Taking the form of two companion volumes, Police Courts in Nineteenth-Century Scotland represents the first major investigation into the administration, experience, impact and representation of summary justice in Scottish towns, c.1800 to 1892. Each volume explores diverse, but complementary, themes relating to judicial practices, relationships, experiences and discourses through the lens of the same subject matter: the police court. Volume 1, with the subtitle Magistrates, Media and the Masses, provides an institutional, social and cultural history of the establishment, development and practice of police courts. It explores their rise, purpose and internal workings, and how justice was administered and experienced by those who attended them in a variety of roles. Special attention is given to examining how courtroom discourse was represented in print culture, the role of the media in providing a discursive commentary on summary justice, and the ways in which magistrates and the police engaged in a law and order dialogue with the press. Throughout, consideration is given to uncovering the relationship between magistrates, the courts, the police and the wider community, and to charting the implications of the rise of summary justice and the ’police-man’ state for the urban masses (as evidenced through prosecution, conviction and punishment patterns). Volume 2, with the subtitle Boundaries, Behaviours and Bodies, explores, through themed case studies, how police courts shaped conceptual, spatial, temporal and commercial boundaries by regulating every-day activities, pastimes and cultures.

Taking the form of two companion volumes, Police Courts in Nineteenth-Century Scotland represents the first major investigation into the administration, experience, impact and representation of summary justice in Scottish towns, c.1800 to 1892. Each volume explores diverse, but complementary, themes relating to judicial practices, relationships, experiences and discourses through the lens of the same subject matter: the police court. Volume 1, subtitled Magistrates, Media and the Masses, provides an institutional, social and cultural history of the establishment, development and practice of police courts. It explores their rise, purpose and internal workings, and how justice was administered and experienced by those who attended them in a variety of roles. Special attention is given to examining how courtroom discourse was represented in print culture, the role of the media in providing a discursive commentary on summary justice, and the ways in which magistrates and the police engaged in a law and order dialogue with the press. Throughout, consideration is given to uncovering the relationship between magistrates, the courts, the police and the wider community, and to charting the implications of the rise of summary justice and the ’police-man’ state for the urban masses (as evidenced through prosecution, conviction and punishment patterns). Volume 2, subtitled Boundaries, Behaviours and Bodies, examines, through themed case studies, how these civic and judicial institutions shaped conceptual, spatial, temporal and commercial boundaries by regulating every-day activities, pastimes and cultures. As with Volume 1, Boundaries, Behaviours and Bodies is attentive to the relationship between magistrates, the police, the media and the wider community, but here the main focus of analysis is on the role and impact of the police courts, through their practice, on cultural ideas, social behaviours and environments in the nineteenth-century city.

Taking the form of two companion volumes, Police Courts in Nineteenth-Century Scotland represents the first major investigation into summary justice in Scottish towns, c.1800 to 1892. Whereas Volume 1, subtitled Magistrates, Media and the Masses, analysed the establishment, development and practice of police courts, Volume 2 explores, through themed case studies, the role of police courts in moulding cultural ideas, social behaviours and urban environments in the nineteenth century.

Volume 2 of this two-volume companion study into the administration, experience, impact and representation of summary justice in Scotland explores the role of police courts in moulding cultural ideas, social behaviours and urban environments in the nineteenth century. Whereas Volume 1, subtitled Magistrates, Media and the Masses, analysed the establishment, development and practice of police courts, Volume 2, subtitled Boundaries, Behaviours and Bodies, examines, through themed case studies, how these civic and judicial institutions shaped conceptual, spatial, temporal and commercial boundaries by regulating every-day activities, pastimes and cultures. As with Volume 1, Boundaries, Behaviours and Bodies is attentive to the relationship between magistrates, the police, the media and the wider community, but here the main focus of analysis is on the role and impact of the police courts, through their practice, on cultural ideas, social behaviours and environments in the nineteenth-century city. By intertwining social, cultural, institutional and criminological analyses, this volume examines police courts’ external impact through the matters they treated, considering how concepts such as childhood and juvenile behaviour, violence and its victims, poverty, migration, health and disease, and the regulation of leisure and trade, were assessed and ultimately affected by judicial practice.

