5 New Means to Old Ends
From the late 1770s into the first decades of the nineteenth century, the fear
of property and personal crime increased the pressure on both local and
central authorities for better policing. The problem of criminal punishments,
highlighted by the end of transportation to America and the Gordon Riots,
led to increasing public debate about the efficacy of capital punishment,
prison conditions, immorality, and policing. Crime clearly became a national
issue, separate from other aspects of street administration.
In London, although· some reformers increasingly defined crime and law
enforcement as a metropolitan problem, reform continued in a piecemeal
fashion. Parishes learned from each other; the national debate was influ-
enced by local experience; local authorities put into practice what reformers
only speculated about. The central government continued to expand its
direct role in the policing of London. The most successful reform efforts,
parliamentary or local, continued to be those that took local interests ser-
iously and worked within the traditional structures. However, public concern
about the effectiveness of government, the criminal justice system in parti-
cular, was enhanced. The result was a new concern for administrative
accountability and impartiality and for certain and comprehensive preven-
tion and detection of crime. We thus see rising expectations regarding law
enforcement, resulting in significant changes in night watch administration
and operation.
Even though the outbreak of the American Revolution brought a decline in
property crime levels, crime and policing remained topics of concern. The
decline in prosecutions during the war was not as substantial as in previous
wars and criminal indictments rose to new heights by the mid-1780s.^1 Many
contemporaries believed that there was more crime and it was more violent.
In his 1785 Thoughts on Executive Justice, Martin Madan, a Surrey magis-
trate, exhibits this sense of crisis:
No civilized nation, that I know of, has to lament, as we have, the daily
commission of the most dangerous and atrocious crimes, inasmuch that we
cannot travel the roads, or sleep in our houses, or turn our cattle into our
fields, without the most imminent danger of thieves and robbers. These
are increased to such a degree in numbers, as well as audaciousness, that
the day is now little less dangerous than the night to travel in; and we are58