Role Name Affiliation Criminology Police Science and Law Enforcement Remove or Reduce Risk - Henry Fielding Methods 1 | P a g e Principal Investigator Prof.(Dr.) G.S. Bajapai Professor/Registrar, National Law University, Delhi Paper Coordinator Dr. Mithilesh Narayan Assistant Professor, Sardar Patel Bhatt University of Police, Security and Criminal Justice, Jodhpur Content Writer/Author Dr. Swikar Lama Assistant Professor, Sardar Patel University of Police, Security and Criminal Justice, Jodhpur Content Reviewer Prof. Arvind Tiwari Professor, TISS, Mumbai DESCRIPTION OF MODULE Items Description of Module Subject Name Criminology Paper Name Police Science and Law Enforcement Module Name/Title Remove or Reduce Risk - Henry Fielding Methods Module Id Crim/PSLE/XXXV Objectives Learning Outcome: To make the learners understand the concepts of removal or reduction Risk To make the learners aware about Henry Fielding and his work To familiarize the learners with various methods of risk management Prerequisites General understanding of crime prevention methods Key words Remove or Reduce Risk , Henry Fielding, risk management 2 | P a g e Module 35: Remove or Reduce Risk - Henry Fielding Methods 1. Introduction Fielding was a playwright and novelist who accepted a position as magistrate deputy of Bow Street Court in 1748. He is credited with two major contributions to the field of policing (Gaines et al.). First, Fielding advocated change and spread awareness about social and criminal problems through his writings. Second, he organized a group of paid non uniformed citizens who were responsible for investigating crimes and prosecuting offenders. This group, called the Bow Street Runners, was the first group paid through public funds that emphasized crime prevention in addition to crime investigation and apprehension of criminals. While citizens responsible for social control used to simply react to crimes, the Bow Street Runners added the responsibility of preventing crime through preventive patrol, changing the system of policing considerably. Fielding had two goals, stamp out existing crime, and prevent outbreaks of crime in the future. He created the first neighborhood watch. His work with the English justice system led him to be called the “Father of Crime Prevention.” Bow Street Runners are considered the first British police force. Before the force was founded, the law enforcing system was very much in the hands of private citizens and single individuals with very little intervention from the state. Due to high rates of corruption and mistaken or malicious arrests, judge Henry Fielding decided to regulate and legalise their activity, therefore creating the Bow Street Runners. Similar to the unofficial 'thief-takers' (men who would solve petty crime for a fee), they represented a formalization and regularization of existing policing methods. What made them different was their formal attachment to the Bow Street magistrates' office, and payment by the magistrate with funds from central government. They worked out of Fielding's office and court at No. 4 Bow Street, and did not patrol but served writs and arrested offenders on the authority of the magistrates, travelling nationwide to apprehend criminals. Henry Fielding's work was carried on by his brother, Justice John Fielding, who succeeded him as magistrate in the Bow Street office. Under John Fielding, the institution of the Bow Street Runners gained more and more recognition from the government and although the force was 3 | P a g e only funded intermittently in the years that followed, it served as the guiding principle for the way policing was to develop over the next eighty years: Bow Street was a manifestation of the move towards increasing professionalization and state control of street life, beginning in London. Fielding had become a Westminster magistrate in 1748 and in his house in Bow Street, Covent, he had started a kind of magisterial work that was different from anything that had been done before. Taking up the legacy of his predecessor, Sir Thomas de Veil, Fielding turned Bow Street in a court-like setting in which to conduct examinations. Judge Henry Fielding However, his reformed method was not limited to his magisterial activity in Bow Street, but it was also extended outside of the magistrate's office. In fact, since 1749–50 Henry Fielding had begun organizing a group of men with the task of apprehending offenders and taking them to Bow Street for examination and commitment to trial. Such an organized intervention was needed, according to Fielding, because of the difficulties and reluctance of private citizens to apprehend criminals, especially if those were part of a gang — reluctance largely caused by the fear of retaliation and by the extremely high costs of the prosecution that would have to be paid by the victim of the crime. This activity, however, was very similar to the thief-takers' enterprise and, as