Taking the form of two companion volumes, Police Courts in Nineteenth-Century Scotland represents the first major investigation into summary justice in Scottish towns, c.1800 to1892. Volume 1, with the subtitle Magistrates, Media and the Masses, provides an institutional, social and cultural history of the establishment, development and practice of police courts. It explores their rise, purpose and internal workings, and how justice was administered and experienced by those who attended them in a variety of roles.

Modern criminal courts are characteristically the domain of lawyers, with trials conducted in an environment of formality and solemnity, where facts are found and legal rules are impartially applied to administer justice. Recent historical scholarship has shown that in England lawyers only began to appear in ordinary criminal trials during the eighteenth century, however, and earlier trials often took place in an atmosphere of noise and disorder, where the behaviour of the crowd - significant body language, meaningful looks, and audible comment - could influence decisively the decisions of jurors and judges. This collection of essays considers this transition from early scenes of popular participation to the much more orderly and professional legal proceedings typical of the nineteenth century, and links this with another important shift, the mushroom growth of popular news and comment about trials and punishments which occurred from the later seventeenth century. It hypothesizes that the popular participation which had been a feature of courtroom proceedings before the mid-eighteenth century was not stifled by ’lawyerization’, but rather partly relocated to the ’public sphere’ of the press, partly because of some changes connected with the work of the lawyers. Ranging from the early 1700s to the mid-nineteenth century, and taking account of criminal justice proceedings in Scotland, as well as England, the essays consider whether pamphlets, newspapers, ballads and crime fiction provided material for critical perceptions of criminal justice proceedings, or alternatively helped to convey the official ’majesty’ intended to legitimize the law. In so doing the volume opens up fascinating vistas upon the cultural history of Britain’s legal system over the ’long eighteenth century'.

DigiCat Publishing presents to you this special edition of "A Treatise on the Police of the Metropolis" by Patrick Colquhoun. DigiCat Publishing considers every written word to be a legacy of humankind. Every DigiCat book has been carefully reproduced for republishing in a new modern format. The books are available in print, as well as ebooks. DigiCat hopes you will treat this work with the acknowledgment and passion it deserves as a classic of world literature.

Volume 2 of this two-volume companion study into the administration, experience, impact and representation of summary justice in Scotland explores the role of police courts in moulding cultural ideas, social behaviours and urban environments in the nineteenth century. Whereas Volume 1, subtitled Magistrates, Media and the Masses, analysed the establishment, development and practice of police courts, Volume 2, subtitled Boundaries, Behaviours and Bodies, examines, through themed case studies, how these civic and judicial institutions shaped conceptual, spatial, temporal and commercial boundaries by regulating every-day activities, pastimes and cultures. As with Volume 1, Boundaries, Behaviours and Bodies is attentive to the relationship between magistrates, the police, the media and the wider community, but here the main focus of analysis is on the role and impact of the police courts, through their practice, on cultural ideas, social behaviours and environments in the nineteenth-century city. By intertwining social, cultural, institutional and criminological analyses, this volume examines police courts’ external impact through the matters they treated, considering how concepts such as childhood and juvenile behaviour, violence and its victims, poverty, migration, health and disease, and the regulation of leisure and trade, were assessed and ultimately affected by judicial practice.

Taking the form of two companion volumes, Police Courts in Nineteenth-Century Scotland represents the first major investigation into summary justice in Scottish towns, c.1800 to 1892. Volume 1, with the subtitle Magistrates, Media and the Masses, provides an institutional, social and cultural history of the establishment, development and practice of police courts. It explores their rise, purpose and internal workings, and how justice was administered and experienced by those who attended them in a variety of roles.