Description
Book SynopsisThis book analyses several revolutionary changes in the way that Britain has been policed in the last two hundred years. It shows how management techniques and information systems have been developed to form modern police institutions. -- .
Trade ReviewDr Chris A Williams undertakes an ambitious project in attempting to analytically discuss aspects of the development of a public institution over a 200-year period, within a publication limited to 242 pages. Yet, in producing this book, he successfully negotiates the complex issue of defining crucial topics that formed the operational world of those who policed British society from the industrial revolution through to the space age. The publication develops three key themes: the development and evolution of mechanisms that directed the control of the operational police constable, what guided and regulated him; the introduction of various types of technology that assisted in controlling the duties he performed; and how these wider innovations correlated with philosophical theories of control. Whilst much has been written in relation to the development of policing society, particularly during the Victorian period, this work provides a fresh and new perspective on how the police were managed and evolved into modern day technocrats, utilising the latest technology, when dealing with the day-to-day problems created within society. -- .
Table of Contents1. Introduction
2. The 'old' police, 1780–1840
3. The proletarianisation of police labour, 1800–60
4. Drilled bodies and zealous minds, 1820–90
5. Time, bureaucracy and the new policeman, 1830–1930
6. Real-time communication, 1848–1945
7. The arrival of the control room, 1919–75
8. Computerising the back office, 1955–80
9. Conclusion
Bibliography
Index
