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5 - Searches

from Part III - Policing

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  07 June 2023

Jonah Miller
Affiliation:
University of Cambridge
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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.

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Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Print publication year: 2023

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  • 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
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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
×