Skip to main content Accessibility help
×
Hostname: page-component-78c5997874-g7gxr Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-11-17T19:46:12.314Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false

5 - Searches

from Part III - Policing

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  07 June 2023

Jonah Miller
Affiliation:
University of Cambridge
Get access

Summary

This chapter shows how changes to officeholding shaped practices of searching in the capital. Searches are a neglected feature of the history of law enforcement. Common law protected houses from being searched, except in pursuit of suspected criminals. Even then, searching houses required the presence of officers with specific warrants. Those who did not have houses of their own were less able to resist searches by non-officers or searches without warrants. Searches of people were entirely unregulated, restricted only by cultural norms about gender and social status. The poor were less able to resist being searched than the rich. Women could insist that they were searched by other women for the sake of modesty, though this was not always successful. Women were much more likely to be invasively searched than men. Searches of women by officers were especially intrusive and sometimes violent, giving tangible expression to the links between policing and gendered power.

Type
Chapter
Information
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Print publication year: 2023

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

Save book to Kindle

To save this book to your Kindle, first ensure coreplatform@cambridge.org is added to your Approved Personal Document E-mail List under your Personal Document Settings on the Manage Your Content and Devices page of your Amazon account. Then enter the ‘name’ part of your Kindle email address below. Find out more about saving to your Kindle.

Note you can select to save to either the @free.kindle.com or @kindle.com variations. ‘@free.kindle.com’ emails are free but can only be saved to your device when it is connected to wi-fi. ‘@kindle.com’ emails can be delivered even when you are not connected to wi-fi, but note that service fees apply.

Find out more about the Kindle Personal Document Service.

  • Searches
  • Jonah Miller, University of Cambridge
  • Book: Gender and Policing in Early Modern England
  • Online publication: 07 June 2023
  • Chapter DOI: https://doi.org/10.1017/9781009305174.009
Available formats
×

Save book to Dropbox

To save content items to your account, please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about saving content to Dropbox.

  • Searches
  • Jonah Miller, University of Cambridge
  • Book: Gender and Policing in Early Modern England
  • Online publication: 07 June 2023
  • Chapter DOI: https://doi.org/10.1017/9781009305174.009
Available formats
×

Save book to Google Drive

To save content items to your account, please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about saving content to Google Drive.

  • Searches
  • Jonah Miller, University of Cambridge
  • Book: Gender and Policing in Early Modern England
  • Online publication: 07 June 2023
  • Chapter DOI: https://doi.org/10.1017/9781009305174.009
Available formats
×