The idea of policing: A history

Abstract

Policing has, typically, been seen as the work which the police do. Only comparatively recently have the parts played by individuals, communities and commercial organizations been recognized. Yet right up to the nineteenth century they were expected to play the central role in policing. To an important extent the shift in the definition of policing was initiated by the activities of the Henry and John Fielding at Bow Street in London: principally their skilful use of publicity and their ability to exploit fears created by a mid‐eighteenth‐century crime panic. The implication of their work was that policing (both law enforcement and order maintenance) should be left to skilled practitioners using apolitical, scientific and bureaucratic techniques. This allowed less room for popular involvement in the formal processes of the criminal justice system.