In March 2023, Baroness Casey’s review of the Metropolitan Police found the organisation to be, among other things, ‘institutionally sexist and misogynistic.’ A year earlier, a report on officers based at Charing Cross police station described ‘a culture of “toxic masculinity”, sexual harassment and misogyny.’ In the wake of the 2021 murder of Sarah Everard by a serving Metropolitan Police officer, these findings have prompted widespread discussion of the relationship between gender and policing. On the one hand there are internal problems of personnel: a large majority of police officers are men, and female officers regularly describe discriminatory treatment by male colleagues. On the other, there is the external problem of relations between police and public: forces across the country have been charged with failing to adequately respond to violence against women and girls, and in some cases perpetrating that violence themselves.
These problems are not new. In fact, in certain respects, they are almost four centuries old. My new book, Gender and Policing in Early Modern England, traces the history of highly masculinised and misogynistic policing back to the seventeenth century. This was when a transition began to take place from an older form of gendered state power towards the kind we are familiar with today.
Until the seventeenth century, officers of law enforcement were almost always middle-aged heads of household. Typically, a married man of middling social status would hold office as constable of his parish for a year before passing on his duties to a neighbour. In this way, a large proportion of the householding population took part in local government and law enforcement. When women headed their own households – as singlewomen or widows – they too could serve as constables, and even those women who were nominally subordinate to their husbands often helped out with official business: applying for warrants, dispensing poor relief, and helping to track down suspects. Officeholding was closely linked to householding, so policing was a family business run by patriarchs and matriarchs.
This system rested on the idea that only certain people – middle-aged heads of prosperous households – possessed the qualities needed to wield power responsibly. From the early seventeenth century, however, judges began to argue that certain offices, especially those involved in law enforcement, didn’t require those qualities. Constables, they suggested, merely had to follow orders from their superiors; they didn’t have to exercise judgement or discretion, only do as they were told, so anybody could do the job. They were servile instruments of an impersonal authority. Their own personal characteristics were irrelevant.
On these terms, it became possible for non-householders to get involved in law enforcement. From the late seventeenth century, increasing numbers of constables and night watchmen, especially in London, were unmarried men, generally poorer than the heads of household they replaced. In the all-male space of the parish watch house (a precursor of the police station), they developed a fraternal cameraderie, centred on alcohol, bravado, misogyny, and violence.
Under these circumstances, it was hardly surprising that London’s policing was extremely gendered. Wherever the law gave officers license to arrest people on the basis of suspicion, they disproportionately targeted women. Poor women, especially those who ran errands or worked on the streets, were especially vulnerable to arrest as suspected vagrants, nightwalkers, or thieves. Discrimination did not end there. Once they were arrested, these women were treated differently to male suspects in one crucial respect: searches. Officers searched female suspects far more intrusively than they searched men. Some of these searches, to a modern eye, look comparable to sexual assault. As the American legal scholar Josephine Ross recently pointed out, the only distinction between some police searches and sexual violence is that officers wield the impersonal authority of the state.
The story of gender and policing, then, is a long one. The recent findings of ‘toxic masculinity’ and ‘institutional misogyny’ in the Metropolitan Police reveal the latest in a long line of abuses of police power. But the early modern origins of masculinised policing also show that this pattern is entangled with one of the most basic structures of law enforcement as we know it: the idea of a police officer as an impersonal agent of the state. To escape from the long shadow of policing’s gendered past, we may need to think again about where an officer’s authority comes from, who or what they represent, and how to properly recognise and regulate the discretionary exercise of their powers.
Gender and Policing in Early
Modern England by Jonah Miller
