NCJ Number
222058
Journal
British Journal of Criminology Volume: 48 Issue: 2 Dated: March 2008 Pages: 171-189
Date Published
March 2008
Length
19 pages
Annotation
This paper examines the changes in prosecution practices and policies that shaped crime trends between the mid-19th and the mid-20th centuries.
Abstract
Between the mid-19th and mid-20th centuries, two processes took place: the disappearance of the victim as an active participant in the prosecution process and the increasing dominance of both public and privatized agencies over the prosecution process. Until the end of the 19th century, victims were active participants in the prosecution process. If it were not for the persistence of complainants in securing the offender and pressing their cases in court, rates of recorded crime would be much lower. By 1880, however, the police had in many cases assumed the role of prosecutor. This paper begins by questioning how this change affected recorded rates of violent crime. The paper than continues with exploring the rise of private prosecutors of regulatory style offenses, constituting over half the business of local magistrates courts from 1880 to 1940. The paper concludes that from 1880, crime rates were increasingly subject to the policies and practices of the police and other appointed officials, and that the role of the victim as active prosecutor had become almost redundant by the First World War. The numbers of prosecutions involving offenses against individuals were now swamped by prosecutions by regulators and traffic policemen for the common good, or on behalf of a ‘notional community’ of the law-biding. Tables, figures, references