‘The Third Degree’: Press Reporting, Crime Fiction and Police Powers in 1920s Britain', Twentieth Century British History, 21, no. 4 (2010): 464-85. more

„The Third Degree‟: Press Reporting, Crime Fiction and Police Powers in 1920s Britain John Carter Wood (Institute for European History and The Open University) PRE-PUBLICATION DRAFT [Published as "'The Third Degree': Press Reporting, Crime Fiction and Police Powers in 1920s Britain', Twentieth Century British History, 21, no. 4 (2010): 464-85.] ABSTRACT The late 1920s saw a dramatic upsurge in popular concern about the abuse of police powers in Britain, the end result of a longer-term trend. Various aspects of policing were seen as worrying, but the most important concerned illegitimate forms of questioning. The phrase „the third degree‟—imported from America—came to encapsulate this unease. Before the First World War, the terminology began to be used in British coverage of American crimes and their investigation, typically accompanied by disparaging commentary on American methods as well as the confident assertion of the superiority of British policing. The war-time growth in police powers and broader state regulation caused some to see an erosion in the „liberty of the subject‟, and a series of scandals seemed to reveal serious problems with police procedure. The popularity of crime dramas featuring „third degree‟ interrogations also shaped public images of the police. Scandals in 1928 generated enough outcry to force the calling of the Royal Commission on Police Powers and Procedure (1928-29). Even though few concrete procedural changes were undertaken, it appears to have successfully calmed worries about the police, which receded and did not reach a similar level until the late 1950s. KEYWORDS: POLICE, CIVIL LIBERTIES, PRESS, CRIME FICTION, MEDIA The Third Degree, 2 In early twentieth-century Britain, phrases such as „the third degree‟ or „third-degree methods‟ began to be used in accusations of illegitimate police interrogation. Originally American, such terms had a significant social, cultural and political impact in Britain, especially in a series of late 1920s police scandals. In this article, I examine the history of this imported terminology. First, I will describe its development in America and the early stages of its introduction into British press reporting from around 1900 through the end of the Great War. Then, I consider its use in fictional contexts, especially popular crime dramas. Finally, I will analyse this vocabulary from the end of the war until the early 1930s, particularly events in 1928 that led to a parliamentary inquiry into police powers. Examining the „the third degree‟ contributes to our understanding of at least three issues: the relationship between the British police and public, the influence of American culture on Britain and the interrelationship between fictional and nonfictional narratives in shaping attitudes toward state authorities. The British tended to think they had the „best police in the world‟; however, the 1920s saw a range of specific allegations that they were abusing their powers. While such problems—which focused on (but were not limited to) the Metropolitan Police responsible for most of greater London—have received some attention, the press, public and parliamentary critique of the police in inter-war Britain has only begun to be explored in detail.1 „Third-degree‟ terminology was part of the broader influence of American culture and language on Britain in the early twentieth century, when many observers were concerned about the 1 See, e.g. Clive Emsley, The English Police: A Political and Social History, 2nd ed. (London, 1996), 136- 43 and, recently, Janet Clark, „Sincere and reasonable men? The origins of the National Council for Civil Liberties‟, Twentieth-Century British History, 20 (2009), 513-37 and Huw Clayton, „A bad case of police Savidgery: The interrogation of Irene Savidge at Scotland Yard‟, Women’s History Magazine, 61 (Autumn/Winter 2009), 30-8. The Third Degree, 3 „Americanization‟ of British culture.2 National differences in policing were explored not only in reportage of crime investigation but also in literature, theatre and cinema. While it is difficult to trace specific interactions among fictional and non-fictional narratives of police violence, crime fiction (whether on page, stage or screen) may have helped to shape popular views of actual policing. THE THIRD DEGREE AND CRIME REPORTING BEFORE THE GREAT WAR By the closing decades of the nineteenth century, „the third degree‟ had entered American slang to describe harsh police interrogation.3 In 1901, the New York Times suggested the term originated in „police parlance‟ in the „early sixties‟ and labelled a procedural stage, namely „the big examination given to [the suspect] at Headquarters by the chief of the Detective Bureau and whatever subordinates he may employ in the operation when the case warrants it‟.4 Police commentators have tended to give similar, purely procedural explanations, but other sources, such as law articles, have linked its etymology to the secret rites of Freemasonry.5 A 1929 Encyclopaedia Britannica entry (written by an American lawyer) stated that the „third degree‟ was „believed to have 2 For commentary and citations on the broader topic of American cultural influences in inter-war Britain, see the articles in Chris Waters (ed.), „Beyond “Americanization”: Rethinking Anglo-American Cultural Exchange between the Wars‟, Cultural and Social History 4 (2007), 451-543. 3 The earliest OED reference is from 1880, in the Harvard Lampoon: „Third degree, third-degree‟, The Oxford English Dictionary Online, http://www.oed.com/, accessed 4 June 2009. 