'Lurking' and 'loitering': Historic Approaches to Policing Suspicious Behaviour in Britain and their Contemporary Resonances

我的研究考察了警务的历史，特别是可疑人员的警务，及其对警察实践的影响及其对少数民族社区的影响。这个奖学金将使我能够进一步研究和传播我对历史警察实践的当代共鸣的发现。我的研究揭示了警务实践对1780年至1850年间伦敦逮捕和起诉模式的影响。学者们早就认识到，公认的犯罪历史记录是对起诉的反映，而不是犯罪活动本身，这在过去是很难量化的。然而，我的研究重塑了我们的理解，表明它也部分是警察的记录。我提出“主动警务”的概念：警务人员在怀疑被告最近或即将犯罪时，行使自由裁量权逮捕被告。利用从法庭记录中收集的数据，包括老贝利诉讼程序，以及报纸上的警察或地方法院报告，我研究了那些被警察盯上的人的特征，以及警察逮捕他们的原因。这一证据表明，个别警官利用其自由裁量权作出了积极的选择，他们的行动形成了逮捕和起诉的模式。通过考察1780年至1850年之间的时期，我的研究突出了1829年伦敦警察厅成立前后警务实践的连续性和变化。我研究了人们对在伦敦街头负责执法的各种不同官员的期望。这是一个对治安规定感到担忧、对刑事司法管理争论不休、对日益增长的犯罪行为感到恐惧的时代。我认为，警务实践和积极主动的警务人员本身助长了犯罪刻板印象的盛行。这些对罪犯的刻板印象与人们对存在“犯罪阶层”的担忧密切相关，人们认为“犯罪阶层”应为大多数犯罪活动负责。到目前为止，我的研究主要集中在历史资料上，我将通过这个奖学金更详细地探讨我的发现对当今警务的影响。特别是，历史上的警务实践与当今警察拦截和搜查权力之间存在相似之处。虽然警察所针对和定型的人的特征随着时间的推移而演变，但这些做法对警察社会的影响显然具有连续性。通过这个奖学金，我将把我的研究成果传播给学术界、警察从业人员和政策制定者。我将举办一个研讨会，与警察从业人员就警察侧写和犯罪刻板印象问题进行交流，撰写一份关于当代警察侧写的历史根源的政策文件，并探索以从业人员为中心的进一步传播途径。我也将准备我的研究作为专著和期刊文章发表。作为奖学金的一部分，我将参加主要的国际犯罪学会议，以建立网络，并培养我在社会科学领域不断上升的研究形象。特别是，我将访问澳大利亚昆士兰州的格里菲斯犯罪学研究所，与澳大利亚的犯罪学家建立联系，并制定一个未来的研究项目，研究英国和澳大利亚的警务可疑人员。我还将接受社会科学技能和方法、政策参与和研究交流方面的培训，以支持我的影响活动。这些活动，以及我所培养的人际网络，将增强我从事跨学科历史社会科学事业的能力。

My research examines the history of policing, specifically the policing of suspicious persons, and its implications for police practices and their impact on minority communities today. This fellowship will enable me to further examine and disseminate my findings on the contemporary resonances of historical policing practices. My research reveals the impact of policing practices on patterns of arrest and prosecution in London between 1780 and 1850. Scholars have long recognised that the received historical record of crime is a reflection of prosecutions, rather than of criminal activity itself, which is very difficult to quantify in the past. However, my research reshapes our understanding to show that it is also partially a record of policing. I advance the idea of 'proactive policing': the occasions on which policing agents exercised discretion to arrest defendants on suspicion that they had recently, or were about to, commit an offence. Using data collected from court records, including the Old Bailey Proceedings, and police or magistrates' court reports in newspapers, I examine the characteristics of those targeted by policing agents, and the reasons that policing agents gave for their arrests. This evidence demonstrates that individual police officers made active choices using their discretion, and their actions shaped patterns of arrests and prosecutions.By examining the period between 1780 and 1850, my research highlights continuities and changes in policing practices before and after the establishment of the Metropolitan Police force in 1829. I examine the expectations placed on the wide variety of different officials responsible for law enforcement on the streets of London. This was an era of concern over policing provision, debate over criminal justice administration and fears of growing criminality. I contend that policing practices, and proactive policing agents themselves, contributed to the prevalence of criminal stereotypes. These criminal stereotypes were closely related to the emerging fears that there was a 'criminal class', believed to be responsible for the majority of criminal activity. While my research so far has focussed on historical sources, I will explore in greater detail the implications of my findings for present-day policing through this fellowship. In particular, there are parallels between historical policing practices and present day police stop and search powers. While the characteristics of those targeted and stereotyped by police have evolved over time, there are clear continuities in the implications of these practices for the policed society. Through this fellowship, I will disseminate my research to the academic community, police practitioners and policy makers. I will organise a workshop to engage with police practitioners about issues of police profiling and criminal stereotyping, write a policy paper on the historical roots of contemporary police profiling and explore further avenues for practitioner-focussed dissemination. I will also prepare my research for publication as a monograph, and a journal article. As part of the fellowship, I will attend major international criminology conferences to build networks and cultivate my rising research profile in the social sciences. In particular, I will visit the Griffith Criminology Institute in Queensland, Australia, to forge connections with Australian criminologists and develop a future research project which will examine policing suspicious persons in Britain and Australia.I will also undertake training in social science skills and methods, and in policy engagement and research communication to support my impact activities. These activities, and the networks that I cultivate, will enhance my ability to pursue an interdisciplinary historical social science career.