Codes: Police Uniform and the Image of Law Enforcement
- Submitting institution
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University of the Arts, London
- Unit of assessment
- 32 - Art and Design: History, Practice and Theory
- Output identifier
- 42
- Type
- C - Chapter in book
- DOI
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- Book title
- A Cultural History of Law
- Publisher
- Bloomsbury
- ISBN
- 9781474212854
- Open access status
- -
- Month of publication
- February
- Year of publication
- 2019
- URL
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- Supplementary information
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- Request cross-referral to
- -
- Output has been delayed by COVID-19
- No
- COVID-19 affected output statement
- -
- Forensic science
- No
- Criminology
- No
- Interdisciplinary
- No
- Number of additional authors
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0
- Research group(s)
-
-
- Proposed double-weighted
- No
- Reserve for an output with double weighting
- No
- Additional information
- This essay appears as a chapter in a multi-volume series ‘A Cultural History of Law’ edited by Professor Gary Watt from the School of Law at University of Warwick. Although this work sits alongside others in the volume concerned with matters of law, it is unusual in its focus on clothing. It makes a distinctive contribution to law, visual culture and cultural history by highlighting the power of image and the role of uniform and aesthetics in legal and social reform.
The essay examines research questions about why police modernisers focused their efforts on visual codes of law, in particular, why they invested in the power of a new uniform to create a more visibly 'policed’ society. Police reforms were part of a larger move towards institutional power in this period when various institutions adopted uniform to promote an image of collective discipline.
The methodology that informs the essay is cultural and historical, utilising a range of primary and secondary sources consulted to reveal the desire in 19th-century British society for a new kind of policing. The novelty of the research lies in the attention given to the uniform, arguing that it was critical to the success of the reform of law enforcement at the time. It created an image of unity and authority, the significance of which is too often sidelined in studies of modern policing. Whilst there is an extensive body of literature on the history of policing, the role of the uniform has been neglected by historians. This lengthy essay raises questions about how and why visuality was deployed as a technique in law enforcement reform and looks to the influence of colonial policing as a prototype for the emergence of the new police.
- Author contribution statement
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- Non-English
- No
- English abstract
- -