Police are unconstitutional because they breach the prohibition on the keeping of a standing army on national soil. In addition they are solely designed to suppress the poor and middle classes.
You may be surprised that these views not current but were among the objections to the first British police introduced by Sir John Peel to London in 1829. The fears were not unfounded and their history helps to understand why British police even today do not carry firearms routinely.
When Peel proposed the use of paid constables to deter crime, memories were still fresh of the Peterloo Massacre in 1819. On August 16 that year a crowd of some 60,000 to 80,000 had gathered on St Peter's Field in Manchester to demand reforms to parliamentary representation. That had fallen into disrepute because the distribution of seats failed to recognize the growing industrial cities. Instead there were many "rotten boroughs" where the population had declined but which still retained their representation in parliament. Some had as few as 12 electors.
Manchester was a hotbed or radicalism and the meeting on St Peter's Field was viewed as a potential spark of a revolution. Parts of the British army were sent to the area and the meeting closely monitored by the local magistrates.
Sixty cavalrymen of the Manchester and Salford Yeomanry, led by Captain Hugh Hornby Birley, a local factory owner, arrived at the house from where the magistrates were watching; some reports allege that they were drunk. Andrews, the Chief Constable, instructed Birley that he had an arrest warrant which he needed assistance to execute. Birley was asked to take his cavalry to the hustings to allow the speakers to be removed; it was by then about 1:40 pm.
The route towards the hustings between the special constables was narrow, and as the inexperienced horses were thrust further and further into the crowd they reared and plunged as people tried to get out of their way. The arrest warrant had been given to the Deputy Constable, Joseph Nadin, who followed behind the yeomanry. As the cavalry pushed towards the speakers' stand they became stuck in the crowd, and in panic started to hack about them with their sabres. On his arrival at the stand Nadin arrested Hunt, Johnson and a number of others including John Tyas, the reporter from The Times. Their mission to execute the arrest warrant having been achieved, the yeomanry set about destroying the banners and flags on the stand. According to Tyas, the yeomanry then attempted to reach flags in the crowd "cutting most indiscriminately to the right and to the left to get at them" - only then (said Tyas) were brickbats thrown at the military: "From this point the Manchester and Salford Yeomanry lost all command of temper". From his vantage point William Hulton perceived the unfolding events as an assault on the yeomanry, and on L'Estrange's arrival at 1:50 pm, at the head of his hussars, he ordered them into the field to disperse the crowd with the words: "Good God, Sir, don't you see they are attacking the Yeomanry; disperse the meeting!" The 15th Hussars formed themselves into a line stretching across the eastern end of St Peter's Field, and charged into the crowd. At about the same time the Cheshire Yeomanry charged from the southern edge of the field. At first the crowd had some difficulty in dispersing, as the main exit route into Peter Street was blocked by the 88th Regiment of Foot, standing with bayonets fixed. One officer of the 15th Hussars was heard trying to restrain the by now out of control Manchester and Salford Yeomanry, who were "cutting at every one they could reach": "For shame! For shame! Gentlemen: forbear, forbear! The people cannot get away!"
Within ten minutes the crowd had been dispersed, at the cost of eleven dead and more than six hundred injured. Only the wounded, their helpers, and the dead were left behind; a woman living nearby said she saw "a very great deal of blood". For some time afterwards there was rioting in the streets, most seriously at New Cross, where troops fired on a crowd attacking a shop belonging to someone rumoured to have taken one of the women reformers' flags as a souvenir. Peace was not restored in Manchester until the next morning, and in Stockport and Macclesfield rioting continued on the 17th. There was also a major riot in Oldham that day, during which one person was shot and wounded
Only a few years after the victory of the Duke of Wellington at Waterloo, the killings were quickly dubbed "Peterloo". Wellington was to become the Prime Minister, as leader of the Tories, from 1828 to 1830 (during which the Metropolitan Police were introduced) and for a month at the end of 1834.
So sensitive was the matter of the standing army that the original uniforms included top hats because they looked more civilian. Their uniforms were deliberately made blue in color to differentiate them from the red worn by the army. Many were not convinced and the "peelers" were nicknamed "raw lobsters" because they were only hot water away from being an army; lobsters are blue but go red when cooked.
