Policing Suspicion

Eleanor Bland is an ESRC Postdoctoral Fellow in the School of Law at the University of Leeds, where she is undertaking research and impact activities with police practitioners and scholars, producing publications, and teaching. Dr Bland's expertise includes historical criminology; criminal justice history; policing; police history; and Victorian London.

'Bland’s research provides a fascinating account of urban policing and its practices. It seeks to excavate the interactions between policing agents and those who arose suspicion and it enriches our understanding of these contacts. In doing so, it uncovers the language of suspicion, revealing the exercise of discretion and how, ultimately, these factors influenced decision making in criminal justice and perceptions of criminality.' - Professor Helen Johnston Co-Director of Centre for Criminology & Criminal Justice, University of Hull, UK'Contemporary police power draws upon deep but largely obscure historical roots. Policing Suspicion exposes a key facet of the deep structure of police power: the formation of suspicion and exercise of control over those deemed suspicious. By illuminating how police officials exercised suspicion during a crucial period of modern police development – and how this affected ‘suspicious’ persons themselves – this book offers unique insights into policing and urban order that resonate strongly with the struggles and experiences of our own time.' -Dr David Churchill, Associate Professor in Criminal Justice at the University of Leeds, UK"This book takes a direction that far fewer police historians have followed: proactive policing on the ground. While the book is rooted in historical evidence (both qualitative and quantitative), it takes a broadly interdisciplinary approach, drawing on criminological and police studies, for example, in relation to terminology such as ‘proactive policing’ and ‘stop and search’. This is an excellent study of both formal and informal policing in a period during which law enforcement in the metropolis underwent a significant evolution, even though continuities remain. It is highly recommended and has much to offer the student of policing and the mechanics of justice in the metropolis in the late eighteenth and nineteenth centuries." - Heather Shore (2022): Policing Suspicion: Proactive Policing in London, 1780–1850, The London Journal

• 1: Introduction; 2: Criminal Justice in London: Reform and Debate; 3: Expectations of Policing Agents; 4: Policing Agents and their Proactive Practices; 5: Proactive Policing: Reasons for Suspicion and Criminal Stereotypes; 6: Policing Repeat Offenders; 7: Conclusion; Appendix