The Invention of Murder

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The Invention of Murder by Judith Flanders: 2. Origins of Modern Policing

2. Origins of Modern Policing

The Invention of Murder by Judith Flanders

BBC Radio 4 Extra - The Invention of Murder by Judith Flanders, 2. Origins of Modern Policing

Why the Victorian public initially resisted an organised police force.

Why the violent crime-obsessed Victorians initially resisted an organised police force. Read by Robert Glenister.

Despite rising crime figures - and increasingly crowded cities - the public were reluctant to accept the establishment of an organised police force. 

This episode examines the reasons for that unwillingness and offers a fascinating insight into the origins of modern policing.

Over the course of the 19th century, murder - in reality a rarity - became ubiquitous: transformed into novels, into broadsides and ballads, into theatre and melodrama.

Seeing therein the foundation of modern notions of crime, Judith Flanders explores this fascination with deadly violence by relating some of the century's most gripping and gruesome cases and the ways in which they were commercially exploited.

Read by Robert Glenister.

Abridged by David Jackson Young.

Producer: Kirsteen Cameron

First broadcast on BBC Radio 4 in January 2011.

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Robert Glenister reads Judith Flanders' book on the Victorian obsession with violent crime

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