Law and Order in the Late Nineteenth Century

Law and Order in the Late Nineteenth Century

In this essay I am going to write about Londonin the nineteenth

century and also about the creation of the metropolitan police force.

During the 19th century Londonwas different then what it is now for

instance there was no major police force and most of the police was

made up of volunteers. 75% of the crime in Londonwas petty theft; only

10% of the crime was made up of violent crimes such as murders so

there really wasn't any need for a police force which explains why

there wasn't one. The population of Londonstarted to grow and so did

the crimes because the more people there are at one place the

criminals could easily pick pocket them. The home secretary at the

time Robert Peel had to take some measures. In 1829 Robert Peel who

was the home secretary sets up the metropolitan police force because

of the number of crimes in Britainmainly in Englandwas rising at a

very fast rate. At the time there was a marine/river force and

volunteers but they were not trained to handle crime or prevent it. At

the start the metropolitan police force was given a black and blue

uniform in order to be different from the army uniform because no one

in Britainliked the army, so the MET police wanted to get on the good

side of the people. The MET were given a nickname ''The LondonBobby''

named after Sir Robert Peel. The MET police didn't really make the

impact all of the people were expecting it to do. That was maybe due

to the fact that they were not very well trained and they didn't have

any detectives who can solve and prevent crime, all the MET police

were doing against crime was deal with prostitutes and alcoholics. In

fact, while London's streets were far more orderly and there were less

street crimes in the late 19th century the burglaries went up. The

Police force also had to deal with riots and that's where they got

their reputation as ''heavy handed''.