4 New York Times (magazine supplement), 6 October 1901, 12. The article notes that the term had Masonic connotations in the „average mind‟. For an earlier reference, see New York Times, 8 May 1894, 9. 5 Edwin R. Keedy, „The third degree and legal interrogation of suspects‟, University of Pennsylvania Law Review and American Law Register, 85 (1937), 762; „The “third degree,”—Its origin and history‟, Bench & Bar, 18 o.s. (1909), 9. The Third Degree, 4 been suggested by the third Masonic degree, that of master mason, which is conferred with considerable ceremony‟ and after thorough questioning of the applicant.6 Whatever its origins, the term gained popularity in the first decade of the twentieth century as American police were accused of using brutality to generate confessions. British reporting expressed disgust for American methods and confidence in the superiority of British policing.7 When, for example, it was announced in 1906 that New York‟s mayor was sending an official to London „to study the London police methods with a view to improving the police service of his own city‟, the Daily Express agreed that the two forces might learn much from one another; however, it observed, „it is doubtful if English public opinion would tolerate many of the methods which are popular among the New York police‟: The most notorious among them is the „third degree,‟ which consists in using every effort, from brutal violence to playing on the fears of the ignorant and superstitious, to extort a confession from a suspected criminal or his friends.8 The visiting official, William McAdoo, published an article in the American Century Magazine three years later.9 He praised the British policeman‟s respect for the „liberties of the citizen‟ and agreed that „the methods used in New York‟—among them the „third degree‟—„would not be tolerated for a moment‟ in London; however, New York 6 22 Encyclopaedia Britannica (14th ed., London, 1929), 135: „THIRD DEGREE, originally an American slang or cant term, but now in common use in the United States and coming into such use in Great Britain, to designate the employment of brutal methods by police or prosecuting authorities to extort information or confessions from persons in custody.‟ This was the first and only edition in which the term was given its own entry. It was quoted without attribution in Notes and Queries, 158, 25 January 1930, 69. 7 The earliest British „third degree‟ reference I have found was to the interrogation of Leon Czolgosz, the anarchist assassin of President McKinley: Scotsman, 23 September 1901, 7. 8 Daily Express, 10 October 1906, 4. William McAdoo, „The London police from a New York point of view‟, The Century Magazine, 78 9 (1909), 649-70; see also Manchester Guardian, 4 September 1909, 8. The Third Degree, 5 methods were appropriate to the „more strenuous‟ life there: „An East Side gang would begin by guying a London policeman, and end by killing him....‟10 Two months earlier, a New York murder case had given „the third degree‟ international attention. The victim, Elsie Sigel (the granddaughter of a well-known Civil War general), was young, white and respectable; the suspect, Leon Ling, was Chinese.11 Leon Ling had fled, but the Daily Mirror showed a picture of detectives putting his cousin „through the ordeal of the “third degree,” a method used for dealing with sullen prisoners‟.12 „It is difficult to imagine‟, the Manchester Guardian wrote of the case, „a more horrible or immoral means of serving the ends of justice than this which exercises on the mind a torture no less cruel and indefensible than that which the Inquisition of the Renaissance exercised on the body.‟13 Two years later, the paper reiterated its view: In this old-fashioned and slow-going country we have a prejudice against hustling a prisoner by these „third degree‟ methods, however deep-dyed an offender we may suspect him to be. And somehow, in spite of thus handicapping ourselves by our notions of fair play, we manage, in the detection and punishment of crime, to reach a standard of efficiency which the United States has hitherto been unable to approach.14 „Third-degree‟ references became common in British reporting on American crime.15 A 1912 article on a New York crime wave referred to efforts by the mayor to „Anglicise‟ 10 McAdoo, „London police‟, 668, 669-70 Mary Ting Yi Lui, The Chinatown Trunk Mystery: Murder, Miscegenation and Other Dangerous 11 Encounters in Turn-of-the-century New York City (Princeton, 2005); Daniel M. Vyleta, Crime, Jews and News: Vienna 1895-1914 (New York, 2007), 162-8. 12 Daily Mirror, 7 July 1909, 11. It continued: „American justice methods have never been greatly admired in this country, but this in 13 particular deserves the outspoken censure of every right-thinking man with humanity in his heart.‟ Manchester Guardian, 26 June 1909, 8. 14 Manchester Guardian, 20 June 1911, 16. E.g. Manchester Guardian, 4 October 1909, 7; Manchester Guardian, 25 February 1910, 7; 15 Manchester Guardian, 26 January 1911, 14; Daily Express, 24 June 1910, 1; Scotsman, 3 August 1910, 7; Scotsman, 26 January 1911, 7. The Third Degree, 6 the methods of the police by „stopping the brutal clubbing of prisoners, abolishing the “third degree” obtaining [of] confessions by threats or torture and compelling constables to modify long-established autocratic methods‟.16 But accusations continued.17 Reporting on „third-degree‟ methods remained focused on America, but a few such allegations were made in British contexts. In 1902, the New York Times published an excerpt from a Devon and Exeter Gazette article on an arson case in which a police sergeant‟s evidence had been disallowed „on the ground that he had cross-examined