Comparing Colonial and British Policing Systems

Introduction

This essay will explore the concept of colonial policing and the features or characteristics that define colonial policing.

This essay will have the first section to generally assess whether colonial policing is a mirror of the British policing system by reviewing the policing model, structure and existing legal codes and social structure. The second section will whether Britain in itself has a colonial mentality across Britain as well as the colonies by exploring the function and role the police played in governing the general population. The third section will explore whether there are any common features between the colonial policing and British policing that demonstrate the colonial mentality. This essay will conclude with observations derived from these sections.

Whether colonial policing is a mirror of the British policing system

The conventional view is that colonial policing developed in the mid of the 19th century based on the principles of the Royal Constabulary and later based on that of the Royal Ulster Constabulary. It was not based on the New Police on England. The existence of the various colonial forces during that period referred to this “Ulster model” or the “Irish model” or the used of this model by one Sir John Macdonald in Canada in 1873 is a testimony to that view. There were other such similar export of the policing models to the colonies, which adopted the Irish rural policing model and the English urban policing model (Anderson & Killingray, p. 3). However, it has also been argued that there is little history about the use of these models by the colonial police forces. The reason is based on the view that in the early stages of establishing colonial control, the policing structure and system were modeled on military line and they were not distinguishable (Anderson & Killingray, p. 4). Levine pointed out that policing was an important facet of the colonial rule and the police forces were more military than those in England. He pointed out two types of colonial police. Just like the military, the first type is the more senior white ranks with higher pay and the second consisted of local force under the command of the first type (Levine, 2019, p. 127). The existence of the second type is a colonial tradition of policing, which were seen in India where governing the population was relied on recruiting from the colonized population to police themselves and collaborate with the colonial rule (Webster, 2014, p. 78). In addition, there is also a view of existence of imperial policing, which was argued to be not easily definable. Imperial policing arguably involved organization of the police to some extent along military lines, police were housed on barracks instead of among community served, and police were directly and centrally controlled as national or as territorial forces. Such policing were seen in Africa and South-East Asia (Anderson & Killingray, p. 4).

The existing code of law also impacted the form and method of policing in the colonies. English code might have been transplanted in the colonies, but they were mutated. For example, Caribbean Islands’ codes were exported to Nigeria or Indian legal codes dominated statutes up until 1930s. In such situation codes were overlapped or confused. The policing in the colonies evolved from or as a part of this hybrid legal and administrative systems and they developed distinctive features. The general trend in the colonies moved towards crime. There were entanglement between the police system and the political system (Anderson & Killingray, pp. 5-6). While a study considered the policing system in the Metropolitan Police, it has been observed that colonial police took tough a measure to tackle challenges against its authority. Such measure, though in lesser severity, occurred in London. Colonial social elite were with the police system in order to maintain status quo and also control the majority population. In Britain, the general the working-class was found to be largely compliant in its own subjection (International Association for the History of Crime and Criminal Justice, Maison des sciences de l'homme, 2003). Police in the Caribbean colonies was also a transplanted system. It is like the military and functioned equally as the military and the police. This was not so in Britain where use of military was resisted and resented. In the colonies, police were used for brutal intervention of disgruntled working classes and they reflected the relation between the ruled and the ruler. They were not among the community and were kept separately from the social set up. They performed as a tool of the political system and showed allegiance to the colonial authorities and the ruling class (Danns, 1982, p. 173). It became more prominent during the later stages of decolonization. Sinclair pointed out that the colonial police became pawns of the colonial governments in their attempted to maintain close control over public organisations and prominent political figures so as to ensure individual stakeholders gained centre stage at independence. The situation was worse during the decolonization phases. From the British Caribbean to the colonies in Middle East; from Mediterranean to the British Colonial Africa and to Southeast Asia, the colonial police forces faced with unrest and conflict (Sinclair, 2017).