The 1832 Representation of the People Act, known as the Great Reform Act, reorganized the seat allocations but incorporated a provision whereby only those with a certain wealth, or rather with land holdings or rents above a certain value, could vote. (Ironically that mean some women were entitled to vote until a later Act gave universal sufferage - to men only.) The mass of the working class were therefore still excluded from voting and they saw the introduction of police as a means of suppressing protests. Opposition also came from other sources.
Examining the interaction between the police and public is important for two reasons. First, the presence of police officers on the streets of London was symbolic of the power of the State. Remember, when the Metropolitan Police was established in 1829 the central State played a much smaller role in society. Local government was far more important in the day-to-day affairs of the average citizen, hence initial opposition to the notion of centralized police control in 1829. With the exception of defence and taxation, central government had little say especially in social matters. Schooling was not compulsory until 1880, old people did not receive pensions until 1909, and the National Health Service was not established until 1948. Second, public opinion about the police was indicative of the legitimacy of increased state power, with officers acting as a unique point of contact between political elites and the wider public.
We need to ask whom do we mean by the 'public'? Different sections of the community were united in their initial opposition to the establishment of the Metropolitan Police. Whigs (a political grouping that might be described as upper-class liberals) saw the centralized police as an attack on the liberties of Englishmen. Some aristocratic Tories held similar views; Radicals commonly saw the police as a ruling-class instrument which might be used to combat calls by disenfranchised middle- and working-class groups for wider participation in the political system; parish vestries and magistrates lamented the reduction of their power and influence; while some ratepayers opposed the cost of the new force. Yet as the nineteenth century progressed, the work of the police was viewed in a more favourable light by many sections of society. Still, even in the twentieth century, tensions remained.
The distrust of the power of the police also meant that they did not carry a gun or sword. Instead they were issued with short wooden clubs or truncheons. The fears were reinforced when the initial intake proved to contain some highly disreputable characters, up to half were sacked for drunkenness in the first years. Contemporary pamphlets show the public's view of them.
This satirical cartoon shows the British Secretary of State inspecting and applauding the newly created Metropolitan Police Force of London. His words reveal the sense of suspicion felt by the public towards the police at this time, particularly by the working classes. 'My lads,' he says, 'you are always justified in breaking the heads of the public when you consider it absolutely necessary for the maintenance of the public peace … for, according to the law, they have no business in your way'.
Another leaflet announced:
Peel's Police, Raw Lobsters, Blue Devils
or by whatever other appropriate name they may be known
Notice is hereby given
That a subscription has been entered into, to supply the PEOPLE with STAVES of a superior effect, either for Defence or Punishment, which will be in readiness to gratuitously distributed whenever a similar unprovoked attack be again made upon Englishmen, by a Force unknown to the British Constitution, and called into existence by a Parliament illegally constituted, legislating for their individual interests, consequently in opposition to the Public good.
As the powers of the police were extended to criminalize trivial offenses, incidences of what we would now call
police brutality came to light.
Opposition from elements of the working classes deepened when a further Metropolitan Police Act was passed by parliament in 1839. There was little opposition from 'respectable' elements of society, as the act concerned regulating street behaviour. Indeed, the historian Stephen Inwood describes the act as: 'a charter for public order, cleanliness and decency, an imposition of respectable standards of behaviour on the streets of London'. Its wide powers could be used to cover vast areas of activity - trivial acts of misbehaviour, such as the throwing of stones for example.
cartoon of a policeman on a bonfire
Public concern about police behaviour invariably centred on the arbitrary exercise of power... On 21 November 1873 PC White of the 'B' Division was charged with assault at Westminster Police Court. A Mrs Pither took refuge from her husband in an adjoining room of the house where they were resident. When Mrs Pither crept outside to see if her husband had fallen asleep, White stopped her. Instead of politely questioning Mrs Pither about her actions, White swore at her, pulled her off the pavement and hit her on the back. According to the magistrate, White charged her with loitering to prevent her from taking his number and reporting her. White was fined £4 and £1.9.0 [£1.45] costs.
Then as today it was more often the working class who were the victims of crime. Reporting these put them into contact with the police and for the most part policing became "by consent". There were notable exceptions often associated with members of black and ethnic minority communities. Trust completely broke down in Brixton for example where heavy handed policing led to riots in 1981 over police stopping Afro-Carribean youths "on suspicion" of committing offenses. Throughout though, British police have remained unarmed when on routine patrol in the streets. As a result, the number killed by police on mainland Britain are few and far between.