Chris A. Williams

‘Home and Away’: The Cross-Fertilisation between ‘Colonial’ and ‘British’ Policing, 1921–85

Considering the material links between empire and metropole, we examine the way that the movement of police officers interacted with developing police ethos, culture and expertise. Although British policing was represented as consensual and Imperial policing, following the Irish pattern, as punitive, in the inter-war period British chief constables were recruited in significant numbers from Ireland. Barriers to the large-scale repatriation of colonial police during decolonisation were created by the ‘officer-class’ nature of the ‘European’ members of these forces, and British racism which prevented non-white rank-and-file from transferring from force to force. Interaction was characterised by the deployment of ‘home’ police, most significantly to Cyprus. Senior British police officers also played the role of technocratic consultants. British and Imperial models of policing converged, and by the 1980s the expertise of returned ex-colonial police was being replaced by training selected senior British police in the haut police role at the Royal College of Defence Studies.

Constables for hire: the history of private 'public' policing in the UK

Most currently accepted theoretical generalisations on the state of British policing conclude that there is an innovative and ongoing blurring of the boundaries between the public and the private sectors. Many make reference to the practice of the private purchase of police services from public police forces, and some explicitly claim that this is a relatively recent innovation, growing in frequency. Yet this practice is not new; it has been a feature of public policing throughout the period of the ‘criminal justice state’ (c. 1825–1975). The origin, extent, visibility and development of the practice is described here, suggesting that historically it comprised a significant aspect of the British system of policing in many areas, and has always been structured by legislation, although in the period between 1950 and 1970 it may have reached a relatively low point. Accounts of policing which stress the relationship between privatisation and ‘late modernity’ thus need to be questioned.

Risk on the Roads: Police, Motor Traffic and the Management of Space, c. 1900–50

Exploring the police’s role in managing road risks, Williams’ chapter focuses on two interrelated elements: engineering solutions to dangers, including the design of streets and roads, and the ways in which police officers extended their authority and claims to expertise in terms of determining policy and the management of traffic-related risks. Demonstrating how practices were shaped by the interests and priorities of professionals and experts, he argues that the police pushed debates in terms of infrastructure rather than a greater presence on the streets, yet still sought to retain power and responsibility for traffic risks rather than letting it shift to other agencies. Crucial to this was the police’s ability to deploy knowledge of accidents by their mastery of statistics, and by their durability and latency as an organization.

Laudatio for Professor Clive Emsley

It is a singular honour to be able to propose this laudatio to mark the retirement from the Open University of Professor Clive Emsley, one of the foremost exponents of criminal justice history. Via both his intellectual leadership and the generous and inclusive nature of his approach to scholarship, Clive has played a unique role in developing the field of criminal justice history research worldwide, and in encouraging and nurturing a new generation of researchers. Educated at York University...