In 1829, the London Metropolitan police was established. Prior to the formation of the London Metropolitan police, law enforcement in the city of London operated under a patchwork system of bounty hunters, private detective agencies and unpaid elected officials who were given the authority to arrest individuals. They were required to be both male and land owners but there was surprisingly no restrictions on either religion or nationality. The quality of policing ultimately depended on just how devoted the locally elected official was at prosecuting individuals. Some took their position to a near zealous pursuit considering they were unpaid, with at least one recorded Jewish elected official establishing a system of confidential informants and even going as far chasing suspects into areas of London that they had no jurisdiction over. Others were unsurprisingly were incredibly lazy, only ever prosecuting individuals if the victims themselves or another person apprehended the culprit. This massive disparity in the quality of law enforcement led to some calls for the establishment of a professional police force similar to the French national police that was established in 1812.
However this idea was met with extreme hostility by members of parliament and the general public. While there were some officials and news journalists who decried the potential crackdown of civil liberties that a professional police force could do while others opposed it on the grounds of having to pay more taxes in order to fund the police. By far the biggest obstacle that faced the creation of a police was the fact that a professional police force was a French idea. News journalists, politicians, even protests broke out, raging against its creation purely on the grounds that the idea came out of France. The anti-French argument became so intense that it became obscene with at least one anecdotal story of a member of parliament giving an impassioned speech warning that the allowing the importation of the French concepts such as a professional police force would result in the destruction of Britain, the death of liberty and the possibility of police officers killing innocent bystanders purely on the basis that they weren’t obeying police commands that would mirror the terror that was seen during the French revolution.
This argument would persist for nearly decade until a crime wave of violent hooliganism in London resulted in enough political support for the establishment of the London Metropolitan police. However, unsurprisingly the Metropolitan police would remain unpopular with the general populace for decades to come.
TLDR. British people hated cops cause they thought they were French
LineOfInquiry on
French cops are also significantly more violent than those in most of the rest of Europe, mostly due to the vestiges of the structure of policing under Vichy France and in French Colonies. I don’t always agree with him but Kraut has a great recent [video](https://youtu.be/jUxiTdRTPMg?si=9lmoNBrrY0nvZx4o) on the topic.
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In 1829, the London Metropolitan police was established. Prior to the formation of the London Metropolitan police, law enforcement in the city of London operated under a patchwork system of bounty hunters, private detective agencies and unpaid elected officials who were given the authority to arrest individuals. They were required to be both male and land owners but there was surprisingly no restrictions on either religion or nationality. The quality of policing ultimately depended on just how devoted the locally elected official was at prosecuting individuals. Some took their position to a near zealous pursuit considering they were unpaid, with at least one recorded Jewish elected official establishing a system of confidential informants and even going as far chasing suspects into areas of London that they had no jurisdiction over. Others were unsurprisingly were incredibly lazy, only ever prosecuting individuals if the victims themselves or another person apprehended the culprit. This massive disparity in the quality of law enforcement led to some calls for the establishment of a professional police force similar to the French national police that was established in 1812.
However this idea was met with extreme hostility by members of parliament and the general public. While there were some officials and news journalists who decried the potential crackdown of civil liberties that a professional police force could do while others opposed it on the grounds of having to pay more taxes in order to fund the police. By far the biggest obstacle that faced the creation of a police was the fact that a professional police force was a French idea. News journalists, politicians, even protests broke out, raging against its creation purely on the grounds that the idea came out of France. The anti-French argument became so intense that it became obscene with at least one anecdotal story of a member of parliament giving an impassioned speech warning that the allowing the importation of the French concepts such as a professional police force would result in the destruction of Britain, the death of liberty and the possibility of police officers killing innocent bystanders purely on the basis that they weren’t obeying police commands that would mirror the terror that was seen during the French revolution.
This argument would persist for nearly decade until a crime wave of violent hooliganism in London resulted in enough political support for the establishment of the London Metropolitan police. However, unsurprisingly the Metropolitan police would remain unpopular with the general populace for decades to come.
TLDR. British people hated cops cause they thought they were French
French cops are also significantly more violent than those in most of the rest of Europe, mostly due to the vestiges of the structure of policing under Vichy France and in French Colonies. I don’t always agree with him but Kraut has a great recent [video](https://youtu.be/jUxiTdRTPMg?si=9lmoNBrrY0nvZx4o) on the topic.