Masaryk University Faculty of Arts Department of English and American Studies

5CONCLUSION

Individuals and groups responsible for policing Britain have traditionally attracted more criticism than praise. Constables in Shakespeare’s plays are usually naive, foolish characters, laughed at for their ignorance. Traditional historians often described the protectors of the City of London, the Charlies, as decrepit, drunk and incompetent. Professional thief-takers and trading justices were frequently suspected of collaboration with the criminals they were supposed to apprehend. Still, the idea of an organised professional police force was so inimical to the English that the first professional police had to overcome a great amount of distrust and suspicion.

Working conditions of the first recruits were so harsh that the first decades of the existence of the police were remarkable for the high turnovers. The wages were low, working hours were very long and both professional and private lives had to be beyond reproach. Consequently, the policemen left the force soon after joining it and it was consequently very difficult to create a body of experienced professionals who could convince the public of their skills and competence. Moreover, most recruits were originally agricultural or manual labourers, which contributed to the perception of the police as a rather working class occupation for the less educated. The middle and upper classes initially saw the police as a threat to their rights and liberties and were concerned about the power the police might exercise. The working class resented the police’s intrusion into their lifestyle and past-times but during the second half of the nineteenth century the public realised the advantages the police work brought and the unarmed, apolitical, courteous, unique Bobby became the nation’s favourite.

The support of the police occasionally fluctuated in the first half of the twentieth century but generally remained high and reached its peak in the 1950s, when the character of an ideal Bobby, PC George Dixon became the national hero. The 1960s, however, witnessed a considerable deterioration of the relationship between the public and the police caused by both changes in the society and the police. The links between the Home Secretary and police strengthened and the non-partisan Bobby suddenly appeared more political. As technological devices spread, the Bobby could not do with a whistle and a truncheon any longer but began to use cars, radios and guns, and consequently, the image of the unarmed, local policeman faded. Low education and poor training caused further questioning of police legitimacy, and so did a series of corruption scandals in the 1970s. Growing harshness of the police’s intervention damaged the image of the police severely and contributed to the decline in support of the middle class. In order to prevent this trend, the police representatives developed the Plus Programme whose main aim is to promote the image of the police and bring the police near the ideal of the traditional Bobby.

When the modern police were established in 1829, some of the characteristics of the old watchmen became a part of the new image. The working class in particular regarded the police as comic, suspicious and undoubtedly corrupt characters who spent their time flirting with cooks and maids. Later, the humour softened and the middle class developed the image of a loyal and honest, even though not particularly intelligent servant that survived well into the twentieth century and is reflected in Golden-Age detective fiction.

Detective novels and short stories written in that period were generally considered escapist literature whose main aim was to entertain and sooth the nation distraught by the First World War. As a result, main characters of detective fiction are brilliant amateur detectives, for instance Hercule Poirot, Albert Campion and Peter Whimsey, who the reader might admire and rely on, and the official police are laughed at. The police are ridiculed, in connection with their lack of intelligence in particular, and are said to be trusted only with straightforward cases or crimes committed by foolish criminals.

Agatha Christie, however, does not criticise the police too harshly because for Golden-Age writers the police were representatives of an established institution and should thus have been respected. Christie’s police are conscientious and hard working, albeit unimaginative and unmethodical, but they are praised for their routine indefatigable work. Christie’s senior detectives, Battle and Japp, may appear to be stereotypical police officers, slow-thinking, rather stupid, dull, and unimaginative, but in fact they are mentally alert, highly competent and decisive detectives. Battle is an astute officer who moves slowly but decisively and whose wooden face makes the suspects unwary of his abilities. His character becomes more realistic when his family is introduced and Battle is shown as a sensitive father and caring uncle. Inspector Japp is a zealous officer who believes in no tricks and distrusts psychology but who works effectively and reliably. He is suspicious of everything foreign but he is always fair, patient and kind, the embodiment of the good qualities of the English policeman.

Christie’s police officers are described as nosey because the public resents the intrusion their work brings; but they are not refused help with their investigation. Young officers are sometimes overlooked but never disrespected and the senior are generally held in high regard. Christie’s police are never corrupt and they are praised for their good manners, kindness and patience, hard, honest and systematic work and adherence to rules. They are the loyal servants whose lack of creativity is compensated by diligence and solicitude.

Detective fiction published after the Second World War became more realistic and it more concentrated on psychology and detailed descriptions of both the setting and characters. Since the readers were more knowledgeable about the police and their work, the treatment of crime and the police changed considerably.

James’s detectives are no longer amateurs but professional Scotland-Yard officers. They are not assisted by a private sleuth but by a team of experts on crime investigation. Besides, they are realistic characters with fully developed private and professional lives. As a result of the move to realism, the reader knows much more about the characters, for instance about Daniel Aaron’s untidy girlfriend and Kate Miskin’s passion for expensive furniture. In contrast to Christie’s policemen, James’s officers have sexual lives, non-conventional and openly discussed in the novels. Kate Miskin, Charles Masterson and Francis Benton-Smith are single, having occasional affairs with ex-colleagues, suspects, and flighty actresses respectively. James’s detectives are both male and female and of various social, ethnic and religious background. Daniel Aaron is Jewish, Francis Benton-Smith is half-Indian and a woman, Kate Miskin, is a senior detective in the criminal investigation department, which would have been both unacceptable and unrealistic in Golden-Age detective fiction.

The popular belief in the police’s lack of intelligence, however, survived into the end of the twentieth century and James’s detectives are still believed to think in clichés and to be ignorant, thick and insensitive. The low standard of education in the force is reflected in Kate Miskin and Daniel Aaron, who join the police immediately after school, and Benton-Smith who struggles to make his university degree fit in the police culture.

Public trust in established institutions, including the police, declined after the Second World War and the police were no longer considered incorruptible, polite and completely honest. As in the first half of the nineteenth century, the police are distrusted, dreaded and suspected of deceit. Sergeant Robert Buckley confesses to a streak of sadism in his nature and Sergeant Oliphant is suspected of being a bully. In James’s writing the police are feared and frequently criticised for their exercise of power and striking terror into the suspects. James reflects the suspicion of corruption, violence and coarseness, she shows the dislike of the police spreading in the middle class and their growing resentment over the police’s intrusion into their private lives. She shows the suspects disrespecting and ridiculing the officers. Her junior detectives are not only overlooked as Christie’s, but they are also exposed to loathing, rudeness and sexual cues. James mirrors the criticism of the excessive reliance on technology and at the same time inability to prevent crimes and also the public’s disappointment about the contemporary state of policing and the resulting nostalgia for the old good Bobbies on their beats.

The image of the police changed radically in the twentieth century and so did their representation in detective fiction. The courteous Bobby, who was indulgently laughed at and gently reprimanded for intellectual deficiencies but respected at the same time during the Golden Age, has become a tough police officer, who is harshly criticised, feared and distrusted. It is generally believed that if this situation is to change, the police need to return to more traditional ways of policing.