ABSTRACT
This chapter explores the language used by policing agents to describe their reasons for making arrests based on suspicion, and the characteristics of those they targeted and categorised as potentially criminal. It builds on the analysis of proactive policing cases identified in the Old Bailey Proceedings and police court reports in newspapers started in Chapter 4, and the examination of the ‘language of suspicion’ derived from vagrancy legislation and instructions for policing agents identified in Chapter 3, revealing how a shared language of suspicion was used by policing agents in court to justify their arrests and explain why those they apprehended were guilty of criminal activity. Secondly, the chapter explores the connections between those arrested by proactive policing agents and widely held contemporary criminal stereotypes, demonstrating that proactive policing agents’ actions were shaped by, but also contributed to, wider societal perceptions of criminality.
