Law and Order in London in Late Nineteenth Century
The British police force came to being in the late eighteenth century. By 1800 there were only 2 police forces in the whole of Britain, both of which were in London. One was the Bow street runners, which was set up in 1749 and the other, was the Thames River police force, which by then was only 2 years old. The main turning point for policing as far as London is concerned came in 1829 when 'Sir Robert Peel', the home secretary of the time, created and set up a new police force, the metropolitan Police force.
The metropolitan police force was set up to carry out all the jobs that the watchmen and special constables did before them. Their
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Each division was in charge of the area that was assigned to them and then sometimes for big cases other divisions under the met would join up and work together.
There were many things that were expected of people who took on the job and responsibilities of a metropolitan police officer. The ideal recruit would be someone who was under 35 but over 20, well built, at least five foot seven, literate and of good character, but of course not all recruits were like this and in the beginning a lot of recruits had to be dismissed. The most common reason for being dismissed would be drunkenness.
At the beginning the police were not really there to solve the crimes, only to prevent them from happening. But gradually this changed and by 1842 the first detectives were introduced. Now as well as trying to prevent crime, they also tried to solve it. Although some work had to be put into it before the detectives were successful. As they didn't have the technology advances for policing that we have today and the main way to catch a criminal was to catch them in the act or to have a confession from the criminals themselves.
The police had to deal with many different types of crime in the late nineteenth century ranging from minor crimes such as pick pocketing, drunkeness and prostitution to more major crimes such as
Written in 1947, J.B. Priestley's didactic murder-mystery, An Inspector Calls, accentuates the fraudulent Edwardian era in which the play was set. Britain in 1912 was inordinately different to Britain in 1947, where a country annihilated by war was determined to right the wrongs of a society before them. In 1912 Britain was at the height of Edwardian society, known as the "Golden Age". A quarter of the globe was coloured red, denoting the vast and powerful Empire and all Britons, no matter what class
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There has been much discussion on the Offences against the person act (OAPA) 1861. Many see the act as outdated and clumsy, its wording unclear and as being difficult to explain and prosecute under. The OAPA is used in 100,000 prosecutions every year. The Law Commission has attacked the OAPA for creating constant legal argument and delay because of unclear wording and wasting thousands of pounds in taxpayer's money in appeals. Both the Law Commission and the Government have looked at possible reforms for the act in order to improve its position in English Law.
After the Age of Enlightenment in the mid 18th century in England, the tension between the social classes intensified even more. A huge gap generated between the aristocrats and the working class, but dozens of new layers of society appeared. While the rich lived to the fullest, the lower class starved and needed to find alternative ways of money making. Prostitution became more and more widespread, which lead to an inequality and social stratification between poor and rich and due to the economical crisis the number of prostitutes grew from year to year. Aristocrats and nobility looked down on the working class with judgement and disgust, and when prostitution became legalized in England after the Contagious Diseases Acts it made a big
Victoria was Queen of Great Britain and Ireland from 1837 to 1901. She was the only daughter of Edward, the Duke of Kent. Her father died shortly after she was born and she became heir to the throne. The Victorian Age was characterised by rapid change and developments in almost everything. From advances in medical, scientific and technological knowledge, to changes in population growth and location. Today, we associate the 19th century with the work ethic, family values, religious observation and institutional faith. In 1840, Queen Victoria married her first cousin, Prince Albert of Saxe-Coburg and Gotha. At first, the British public did not particularly like the German prince, and he was excluded from holding any official political position. At times, their marriage was hectic because they both had
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great prosperity in Great Britain's literature. The Victorian Age produced a variety of changes. Political and social reform produced a variety of reading among all classes. The lower-class became more self-conscious, the middle class more powerful and the rich became more vulnerable. The novels of Charles Dickens, the poems of Alfred,
• To develop an understanding of the ways in which British society is a stratified and differentiated one.
Rule of law in simplest terms means law rules, that is, law is supreme. The term “Rule of law‟ is derived from the French phrase “la principle de legalite” (the principle of legality) which means a government on principle of law and not of men. Rule of Law is a viable and dynamic concept and, like many other concepts, is not capable of any exact definition. It is used in contradistinction to rule of man. Sir Edward Coke, the Chief Justice in King James I‟s reign is said to be the originator of this principle. However, concrete shape was given to it by Professor A.V. Dicey, for the first time in his book “Law of the Constitution” (1885) in the form of three principles.
The rule of law is a difficult concept to grasp and proves elusive to substantive definition. However, the following work considers the attempts of various social and legal theorists to define the concept and pertinent authorities are considered. Attitudes and emphasis as to the exact shape, form and content of the rule of law differ quite widely depending on the socio-political perspective and views of respective commentators (Slapper and Kelly, 2009, p16), although there are common themes that are almost universally adopted. The conclusions to this work endeavour to consolidate thinking on the rule of law in order to address the question posed in the title, which is at first sight a deceptively simple one.