‘We believe our police are careful not to unduly harass you ladies and gentlemen’ – an examination of the relationship between the police of Cheshire and the motoring public, 1896–1939
In the year ending June 2023, magistrates’ courts in England and Wales dealt with a total of 711,000 summary motoring offences (Gov.UK, [2023a]. Criminal Justice Statistics Quarterly June 2023. Available from: https://www.gov.uk/government/statistics/criminal-justice-system-statistics-quarterly-june...
| 1. VerfasserIn: | |
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| Medienart: | Elektronisch Aufsatz |
| Sprache: | Englisch |
| Veröffentlicht: |
2025
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| In: |
Policing and society
Jahr: 2025, Band: 35, Heft: 5, Seiten: 662-674 |
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Volltext (kostenfrei) |
| Journals Online & Print: | Lade...
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| Verfügbarkeit prüfen: | HBZ Gateway |
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| Zusammenfassung: | In the year ending June 2023, magistrates’ courts in England and Wales dealt with a total of 711,000 summary motoring offences (Gov.UK, [2023a]. Criminal Justice Statistics Quarterly June 2023. Available from: https://www.gov.uk/government/statistics/criminal-justice-system-statistics-quarterly-june-2023/criminal-justice-statistics-quarterly-june-2023-html.), whilst the total number of motoring-related fixed penalty notices issued in England and Wales for the year ending December 2022 exceeded 2.8 million (Gov.UK [2023b]. Police powers and procedures. Available from: https://www.gov.uk/government/statistics/other-pace-powers-year-ending-march-2023/police-powers-and-procedures-other-pace-powers-england-and-wales-year-ending-31-march-2023#fixed-penalty-notices-and-other-outcomes-for-motoring-offences.). Such offences are a major part of the workload of the police today, but relatively little has been written about the earliest such interactions between police and the motoring public. This article examines specifically the work of the police forces of Cheshire regarding their relationship with the ever-increasing motoring public in the first decades of the twentieth century, concentrating on the interactions between the police and that section of the burgeoning middle-class who readily embraced the use of privately-owned motor cars. This rapid growth brought with it a concomitant increase in friction between the motor-owning population and the police. Such interactions highlight the practical problems faced by the police officer at work together with their relationship with a sector of the population with whom they would have previously had little contact on a professional basis as offenders. The article will show that police officers frequently had to negotiate their way around such deferential attitudes in order to enforce the ever-increasing number of laws being passed regarding motor car use and the ways in which they behaved towards their perceived social superiors. |
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| ISSN: | 1477-2728 |
| DOI: | 10.1080/10439463.2024.2426603 |