Metropolitan Police

“ Looking at the establishment as a whole, it appears to your Committee that the Metropolitan police has imposed no restraint, either upon public bodies or individuals, which is not entirely consistent with the fullest practical exercise of every civil privilege, and with the most unrestrained intercourse of private society. ”

“ The Metropolitan Police have the second highest manpower per capita of any large outfit in the country. It is not up to authorized strength, but that goes for most cities. That doesn’t tell the story, because, as we indicated, there are at least five other police forces operating in the city, with several hundred more cops on tap. Generally speaking, the jurisdiction of each force is limited to the particular area for which it was created. All Washington policemen have the right to make arrests for crimes committed in their presence in any part of the District. ”

“ The great deterrent against crime is not vindictive punishment; the more certain you make detection, the less severe your punishment may be. The brilliant sleuth-hound work of which we read so often is a less important factor in police work than organisation. Organisation it is which holds the peace of London. It is organisation that plucks the murderer from his fancied security at the ends of the earth, that prevents the drunkard from making himself a nuisance to the public, that prevents the defective motor-bus from becoming a danger or an annoyance to the community. ”

“ Like their comrades beyond the boundary, the City police are largely employed by private individuals; banks, exchanges, public offices, and so forth, gladly put themselves under official protection. It should have been mentioned, when dealing with the Metropolitan Police, that some 1,800 officers of all{257} ranks, from superintendents to private constables, are regularly engaged in a variety of posts outside ordinary police duty. Every great department of State is guarded by them ”

“ At first sight it would appear reasonable to extend to London the same measure of self-government in police matters that provincial towns enjoy; but the answer of those who are content with the present arrangement is that the Metropolitan Police is an Imperial rather than a local force—provincial towns and districts have only provincial interests to guard, London has responsibilities as wide as the Empire; and however public-spirited local authorities may be, the danger will always remain that they may be induced to prefer local to national interests. ”

“ No policeman who is thorough in his work can please all parties, and some thirteen or fourteen years ago a series of ill-natured attacks were directed against both branches of the Metropolitan Police. Constables and detectives were accused of exceeding their authority and of levying black-mail, but the [372] allegations, which were somewhat recklessly supported by prominent illwishers and busybodies, could not be substantiated when the charges came to be investigated by the proper authority. ”

“ We are all local officials.”
We do not charge that the really terrible conditions in Washington are the fault of the Metropolitan Police. Most of the cops on that overworked force are honest. If given the opportunity they would love to do their duty. Most policemen all over the country are honest, too. They are slaves of a setup with the establishment of which they had nothing to do and which they are powerless to correct. Big payoffs are not made to men in the ranks. ”

“ The Metropolitan police force numbers 238 men, of whom 6 are detectives. The board represents the inadequacy of the force to the needs of the service, and strongly recommends that an increase be authorized of 12 sergeants and 50 privates, or patrolmen. The members of the force have faithfully and vigilantly discharged the duties required of them in maintaining good order, and protecting the rights of persons and property within the District. ”

“ The fear that the Metropolis might be subjected to an access of anarchy similar to that which bestowed an evil notoriety on the Gordon Riots, gave rise to preparations for defence on an unprecedented scale. At this crisis not less than two hundred thousand citizens enrolled themselves as Special Constables; the Metropolitan Police were told off to guard the bridges; and all available troops were held in reserve, mostly in houses on the Middlesex side of the river. ”

“ Primarily, the great function of the police is to prevent crime; secondly, when it has happened, to bring the offender to justice. How do they work? Not by relying on spasmodic flashes of inspiration, like the detective of fiction, but by hard, painstaking work, and, of course, organisation.
Crime is divided into two classes—the habitual and the casual. Every habitual criminal is known. Numbers vary, but the latest available figures show that there are 957 habitual criminals in London, of whom 706 are thieves and 161 receivers. Now, each of these thieves has a distinctive method. ”

“ Many bills were passed during the session of Legislature, peculiarly obnoxious to the city authorities, but that which excited the most bitter opposition was called the Metropolitan Police Act, by which the counties of New York, Kings, Westchester, and Richmond were made one police district, to be controlled by a board of commissioners, consisting of five members appointed by the Governor and Senate, and to hold office for five years. This board having organized, proceeded to create a police department. ”

“ As the corps d'élite of the police services of the world, the Metropolitan Police is careful in the selection of its men. Before a candidate is admitted to Peel House he must prove that he is of unblemished good character, [Pg 80] be over twenty and under twenty-seven years of age, stand at least 5 ft. ”

“ There were three principal reasons why the immediate provision of a general scheme of police reform in the Boroughs was urgently required at this particular moment. Criminals of all kinds are ever on the alert to find an Alsatia where they can ply their trades without the unwelcome interference of their hereditary enemy, the policeman, and the formation of the Metropolitan force was the signal for a wholesale exodus of depredators from London towards other and more secluded centres of activity. ”

“ He has to be ready to act decisively and firmly at an instant's notice, to solve on the spur of the moment some intricate problem of public order, to know the law, so that he may arrest a person on one occasion, and let him go on another, to act as guide or consultant to the public, to aid at a fire, or capture a burglar. ”

