ABSTRACT
Chapter 4 focuses on the policing agents who made proactive arrests through evidence from the Old Bailey Proceedings and police court reports in newspapers. In particular, it investigates the types of policing agents involved in proactive arrests, showing that this was a significant part of the policing role for some individual agents. Proactive policing is shown to be a distinctive form of policing activity, as evidence reveals that proactive arrests were far more likely to take place in the evenings compared with reactive arrests. In this context, proactive policing is conceptualised as part of a wider project of policing public order, which aimed to exert control over the behaviour of the working classes and their use of the urban streets in the evening. The chapter also examines the motivations for proactive policing practices, highlighting the dark side of these policing activities, with some policing agents motivated by corruption to make wrongful arrests. Through their actions, it is demonstrated that these proactive policing agents shaped the received record of historical criminal activity and wider contemporary perceptions of criminality.
