A History of Police and Masculinities, 1700-2010 by David G. Barrie Susan Broomhall

Author:David G. Barrie, Susan Broomhall [David G. Barrie, Susan Broomhall]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9780415696616
Barnesnoble:
Publisher: Taylor & Francis
Published: 2011-12-16T00:00:00+00:00

The image of the police detective in the printed media

Detective fiction, proliferating in the Victorian period, systematically endorsed the premise that investigative work demanded intensive mental exertion, yet rejected the assumption governing the mainstream press, especially from the late nineteenth century onwards, that police detectives possessed exceptional mental traits. Although fictional private detectives, epitomized by Sherlock Holmes, embodied qualities that were ‘radically gendered as masculine in Victorian culture: observation, rationalism, factuality [and] logic’,111 the bulk of fictional detective texts portrayed police detectives as incompetent, mediocre and lacking the cerebral aptitude necessary to be efficient detectives.112 To illustrate their perception of the inevitable relationship between successful investigation and reason, the figure of the private detective was invented. Far removed from any contact with reality, he (and sometimes she) was often an upper- or upper-middle-class gentleman, or at the very least a member of the proper middle classes.113 These figures were singled out as the principal crime investigators in society, whose professional stature often guided police detectives. If the police failed to follow the instructions of the private detective, they were bound to make mistakes and would be unable to decipher the case.

The extent to which this condescending portrait undermined the manly image of police detectives is difficult to assess. After all, ‘intellectual abilities were almost always foregrounded as the most striking differences between men and women’114 (and between uniformed officers and detectives). But it is reasonable to assume that although some readers saw police detection through the prism of fiction writers, notably Arthur Conan Doyle, others did not distinguish between private and public investigators and were influenced by the cerebral figure of the private detective to identify the vocation as a whole with rational thinking.115

The press, too, criticized police detectives for inefficiency, especially in response to botched cases or failure to solve well-publicized crimes. Apart from the pioneering days of police detection, this occurred most notably in the first half of the 1880s, which was marked by a tide of Fenian terror, and at the end of the decade, which was overshadowed by the inability to catch Jack the Ripper.116 Yet although newspapers occasionally (and perceptively) admitted that ‘chance not unfrequently [sic] does as much as head’, and that mistakes happened, increasingly they viewed police detectives as demonstrating ‘professional scrutiny’.117

A precursor of this trend was author-journalist Charles Dickens, who as early as the 1850s wrote about police detectives in a highly complimentary tone as impressive both physically and mentally.118 He perceived them as engaged in ‘games of chess’, setting ‘themselves against every novelty of trickery and dexterity that the combined imagination of all the lawless rascals in England can devise, and to keep pace with every such invention that comes out’.119 Gradually, as befitting men with a manly mentality, detectives were personified as shunning the manifest expression of emotions or passions – which were linked to the private sphere, the women’s realm. As men governed by reason, they were frequently presented as coolly examining ‘evidences of depredation’, identifying clues and interpreting them, and effecting ‘smart captures’.

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