“ The Metropolitan force has about 1,800 men for its 14 precincts and one harbor station, but men are continually called for and assigned to guard visiting diplomats and dignitaries, and for special duty at the White House, government establishments, and even as ushers at tea-parties. With days off, sick leaves and men on special assignments, the force is lucky when it can put 300 cops on the streets on any shift.
The police are used for many duties delegated to others in well-regulated cities. For instance, policemen must act as collection agents for wives with delinquent husbands. ”

“ There have been critics of the C.I.D. Many have held that the system of recruiting from the uniformed police is wrong in essence—that educated men employed direct from civilian life would be more effective. There is no bar against anyone being appointed direct if the authorities chose—but it has been tried. ”

“ There are 130 police stations in the metropolis, and by a telegraph signal a Police Commissioner at White Hall, in Parliament street, which is contiguous to Scotland Yard,—the headquarters of the Metropolitan Detective force, who are separated in their duties from the Old Jewry or City of London Detective force,—can concentrate in an hour and a half as many as 6,000 men for instant duty. This vast force, each man receiving but three shillings to three and sixpence a day, is really under a wonderful control. ”

“ But it may be remarked without impropriety, that the more the public take their share of the police duties which as good citizens they ought not to shirk, and the stronger the support, be it moral or physical, that they extend to their deputies, the less need will [378] there be for the maintenance of an ever increasing army of constables, until the time arrives when, with a falling police rate, it becomes possible to forget precedent, and to remunerate our peace officers in accordance with their deserts.
In 1889 one thousand men were added to the metropolitan force. ”

“ These form a clever, mobile fraternity who operate swindles and robberies in one part after another, dodging in and out of various police districts. They are as slippery as eels, and, without some means of codifying information as to their movements and delinquencies, many of them would defy justice with impunity. ”

“ Telephone and telegraphic communication have been perfected between stations, head-quarters and provincial police, the system of identification has been revised, young constables are taught their trade with care and thoroughness, higher pay has been granted to all ranks, men are housed in greater comfort, red tape has been ruthlessly cut through, the relations between police and Press have been improved; there is a wider, broader spirit in all. A clean esprit de corps, very different to that which at times long gone by has threatened the interests of the public, has sprung up. ”

“ It is curious this suspicion of the police which sometimes affects otherwise clear-headed people. You pick out men whose character is without flaw from their childhood upwards. You put them into a blue uniform, and lo! their whole personality alters. They are hypocrites and bullies, bribed by bookmakers and prostitutes, and capable of any sort of baseness.
Let us return to the Riddle Department. The secret of dealing with such a happening as I have painted above lies naturally in the organisation. Every division has a certain number of reserve men—approximately 10 per cent. ”

“ Relying on the Metropolitan Police Act of 1839, which provides that it shall be lawful for the Commissioner of Police to make regulations and to give directions to the constables for keeping order and for preventing any obstruction of the thoroughfares in the immediate neighbourhood of the House of Commons and the Sessional Order which empowers the Police to keep clear the approaches to the House of Commons, the Lord Chief Justice decided that Mrs. ”

“ There have been many fantastic stories told, to which the public lend a sometimes too ready ear, of what occurs in police stations. Always one can find some person to assert positively that the police as a body are bribed by bookmakers or prostitutes—that, in fact, there exists a practical blackmail. ”

“ It is necessary to point out that the existence of the [Pg 68] department is not so much for the purpose of detecting crime as of detecting criminals. In the administration of justice a judge takes the past career of a prisoner into consideration when passing sentence. The main work of the department is to furnish the clue to a past career by scrutinising the finger-prints of persons on remand to discover whether they are habitual criminals or not.
A thousand aliases will not help a man, no change of appearance, no protestations of mistake, if his prints correspond with those in the files. ”

“ Now-a-days, men are only drafted to the division after serving for a time in the ordinary land force, but the rule has only been in force of late years, and consequently most of the men have spent their whole police career on the river. ”

“ And so the candidate gets through, without the disturbing effect of twenty or thirty pairs of eyes fixed on him.
I cannot refrain from emphasising the manner in which the relations between police and public are dealt with during the training—a matter of greater importance, to my mind, than anything else taught in Peel House. A course of lectures is interspersed with lessons and drill on, among others, the following subjects:
To familiarise the men with the surroundings, they are taken sometimes to a real police court while a magistrate is not sitting, and lectured on the surroundings. ”

“ There are, no doubt, many occasions on which it is desirable to transfer bodies of police from one place to another in order to concentrate the forces of law and order at some threatened or strategic point, but in so doing the danger to be apprehended from the resulting increase of local animus, ought to be taken into account, and adequately provided for. ”

“ The task of supervising the City police was entrusted, not to a High Constable, but to the two City Marshals, whose duty it was to pay surprise visits to the watchhouses at uncertain hours, to certify that the patrolmen's books were duly signed up, and to report every morning to the Lord Mayor concerning the "internal quiet of the City of London." They also bound themselves on oath to proceed against no man through malice, and to screen no man through favour or affection. ”

“ The rough and the criminal do not fear the prowess of the individual policeman, they fear the organization behind him—take that away, and the constable becomes merely a big man armed with nothing more formidable than a wooden truncheon.
The result of this temporary and partial breakdown of the organization was that the whole force suffered a double loss; the general public, no longer feeling the old confidence in the power of the police to protect them, withheld to some extent their moral support ”

“ No modern institution has been more talked about and written about than that of the police. The police problem is, in all cities, one to which continual thought is given by citizens as well as officials. ”