra-marital) sexual relationships and of cases of exploitation of prostitutes (facilitated by the responsibility of the police for regulation of prostitution). Moreover, as the paper will illustrate, the study of these documents allows an analysis of the concepts relating to sexuality, masculinity and women which dominated an all-male working environment (in which certain ranks of police officers faced marriage restrictions). Such an analysis leads to a clearer understanding both of forms of behaviour among police personnel in relation to sexuality and of the gendered notions which guided such behaviour and its treatment by police commanders. Drawing on a number of cases, the paper will question, therefore, how love, sex, and 'being a man' were conceived, and how such conceptions were acted upon, within the male-oriented environment of the Italian police during the first decades of the twentieth century. This will also partly involve an analysis of the sexual discourse provided in the police reports. The paper will additionally consider how questions of sexuality influenced relationships among police personnel within the institutional environment of their profession. In this regard, the sexual 'misconduct' of a colleague could become a weapon for personal retribution where official channels for maltreatment by one’s commander were limited. Likewise, the resolution of sexual rivalries among colleagues was also partly determined by the differing ranks of those concerned. Given the time period analysed, the paper will not neglect to address how far the behaviour and concepts which emerged during the latter decades of the Liberal State developed or changed following the rise of Mussolini’s dictatorship, in the context of fascism’s ambivalent stress on the value of the family, the importance of procreation, and the ‘restoration’ of male virility. (Show less)

Joanne Klein : The 1902 Liverpool Police Scandal: the Public Exposure of Conspiracy, False Imprisonment, and Desperation to Hide Corruption
In 1901, Detective Sergeant William Welsh was arrested at his post as a dangerous lunatic and committed to a lunatic asylum by the Liverpool City Police. Within two days, his wife had him independently examined and found perfectly sane. In May 1902, Welsh sued Chief Supt. Sperrin, Chief ... (Show more)
In 1901, Detective Sergeant William Welsh was arrested at his post as a dangerous lunatic and committed to a lunatic asylum by the Liverpool City Police. Within two days, his wife had him independently examined and found perfectly sane. In May 1902, Welsh sued Chief Supt. Sperrin, Chief Inspector Strettell, and Inspector Duckworth for conspiracy and false imprisonment. The week-long trial brought to light embarrassing details of years-long corruption and favoritism involving Welsh, his superior officers, and illegal goods off the Liverpool docks. Three or more senior officers regularly wrote to Welsh, asking him to get them merchandise. In return, Welsh got promotion and comfortable postings. The corruption might have continued unabated if Duckworth had not broken an unspoken rule holding this shady network together. In 1901, he began to taunt Welsh, calling him a thief. Welsh defended himself, stating that he had letters proving that senior officers backed him. Fearing public exposure, the senior officers finally had Welsh arrested after he refused to give them the letters. In the end, Welsh won £200 and costs, and retired on a medical pension. The Head Constable was ordered to retire and the three defendants were reprimanded. The new Head Constable was baffled over how Welsh could be sane yet receive a medical pension, but was convinced to let it go. This paper will explore the complex relationships this case uncovered, between the four officers immediately involved, and between the Head Constable and Watch Committee who supported the three defendants and the City Council who sympathized with the plaintiff. It will also compare this case to similar corruption cases elsewhere, particularly in Manchester. (Show less)

Stefan Nyzell : The Policeman as a Worker - or Not? International Impulses and National Developments within the Swedish Police, ca 1850-1940
A modern type of police organization was introduced in Sweden after the revolutionary movement of 1848. As always this was done with a keen eye on the development in the rest of Europe, and the new type of police organization was based on the most modern af all - the ... (Show more)
A modern type of police organization was introduced in Sweden after the revolutionary movement of 1848. As always this was done with a keen eye on the development in the rest of Europe, and the new type of police organization was based on the most modern af all - the London Metropolitan Police. In this text I propose to discuss some social and cultural aspects of the policemens working conditions within this modernizing police organization i the late nineteenth and early twentieth century Sweden. It will take into account such thing as the social background of the policemen and its crusial significance in the development of the police and its social, cultural and political outlook. It is possible to discern a gradual shift from the mid nineteenth century where the international impulses mainly came from a Great Britain with its police tradition until the early twentieth century when instead it mainly came from the Germany and its more militaristic continantal police tradition. In the early years most policemen came from working class background, while in the late years, due to a direct strategy from the authorities, they mainly came from a rural background and almost all with training as non commissioned officers in the military service. This in turn led to increasing conflicts within the police ranks, with its most outspoken years of internal hostilities in the first two decades of the twentieth century (Show less)

Heather Shore : “I was Twenty-five Years: in the Police, and am Now in the Employ of Her Majesty's Mint”: James Brannan, the Metropolitan Police and Coining Cases in Victorian London
This paper will focus on aspects of the career of Inspector James Brannan. Brannan was a member of the Metropolitan Police Force from the early 1830s and from c. 1837 increasingly specialised in dealing with cases involving counterfeiters and utterers of coin. He had a close working relationship with the ... (Show more)
This paper will focus on aspects of the career of Inspector James Brannan. Brannan was a member of the Metropolitan Police Force from the early 1830s and from c. 1837 increasingly specialised in dealing with cases involving counterfeiters and utterers of coin. He had a close working relationship with the Mint and seems to have been their de-facto ‘man at the Met’ in the following years. From 1856, he ‘retired’ from the Metropolitan Police and was directly employed by the Mint in order to undertake detection work in coining cases. Throughout his time with the Met and whilst working for the Mint, he worked closely on cases with other police officers, in particular his son James Brannan junior and another Inspector, Benjamin Bryant. This paper will focus on the methods employed by Brannan and his colleagues and the way in which his relationships with Metropolitan Police colleagues were presented in court. Brannan’s interactions with reputed coiners and utterers were characterised by the use of surveillance, often over long periods, and also a significant use of physical force. Thus, this paper will provide an insight into the developing cultures of the Metropolitan Police in these early years (Brannan died in post in September 1873). (Show less)



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