such, it could have been considered as corrupt as the latter. Therefore, Fielding wrote a number of pamphlets to justify the activity of thief-taking; he argued that the legitimacy of this activity had been undermined by the actions of a few (see for example Jonathan Wild) and that, in fact, thief-takers performed a public service where the civil authorities were weaker. Another 4 | P a g e step towards the legitimization of the activity of the Bow Street Runners concerned the lawfulness of an arrest made by an ordinary citizen. Fielding made clear that constables were not the only one to have the right to make an arrest, but under special circumstances - such as with a warrant issued by a magistrate - also private citizens could act against a suspected criminal and arrest them. Another problem that Fielding had to face was that of the economic support of the Runners; without any direct funding from the government, the men at Fielding's service were left relying on the rewards issued by the state after an offender's conviction and by private citizens in order to retrieve their stolen goods. It is also true that many of the original Runners were also serving constables, so they were financially supported by the state.[11] Nevertheless, the problem persisted and, in 1753, Fielding's initiative came close to failing when his men had stopped their thief-taking activity for some time. A way out of this situation came in the same year, when the government lamented spending too much money in rewards with no apparent decrease in the crime rates. At this point, the duke of Newcastle, the secretary of state at the time, asked Fielding for advice, which he presently gave. In the document that Fielding presented to the government revolved around the activity of the Bow Street officers; Fielding's suggestion consisted in that he be given more money in addition to his own magistrate's stipend for two main purposes. The first was, of course, to offer an economic support to the officers working in Bow Street that would have allowed these men to extend their policing activities well beyond the simple thief-taking. The other purpose was to advertise the activity of the Bow Street office and to encourage private citizens to report crimes and provide information about offenders; the advertisements would be published in the Public Advertiser, a paper in which, as some critics have pointed out, the Fielding brothers had a financial interest. In late 1753, the government approved Fielding's proposal and established an annual subvention of £200 that allowed Fielding not only to support the advertisement and the Bow Street officers, but also to maintain a stable group of clerks who kept detailed records of their activities. A new kind of magistrate's office and of policing activity was therefore established and, after the death of Henry Fielding in 1754, it was carried on by his brother John, who had overseen the whole project and was to further expand and develop it over the following years. 5 | P a g e 2. Birth of Crime Prevention Concept Mid-1700’s - Henry Fielding took first positive steps to: Stamp out crime Prevent future outbreaks Elicit Public help Remove crime conditions Establish a Strong police force Fielding had three objectives: Development of a strong police force. Organization of active group of citizens. Actions to remove causes of crime and the conditions in which it flourished Henry Fielding, who’s Enquiry into the Cause of the Late Increase of Robberies, published in 1751, did so much to shape subsequent debate on the subject. As is well known, of course, Fielding was actively promoting his position as Bow Street magistrate and trying to establish himself at the centre of London’s criminal justice network. Habit was at the centre of Fielding’s concept of crime: ‘Vices and Diseases, with like Physical Necessity, arise from certain Habits in both; and to restrain and palliate the evil Consequences, is all that lies within the Reach of Art’ (Fielding, 1988a: 71). He went on to argue that ‘Vices, no more than diseases will stop … for bad Habits are as infectious by Example, as the Plague itself by Contact’ (Fielding, 12 1988a: 77). Accordingly, the key to preventing crime was to ensure that the occasions for encountering or transmitting vice were limited, preventing seduction into, and accumulation of bad habits (Dodsworth, 2007). 3. Risk Management Some of the ways through which risk of crime can be 6 | P a g e 3.1. Risk Avoidance or Risk Removal - The first choice to be considered. The possibility of eliminating the existence of criminal opportunity or avoiding the creation of such an opportunity is always the best solution when additional factors are not created which prohibit the action. Example: Removal of all cash from a location might eliminate the opportunity for a criminal act to acquire that cash, but in most cases it would also eliminate the ability to conduct business.