A Treatise on the Police of the Metropolis

Colquhoun, Patrick, 1745-1820Project Gutenberg · United StatesDec 2019

Rating 3.9
Word count
1.1M words
Chapters
110

Tags

English Originals Law Institutional HistoryUrban PolicingSocial ObservationPolice ReformCriminal PsychologyPolicy AnalysisLondon Governance

Summary

Project Gutenberg was the first provider of free electronic books, or eBooks. Michael Hart, founder of Project Gutenberg, invented eBooks in 1971 and his memory continues to inspire the creation of eBooks and related technologies today.A Treatise on the Police of the Metropolis by Patrick ColquhounAuthor: Colquhoun, Patrick, 1745-1820,Language: English, Class: HV: Social sciences: Social pathology, Social and Public Welfare, Release Date: Mar 21, 2011

Editor's review

This book is a documentary treatise on policing reform in late eighteenth-century London. Writing from the practical perspective of a magistrate, Colquhoun systematically examines the causes and distribution of crime, vagrancy, and moral problems in the metropolis and proposes a preventive conception of policing. Its value lies not in literary quality but in the first-hand material it offers on the origins of modern urban governance and the police institution, allowing readers to see modern policing ideas taking shape amid disorder. Its extensive statistics, classifications, and case observations give it the dual character of social history source material and institutional history document. It is best read with specific questions in mind—for example, how crime statistics were used to support administrative arguments, or how the author handles poverty and moral discourse. The original is a public-domain English e-book; it is long and written in the argumentative prose style of the eighteenth century, so selected chapters on relevant themes, read alongside an introduction or background reading, work best.

Who it's for

A good fit for

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Reading tips

  1. Begin with the table of contents and introduction, then select chapters by themes such as policing, crime, and poverty.
  2. Take notes on the author's classifications and statistical definitions as you read, to facilitate comparison with later research.
  3. When encountering archaic expressions, first read through the paragraph to grasp the argument; there is no need to verify every word.
  4. Read alongside general works on the history of the British police institution to build a background framework.

About the publisher

Project Gutenberg United States · Founded in 1971

Project Gutenberg is a digital publishing project focused on public-domain ebooks. Its publishing direction centers on classic literary works whose copyright has expired, covering genres such as poetry, drama, fiction, and epic. Representative books include Lyrical Ballads by Wordsworth and Coleridge, Proust's Du côté de chez Swann, Shakespeare's Macbeth and The Complete Works of William Shakespeare, Homer's The Iliad, Dante's La Divina Comèdia: Purgatòri, Cervantes's The History of Don Quixote, Volume 2, and Grahame's The Wind in the Willows. Its author resources consist mainly of classic Western writers such as Wordsworth, Proust, Shakespeare, Homer, Dante, Cervantes, Grahame, and Tolstoy. Its publishing feature is the provision of freely accessible ebooks in EPUB and Kindle formats; it is not a traditional publisher, and publicly available information is limited.

Contents

  1. 1
  2. 2
  3. 3
  4. 4
  5. 5
  6. 6
  7. 7
  8. 8
  9. 9
  10. 10
  11. 11
  12. 12
  13. 13
  14. 14
  15. 15
  16. 16
  17. 17
  18. 18
  19. 19
  20. 20
  21. 21
  22. 22
  23. 23
  24. 24
  25. 25
  26. 26
  27. 27
  28. 28
  29. 29
  30. 30
  31. 31
  32. 32
  33. 33
  34. 34
  35. 35
  36. 36
  37. 37
  38. 38
  39. 39
  40. 40
  41. 41
  42. 42
  43. 43
  44. 44
  45. 45
  46. 46
  47. 47
  48. 48
  49. 49
  50. 50
  51. 51
  52. 52
  53. 53
  54. 54
  55. 55
  56. 56
  57. 57
  58. 58
  59. 59
  60. 60
  61. 61
  62. 62
  63. 63
  64. 64
  65. 65
  66. 66
  67. 67
  68. 68
  69. 69
  70. 70
  71. 71
  72. 72
  73. 73
  74. 74
  75. 75
  76. 76
  77. 77
  78. 78
  79. 79
  80. 80
  81. 81
  82. 82
  83. 83
  84. 84
  85. 85
  86. 86
  87. 87
  88. 88
  89. 89
  90. 90
  91. 91
  92. 92
  93. 93
  94. 94
  95. 95
  96. 96
  97. 97
  98. 98
  99. 99
  100. 100
  101. 101
  102. 102
  103. 103
  104. 104
  105. 105
  106. 106
  107. 107
  108. 108
  109. 109
  110. 110

FAQ

Is this book a novel or a scholarly treatise? It is a treatise on policing and police reform in late eighteenth-century London, belonging to the literature on social institutions rather than fiction. The author discusses crime, vagrancy, and police deployment as a practitioner, with extensive observation and statistical content; it should be read as historical source material and institutional history, not as narrative literature.
Is the English original difficult to read, and what background is needed? The original is eighteenth-century English argumentative prose, with long sentences and terminology and spelling bearing the marks of the period; it requires intermediate or higher English reading ability. It is advisable to become familiar with background vocabulary first and read by topic rather than page by page from the beginning; an introduction or related research articles can significantly reduce the difficulty.
Is it suitable for direct use as a criminology textbook? Not very suitable. It provides institutional proposals and statistical material from a historical setting, not a systematic theory of modern criminology. It is valuable as a primary source and case material, but if used for course teaching, instructors need to supplement methodological explanation and the subsequent research context to form a complete knowledge framework.

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About the author

Colquhoun, Patrick, 1745-1820 Author · British · 1745–1820

Patrick Colquhoun (1745–1820) was a Scottish merchant and a former Lord Provost of Glasgow. He paid sustained attention to urban policing and poverty, and wrote on these subjects; among his better-known works is A Treatise on the Police of the Metropolis. This library holds one of his works. Public information on his early life and education is limited. Judging from his surviving writings, his work centers on social realities and institutional questions, covering such topics as the police system, crime prevention, and the relief of poverty. His style is practical, reflecting a merchant's concern with city government and social order. His writings occupy a place in the history of modern British policing thought and offer a reference for later understanding of the relationship between urban governance, punishment, and charitable enterprise.