The English and the police in the early 1800's

Summary:

In the early 1800s, the English began to question police and policing after a multiple murder. They wondered if there should be some crackdown on police pay and laws against criminals. Indeed, the city had become a hidden place for them. The police force was transformed between 1829 and 1839,during the reign of Queen Victoria, starting with uniforms and ending with powers. Indeed, over time, their numbers and powers grew enormously and they had almost all the rights. This made the other nations lie, thinking that the Great Exhibition in 1851 would attract multitudes of criminals. The measures taken before worked well. The criminal trials became an attraction that everyone wanted to see. Prisons were rebuilt in 1842 in the shape of a star to provide better conditions for guards and prisoners. In spite of everything the prison regime was extremely hard because it imposed no human contact. The death penalty reduced to murder and treason meant that the prisons were quickly saturated. Most of the prisoners were sent to colonies such as Australia or Gibraltar. Then they finally refused in 1853 and the prisoners had to do community service in the prisons or were transferred to prison boats called Hulks. During this time executions continued to be public. England was very proud of its legal individuality because it was not based on Roman law, unlike Napoleon who had imposed it in his Empire. Their system was called "Common Law" so the judgments of fairness depended on the judges and the previous judgments. These judgements were very long and expensive, accessible only to the rich, and some judgements became too obscure, so they developed a parallel system called "equity". Now we are talking about women, because there were some reforms concerning women in 1857 with the Matrimonial Causes Act, which states that when a woman marries, everything that belongs to her, goes to her husband.

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