Police, Press, Public and the 'Celebrity Female Victim' in Britain, 1926-1930

英国警察、媒体、公众和“名人女性受害者”，1926 年至 1930 年

• 批准号: AH/F018150/1
• 负责人: Peter King
• 金额: $ 12.54万
• 依托单位: The Open University
• 依托单位国家: 英国
• 项目类别: Research Grant
• 财政年份: 2009
• 资助国家: 英国
• 起止时间: 2009 至 无数据
• 项目状态: 已结题
• 来源: https://gtr.ukri.org/projects?ref=AH%2FF018150%2F1
• 关键词: Police; Press; Public; Celebrity; Female

This project will examine the historical roots of a phenomenon that is commonplace today: the large impact that media sensationalism regarding crime victims and suspects has on initiating and shaping public policy priorities. In interwar Britain, growing public anxieties about the police reached an important peak in 1928, culminating in the Royal Commission on Police Powers and Procedure (that concluded the following year). High profile cases involving female suspects significantly drove those concerns. These women were often turned into media celebrities, discussed not only on the front pages of newspapers but also in parliamentary debates and committees. Their cases spoke not only to narratives of crime and femininity but also to issues such as the presentation and reception of stories of women's victimisation, the police treatment of suspects (particularly women) and the political and press responses to accusations regarding the illegitimate use of police powers. Research will take place in two stages. The first involves detailed attention to cases from 1928; the second puts those events into context through a broader survey of the popular press and police records.The year 1928 will serve as the project's chronological anchor and be the focus of the first phase of research, not only due to initial indications suggesting that police power and female victimhood seem to have been particularly significant media topics then but also because of the calling of the Royal Commission. Based upon their extensive coverage of relevant issues, we have chosen selected newspapers as our main sources, including popular papers targeted at a female readership as well as more serious and politically oriented papers, thus providing a broad spectrum of styles and perspectives on the main issues to be studied. Police files and parliamentary debates and reports regarding these cases will also be important sources. Press and official sources will be analysed qualitatively to identify the key themes (such as innocence, femininity, helplessness and vulnerability) in the construction of relevant narratives; the factors that affected the ways cases were presented and treated; and the different roles played by the press, the police and women themselves.The second phase will contextualise the results of the first by examining newspaper reporting in the two years that preceded and followed 1928. A newspaper search from 1926-27 would determine the extent to which the narratives common in 1928 built upon -- or deviated from -- previous discourses surrounding issues of gender, crime and police power. A study of 1929-30 would then evaluate the impact that repeated scandals and parliamentary inquiry had on press reporting about female victims of police power and the relationship between police and public. For the period 1926-27, research would focus on locating instances of alleged or demonstrated abuse of police powers (particularly those involving women) and identifying the extent to which their themes or presentation would make them precursors of the more in-depth case profiles developed in the first research phase. For the years 1929 and 1930, stories dealing directly with cases examined in the first research phase and coverage of police reforms instituted in the wake of the Royal Commission on Police Powers and Procedure will also be analysed, as will commentary on other legal issues that arose from key cases from 1928 (e.g., coroner's court reform or the need for a public defender).By exploring the interrelations between gender, media and the issue of police power, this project will not only provide a detailed cultural history of the late 1920s -- a period for which the historiography of crime is underdeveloped -- but also speak to the interrelations between press reporting and policy development, topics of considerable contemporary relevance.

该项目将探讨当今普遍现象的历史根源：媒体对犯罪受害者和嫌疑人的耸人听闻对公共政策优先事项的启动和制定产生巨大影响。在两次世界大战期间的英国，公众对警察日益增长的焦虑在 1928 年达到了一个重要的顶峰，最终导致皇家警察权力和程序委员会（于次年结束）的成立。涉及女性嫌疑人的引人注目的案件极大地加剧了这些担忧。这些女性经常成为媒体名人，不仅在报纸头版上，而且在议会辩论和委员会中也受到讨论。他们的案件不仅涉及犯罪和女性气质的叙述，还涉及诸如妇女受害故事的呈现和接受、警方对嫌疑人（特别是妇女）的对待以及政治和媒体对非法使用警察权力指控的反应等问题。研究将分两个阶段进行。第一个涉及对 1928 年以来案件的详细关注；第二个是通过对大众媒体和警察记录进行更广泛的调查，将这些事件置于背景中。1928 年将作为该项目的时间锚点，并成为第一阶段研究的重点，这不仅是因为初步迹象表明警察权力和女性受害者似乎是当时特别重要的媒体话题，而且也是因为皇家委员会的号召。基于对相关问题的广泛报道，我们选择了一些报纸作为主要来源，包括针对女性读者的热门报纸以及更严肃和政治性的报纸，从而为要研究的主要问题提供了广泛的风格和视角。有关这些案件的警方档案和议会辩论和报告也将是重要来源。对新闻和官方来源进行定性分析，以确定相关叙事构建中的关键主题（例如纯真、女性气质、无助和脆弱）；影响案件呈现和处理方式的因素；第二阶段将通过审查 1928 年前后两年的报纸报道，将第一阶段的结果置于背景中。对 1926 年至 27 年的报纸搜索将确定 1928 年常见的叙述在多大程度上建立在或偏离了先前围绕性别、犯罪和警察权力问题的论述之上。 1929-30 年的一项研究将评估不断发生的丑闻和议会调查对新闻报道有关警察权力的女性受害者以及警察与公众之间关系的影响。 1926-27 年期间，研究重点是查找涉嫌或已证实滥用警察权力的实例（特别是涉及妇女的实例），并确定其主题或表述在多大程度上使它们成为第一研究阶段开发的更深入案件概况的先驱。对于 1929 年和 1930 年，还将分析直接涉及第一研究阶段审查的案件的故事以及皇家警察权力和程序委员会之后制定的警察改革的报道，以及对 1928 年以来关键案件引起的其他法律问题的评论（例如验尸官法庭改革或公设辩护人的需要）。通过探索性别、媒体和警察权力问题之间的相互关系，该项目将只提供 本书详细介绍了 1920 年代末的文化史（犯罪史学在这一时期尚不发达），同时也谈到了新闻报道与政策制定之间的相互关系，这些话题具有相当大的当代相关性。