Whether Britain in itself has a colonial mentality across Britain as well as the colonies

The ruling class in Britain in the 19th century viewed that some kind of social regulation would facilitate to civilize the industrial and the rural classes. This concept was transplanted in the colonies and was meant to be applied to lower class of white settlers. It was also meant to be applied with more force and vigour to the natives. This is arguably a colonial mentality, which was applied both in Britain as well as in the colonies. Industrial class was view dangerous and in Britain they needed close policing. The same holds true for those identified dangerous class amongst lower class white settlers and the natives throughout the colonies of the English empire (Anderson & Killingray, p. 10). This was visible in towns of Australia, Canada, India and Africa. This policing resembled the system prevalent in England during the later part of the 19th century. The policing system consisted of constables patrolling in twos and threes in colonial towns, where they covered commercial and upper and also middle class residential neigbourhood. In urban areas, policing were concerned with minor offences, such as petty theft, public nuisances, assault and other civil cases. Further, colonial policing and British policing system echoed the same enforcement of moral and political imperatives concerning social ills. This was driven by demands of the ruling class in the colonies as well as their counterparts in Britain (Anderson & Killingray, p. 10). However, in terms of their power, colonial police were given more powers than their counterparts in Britain. For instance, Cape Town and Mombasa permitted the police to regulate the city population through policing labour registration. They were under constant political forces and their roles were more of political choices. This demonstrates that the principle of consensual policing was not much prevalent in the colonies. For example, Britain would not developed consensual policing in India and Africa. Colonial police, thus, occupied a prominent role in security strategies due to the rising demands of the colonial rule in tackling labour disputes and political agitation. They occupied a significant role in enforcing the defence of colonial states where coercion became prominent (Anderson & Killingray, p. 11).

It all seems that concept of colonial policing has been borrowed from the British policing system and implanted in the colonies, which were then mutated to suit the local demands and which were being brought back to Britain in policing industrial and rural areas. In this regard, Brogden argues that colonial policing methods dealing with labour disputes, riots and political protests are employed in Britain since the early 20th century. There has been a significant interface between the colonial forces and that of Britain demonstrated by the high number of returning colonial officers taking up employment in the Metropolitan and also county constabularies. Given this aspect, he argued that colonial service formed an important element of the British policing (Anderson & Killingray, pp. 12-13).

Whether there are any common features between the colonial policing and British policing that demonstrate the colonial mentality.

One common feature between the colonial policing model and the British policing system was that the British deliberately separated the police force from the community. This principle of separation between the police and the community mirrors the system found in the British police system. The reasoning could be found in the observation presented by (Sigler & King, 1992), who state that from earliest times, British policing system involved the use of strangers to police. Police was separated from the population. Officers were separated from the rank and file. The government used the police as the instrument of control. Separating the police from the community was to create a social distance. It increased the extent of control over the police force and at the same time projecting the police as a visible symbol of the government. The other reason was that the government placed the police at the forefront so that they became the immediate target in case of civil disorder or community dissatisfaction with the government. The Government used the police system as a way of control the general population (Sigler & King, 1992). Whether this way of policing applies to the population at large is a different aspect of the argument.

