Short term significance of the Metropolitan Police in 1829
What was the short term significance of the establishment of the Metropolitan Police in 1829?
The nineteenth century saw the birth of an organised, uniformed policing body. With greater benefits and expectations than their law enforcement pre-decessors, such as the Night Watchmen or the Thief Takers. The establishment of this body was responsible by the actions of Sir Robert Peel in June 1829, with his two associates Colonel Charles Rowan and Richard Mayne. Central around this period, there was a struggle to maintain a stable society and an inability to decrease criminal activity. Government were unable to reduce rapid population increases, within the Metropolitan district.
The archaic forces such as the Night Watchmen and the local parish constables were struggling to decrease crime rates due to their lack of experience, professionalism and discipline. Peel wanted to insert these fundamental qualities within his policing body to successfully reduce criminal activity and to increase crime prevention. However it can be argued that Peel copied certain policies of these forces, the historian Phillip Rawlings (1999) suggests that Peel had focused his policing reforms on the two models of law enforcement at the time. Such as the Bow Street Runners and the Parish Watch systems. Their path to social acceptance was not without struggle or opposition. It took a considerable amount of time for the Metropolitan Police to be socially respected and received a great deal of humiliation and mocking from media propaganda; such as from The Illustrated Police News.
Peel’s Metropolitan Force seemed to be facing greater social repellence than The Night Watchmen in their first couple of years of establishment. Additionally, some argue that critiques of the prior policing groups- the Night Watchmen- were exaggerated. Qualified historians such as Robert Storch, argue that the groups of policing before Robert Peel’s reforms were not as bad as the reformers had claimed. Others
The nineteenth century saw the birth of an organised, uniformed policing body. With greater benefits and expectations than their law enforcement pre-decessors, such as the Night Watchmen or the Thief Takers. The establishment of this body was responsible by the actions of Sir Robert Peel in June 1829, with his two associates Colonel Charles Rowan and Richard Mayne. Central around this period, there was a struggle to maintain a stable society and an inability to decrease criminal activity. Government were unable to reduce rapid population increases, within the Metropolitan district.
The archaic forces such as the Night Watchmen and the local parish constables were struggling to decrease crime rates due to their lack of experience, professionalism and discipline. Peel wanted to insert these fundamental qualities within his policing body to successfully reduce criminal activity and to increase crime prevention. However it can be argued that Peel copied certain policies of these forces, the historian Phillip Rawlings (1999) suggests that Peel had focused his policing reforms on the two models of law enforcement at the time. Such as the Bow Street Runners and the Parish Watch systems. Their path to social acceptance was not without struggle or opposition. It took a considerable amount of time for the Metropolitan Police to be socially respected and received a great deal of humiliation and mocking from media propaganda; such as from The Illustrated Police News.
Peel’s Metropolitan Force seemed to be facing greater social repellence than The Night Watchmen in their first couple of years of establishment. Additionally, some argue that critiques of the prior policing groups- the Night Watchmen- were exaggerated. Qualified historians such as Robert Storch, argue that the groups of policing before Robert Peel’s reforms were not as bad as the reformers had claimed. Others