Policing Morals

Rezensionen / Stimmen

'the material here is of great interest and importance .. The debate over moral policing is fascinatingly covered .. an essential contribution both to British police history, and to the wider debate on the policing of "liberty".'
Times Literary Supplement This is the first scholarly study of the formative years of the Metroploitan police. This is a fascinating and well-written book which warns that all of us must be on guard against the incursion of a punitive state. * LCCY Newsletter * Petrow has done an admirable job of illuminating the ideological divide between advocates of increased state intervention in matters of the individual and social morality, and their opponents...Petrow has drawn extensively on the vast contemporary periodical literature (in excess of seventy journals and newspapers are cited in the bibliography) as well as on the equally voluminous reports of committees and comissions on crime and society...In addition, Petrow displays a wide acquaintance with the relevant secondary literature...this is an enlightening work. * The Historian * Petrow has done an admirable job of illuminating the ideological divide between advocates of increased state intervention in matters of individual and social morality, and their opponents...Petrow displays a wide acquaintance with the relevant secondary literature. * The Historian * The book is a worthy study of the growth of what Gatrell calls the "policemen state" ... Policing Morals is an important book, about a period that police historians have studied lightly. Petrow has done a fine job of disentangling the complicated threads of legal and bureaucratic wrangling over each issue, together with the labors of pressure groups, public opinion, and ultimately, the reality on the street. The work is well organized and thoroughly documented, and the bibliography is full and conveniently arranged. * Albion * Petrow's research has been thorough... the content is significant and stimulating. Petrow has provided an important addition to our knowledge of the development of police in England; and the issues which he raises have important resonances for contemporary law making and enforcement. * British Journal of Criminology:; vol.36, winter '96. * an intesively researched...study of the reinvention of the state as a regulator of vice * English Historical Review * In this judicious, even courteous account, Stefan Petrow shows how the statutory and operational obligations of the Met rose exponentially in this period ... this is a fine monograph. * Peter Bailey, University of Manitoba, American Historical Review, December 1995 *