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The Bow Street Runners have been called London's first professional police force. The force, originally numbering only six individuals, was founded in 1749 by the British magistrate Henry Fielding, who was also well known as an author. ''Bow Street runners'' was the public's nickname for these officers, "although the officers never referred to themselves as runners, considering the term to be derogatory".〔''Ruthven, George Thomas Joseph (1792/3–1844), police officer''. David J. Cox, Oxford Dictionary of National Biography, Oxford University Press, Sept 2010 (accessed 30 Nov 2010 )〕 The Bow Street group was disbanded in 1839. ==History== Bow Street Runners are considered the first British police force. Prior to them, the law enforcing system was very much in the hands of private citizens and of single individuals with very little intervention from the State. Due to the high rates of corruption and mistaken or malicious arrests, judge Henry Fielding decided to regulate and to legalize their activity, therefore creating the Bow Street Runners. Similar to the unofficial 'thief-takers' (men who would solve petty crime for a fee), they represented a formalisation and regularisation of existing policing methods. What made them different from the thief-takers was their formal attachment to the Bow Street magistrates' office, and that they were paid by the magistrate with funds from central government. They worked out of Fielding's office and court at No. 4 Bow Street, and did not patrol but served writs and arrested offenders on the authority of the magistrates, travelling nationwide to apprehend criminals. Henry Fielding's work was carried on by his brother, Justice John Fielding, when he succeeded him as magistrate in the Bow Street office. Under John Fielding, the institution of the Bow Street Runners gained more and more recognition from the government and although the force was only funded intermittently in the years that followed, it did serve as the guiding principle for the way policing was to develop over the next eighty years: Bow Street was a manifestation of the move towards increasing professionalization and state control of street life, beginning in London. Contrary to several popular sources, the Bow Street Runners were not nicknamed "Robin Redbreasts", this epithet being reserved for the Bow Street Horse Patrol. The Horse Patrol, organised in 1805 by Sir John Fielding's successor at Bow Street, Richard Ford,〔 ()〕 wore a distinctive scarlet waistcoat under their blue greatcoats. 抄文引用元・出典: フリー百科事典『 ウィキペディア（Wikipedia）』 ■ウィキペディアで「Bow Street Runners」の詳細全文を読む スポンサード リンク
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