Another common element was the use of the police forces for protecting the elite ruling class and to control the general population coming under lower social strata. (Dukova, 2015) presents the policing system is influenced by change in the social structure and class relations. For instance, dockyards adjacent to slum areas of London and Dublin largely employed unskilled labourers. Illegal appropriation from the dockyards was common. Police reaction to such criminality was influenced by the social background of the lower class inhabitants. This was a symptom created from and shaped by the social change and rapture in class relations between lower class inhabitants that had high inter-animosity. There was increased police presence that was taken as the optimal solution to the concerned social problems prevalent in those areas. The poor highly represented the majority of those prosecuted and imprisoned (Dukova, 2015, p. 197). This situation supports the view of (Danns, 1982), who observed the police sided with its colonial authority and the ruling class. (Owen, 2016) observed that the colonial police forces were not able to understand the societies of the colonial territories and differentiate individuals, they placed reliance of their loyalties and motives on intermediaries and translators and also adopted the profiled and suspected the entire local population. The same observation could be seen in the way North African immigrants in the French metropole were policed (Owen, 2016, p. 307). The manner of hierarchy found in the policing system to control the police and eventually control the population was also played out while recruiting. Racial and cultural stereotypes were adopted that favoured martial races or loyal communities. Gender roles were characterised and such characterisation was extended to the manner of recruiting colonial police forces and policing women officers, general public and regulating crime (Owen, 2016, p. 307). More than that, there seems to be different level of control over the police structure, with the senior white rank officer on the top of the hierarchy. Another kind of characterization was with the manner in which white officers and officers of the colony were placed. (Levine, 2019) pointed out that in domains where there were no white settlers, police forces from other colonies were imported. For example, Sikh Indian police forces were deployed on Hong Kong, Perak and Singapore. The characterization and profiling was seen in the colonial policing structure. Senior ranks were reserved for whites (Levine, 2019, p. 127).

It is a central feature of the colonial police to be under the directly control of the executive with focus on protecting the government executives and defending the elites. This was seen when Northern Nigeria constabulary was established to assist government personnel in civil duties. They managed as goalers, ports, railways, mines, etc. and occupied administrative and economic importance (Owen, 2016, p. 306). The establishment and the growth of the colonial police depended on demands among colonial police systems and social attitudes and political demands. It was across the colonies where the policing system started as small constabularies recruited from ethnic loyal and ruling communities and moving on to better established forces performing different level of administrative and economic positions at wider geography (Owen, 2016, p. 308). Also, in crisis situation, colonial police were placed at the forefront along with t he military (Levine, 2019, p. 127). Given the roles colonial police had played, it could be stated that Lea rightly observed colonial policing as being over-determined by the role it played in suppression of the general population. They were used as a tool by authoritarian colonial states in excluding the general population from political bodies and their representation, but maintaining the population as cheap labour class. Colonial police took the form of a disguised paramilitary agency of the colonial rule, separated from the community to be used as tool of political repression (Lea, 2002, pp. 65-66). Such repression also took the form of depriving or not granting rights to the natives by the colonial rule as it should have had when it made them British subjects. This was seen in the frontiers of south-central Australia and western Canada. Natives were made subject to British law largely by employing colonial policing practices, which became an inherent part of the colonial state-building process. Irrespective of the fact that the indigenous people were made subject to British law, they were, however, not accorded any rights of protection as it should have had been (Nettelbeck & Smandych, 2010). Given this observation, it would be another topic of research to determine in depth whether these features of colonial policing subject to the interest of the ruling class or political institutions are prevalent or not in the British policing system. The current essay points towards an affirmative response of the existence of a colonial mentality in British police and political system, although may be at a lesser degree.

Conclusion

Apparently, Britain exported policing models to its colonies. However, this essay observed that it is not correct in entirely. It may be correct to state that the idea about creating a civilized governing police system originated in Britain. However, it is not entirely appropriate to discard the significant contribution of the colonial rule in the development of characteristics of colonial policing in the colonies itself. This essay has shown that ideas and models were inter-transferred between the colonies and even more taken back to Britain. This was seen in the first section. It also showed that police was used as tool of control by the powerful and the elite. The interesting aspect is seen in the second and third section that showed that British policing system in itself is colonial in nature with the police being used in a hierarchical control manner to control the general mass, mostly the population in industrial areas, which is working class. The same practices could be seen in the colonies as well with the senior rank officers being representatives of the elite and the lower rank being representative of the lower class of the society. The policing system both in Britain and the colonies represented the structure of the society. In particular regard to the question in the essay, it could be concluded that both the systems mirrored each other with Britain policing system possessing a colonial mentality.

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