"Katika uchunguzi wa Baroness Casey wa Polisi wa Metropolitan, iligunduliwa kuwa shirika hilo ni ""la kikatiba la kijinsia na la chuki dhidi ya wanawake"" na ""tamaduni ya ujana wenye sumu, unyanyasaji wa kijinsia na chuki dhidi ya wanawake"" na ""mashambulizi ya kijinsia na uovu wa kijinsia"" na ""mashambulizi ya kijinsia na uovu wa kijinsia.""" Kwa upande mmoja kuna matatizo ya ndani ya wafanyakazi: idadi kubwa ya maafisa wa polisi ni wanaume, na maafisa wa kike mara kwa mara kuelezea matibabu ya ubaguzi na wenzake wa kiume. "Kulingana na ripoti hiyo, ""mashambulizi ya polisi nchini kote yameshtakiwa kwa kushindwa kujibu kwa kutosha kwa vurugu dhidi ya wanawake na wasichana, na katika visa fulani kutekeleza vurugu hiyo wenyewe.""" Matatizo hayo si mapya. Kwa kweli, katika mambo fulani, zina umri wa karibu karne nne. Kitabu changu kipya, Jinsia na Polisi katika Uingereza ya Mapema ya Kisasa, kinafuatilia historia ya polisi wa kiume na wa upinzani wa wanawake nyuma hadi karne ya kumi na saba. Hii ilikuwa wakati mabadiliko yalipoanza kutokea kutoka kwa aina ya zamani ya nguvu ya serikali ya jinsia kuelekea aina tunayokutana nayo leo. Hadi karne ya kumi na saba, maofisa wa utekelezaji wa sheria walikuwa karibu daima vichwa vya familia vya umri wa kati. Kwa kawaida, mwanamume aliyeolewa mwenye cheo cha kati katika jamii angekuwa na cheo cha polisi wa parokia yake kwa mwaka mmoja kabla ya kumkabidhi majukumu yake jirani. Kwa njia hiyo, sehemu kubwa ya watu wa nyumbani walishiriki katika serikali za mitaa na utekelezaji wa sheria. Wakati wanawake walipoongoza nyumba zao wenyewe - kama wanawake wa pekee au wajane - wao pia wangeweza kutumika kama polisi, na hata wanawake hao ambao walikuwa chini ya waume zao mara nyingi walisaidia katika biashara rasmi: kuomba maagizo, kutoa misaada maskini, na kusaidia kufuatilia washukiwa. Usimamizi wa ofisi ulihusiana sana na usimamizi wa nyumba, kwa hiyo polisi walikuwa biashara ya familia iliyoendeshwa na wakuu wa ukoo na wakuu wa ukoo. Mfumo huo ulitegemea wazo la kwamba watu fulani tu - vichwa vya familia zenye ufanisi wenye umri wa makamo - walikuwa na sifa zinazohitajiwa ili kutumia mamlaka kwa njia yenye daraka. Hata hivyo, kuanzia mwanzoni mwa karne ya kumi na saba, mahakimu walianza kusema kwamba ofisi fulani, hasa zile zinazohusika katika utekelezaji wa sheria, hazikuhitaji sifa hizo. "Wakili wa polisi, walipendekeza, walilazimika tu kufuata amri kutoka kwa wakuu wao; hawakuwa na kutekeleza uamuzi au busara, tu kufanya kama walivyoambiwa, kwa hivyo mtu yeyote angeweza kufanya kazi hiyo. """ Walikuwa vyombo vya utumwa vya mamlaka isiyo ya kibinafsi. Sifa zao za kibinafsi hazikuwa na maana. Kwa masharti haya, ikawa inawezekana kwa wasio wamiliki wa nyumba kuhusika katika utekelezaji wa sheria. Kuanzia mwishoni mwa karne ya kumi na saba, idadi kubwa ya polisi na walinzi wa usiku, hasa huko London, walikuwa wanaume wasioolewa, kwa ujumla maskini kuliko wakuu wa nyumba waliowabadilisha. Katika chumba cha wanaume tu cha nyumba ya ulinzi ya parokia (mwanzilishi wa kituo cha polisi), waliendeleza ushirika wa ndugu, uliozingatia pombe, ujasiri, chuki ya wanawake, na vurugu. Chini ya hali hizi, haishangazi kwamba polisi wa London walikuwa na jinsia nyingi. Mahali popote ambapo sheria ilitoa leseni kwa maafisa kukamata watu kwa msingi wa tuhuma, waliwageukia wanawake kwa kiasi kikubwa. Wanawake maskini, hasa wale waliofanya kazi za nyumbani au waliofanya kazi barabarani, walikuwa hatarini sana kukamatwa kwa sababu ya kuathiriwa kuwa wapelelezi, watembea-tembea usiku, au wezi. Ubaguzi haukukoma hapo. Baada ya kukamatwa, wanawake hao walitendewa tofauti na wanaume walioshukiwa katika jambo moja muhimu: upelelezi. Maofisa waliwachunguza wanawake walioshukiwa kwa njia ya uvamizi zaidi kuliko wanaume. Baadhi ya upelelezi huo, kwa macho ya kisasa, unaonekana kuwa sawa na unyanyasaji wa kingono. "Kama mwanasheria wa Marekani Josephine Ross alivyosema hivi karibuni, tofauti pekee kati ya baadhi ya upelelezi wa polisi na unyanyasaji wa kingono ni kwamba maafisa wa polisi wanashikilia mamlaka ya serikali.""" Hadithi ya jinsia na polisi, basi, ni ndefu. Matokeo ya hivi karibuni ya "masculinity sumu" na "misogyny taasisi" katika Polisi Metropolitan kufunua ya karibuni katika mstari mrefu wa matumizi mabaya ya nguvu ya polisi. Lakini asili ya mapema ya kisasa ya polisi wa kiume pia inaonyesha kuwa muundo huu umehusika na moja ya miundo ya msingi ya utekelezaji wa sheria kama tunavyoijua: wazo la afisa wa polisi kama wakala wa hali ya chini. Ili kuepuka kivuli kirefu cha zamani ya polisi ya kijinsia, tunaweza kuhitaji kufikiria tena juu ya wapi mamlaka ya afisa hutoka, ni nani au nini wanawakilisha, na jinsi ya kutambua na kudhibiti vizuri matumizi ya busara ya mamlaka yao. Jinsia na Polisi katika Uingereza ya Mapema ya Kisasa na Jonah Miller