the prisoner‟.18 The original article referred to „cross-examination‟ and „hostile interrogation‟—not to „third degree‟—but the Times prefaced the excerpt by suggesting that „the “third degree” is not altogether American, and that something of the kind is practiced in England‟. A 1908 Daily Express article entitled „The “Third Degree” in England‟ reported the story of a young boy who had been questioned at the front door of his house by a police officer. The boy‟s father told his son not to answer any more questions, shut the door and was fined for „obstructing the police‟.19 These incidents highlighted two factors: the different, less physically brutal nature of British „thirddegree‟ accusations and uncertainties about acceptable police procedure in Britain. Concerns about London policing led to the Royal Commission on the Metropolitan Police between 1906 and 1908, dealing mainly with „street offences‟ and alleged bribery by bookmakers; however, at this time interrogations were not a key issue.20 16 Daily Express, 19 February 1912, 5. E.g. Observer, 21 July 1912, 9; Daily Mirror, 31 August 1912, 4. New York Times, 13 July 1902, 21. Daily Express, 18 November 1908, 8. The Times, 12 September 1912, 2; Manchester Guardian, 18 July 1906, 12. Report of the Royal 17 18 19 20 Commission upon the Duties of the Metropolitan Police (1908), Cd. 4156. See also Jerry White, London in the Twentieth Century: A City and Its People (London, 2001), 285-6. The Third Degree, 7 THE FICTIONAL THIRD DEGREE It was not only in journalism that the phrase „the third degree‟ was popularized. One of the most significant fictional vehicles for highlighting concerns about police power was the 1909 play The Third Degree by Charles Klein, an English-born American playwright.21 Reflecting the social concerns of the „Progressive era‟, The Third Degree was one of six „muckraking‟ plays that marked the playwright‟s shift away from his earlier (and successful) domestic melodramas.22 In it, a young man is wrongly accused of a murder (actually a suicide); confused and under intense interrogation, he signs a confession. His estranged family refuses help, but his loyal wife hires a lawyer who discovers evidence of the suicide, thereby freeing the accused. The play was a success; it also irritated the police. In 1910, a delegate to a meeting of the International Association of Chiefs of Police called it „a gross injustice‟ to law enforcement due to the „false impression‟ it gave of police methods: „No police official would take this play seriously, but the public will.‟23 A novelisation was published in 1912.24 The Third Degree was inspired by the 1906 conviction and execution of Richard G. Ivens in Chicago for murder. In an interview with a London paper, Klein explained 21 Charles Klein, The Third Degree: A Narrative of Metropolitan Life (London, 1909). Don B. Wilmeth (ed.), The Cambridge Guide to American Theatre (Cambridge, 2007), 374; Gerald 22 Bordman and Thomas S. Hischak, The Oxford Companion to American Theatre (Oxford, 2004), 367, 612. Don B. Wilmeth and Christopher Bigsby, The Cambridge History of American Theatre, vol. II (Cambridge, 1999), 17-18. 23 J.A. Larson, „Present police and legal methods for the determination of the innocence or guilt of the suspect‟, Journal of the American Institute of Criminal Law and Criminology, 16 (1925): 219-71. 24 Charles Klein and Arthur Hornblow, Find the Woman or The Third Degree. A Narrative of Metropolitan Life (London, 1912). The Third Degree, 8 that a Harvard professor had later proven Ivens‟s innocence.25 This was a reference to Dr. Hugo Münsterberg, a German psychologist and philosopher; a pioneering figure in the psychological analysis of industry, crime and film; and, finally, „something of a media darling‟.26 His first published book on applied psychology, On the Witness Stand (1908), addressed police questioning and referred to the Ivens case. Klein had been inspired by the book and had even consulted Münsterberg while writing the play. He later informed Münsterberg that it was not only „whetting the public mind in a subject far above the reach of the average intelligence‟ but also doing „an enormous business‟.27 Re-titled Find the Woman in Britain, the play was seen as socially relevant. After a run in Scotland, it premiered in London at the Garrick theatre in June 1912, produced by actor and theatre manager, Arthur Bourchier. He had previously produced La Robe Rouge, a play set in France about, according to the Daily Express, „the harrowing of the helpless and the innocent by servants of the law‟. „May be such things can only happen in France and America‟, the paper continued: „We like to think so, and anyhow Mr. Bourchier has had to go abroad for their dramatic presentation.‟28 London audiences seem to have enjoyed Klein‟s play, which the Daily Mirror called a „powerful indictment of American police methods‟.29 The Daily Express, however, considered it „unpretentious entertainment, and that is probably all Mr. Bourchier claims for it— whatever Mr. Klein may think‟.30 Other critics were dismissive. The Daily News 25 Daily Express, 27 June 1912, 7. Ludy T. Benjamin, Jr, A History of Psychology in Letters (Malden, 2006), 95-111. Margaret Munsterberg, Hugo Munsterberg: His Life and Work (New York, 1922), 183-4. Daily Express, 18 June 1912, 5. New York Times, 18 June 1912, 7; Observer, 15 September 1912, 5; Daily Mirror, 18 June 1912, 5, 9. Daily Express, 18 June 1912, 5. 26 27 28 29 30 The Third Degree, 9 complained of „the usual naive American mixture of sentiment and violent action‟.31 The Observer thought the play to be badly written and unbelievable, criticising its lack of a „nobler victim‟: the falsely accused was a „drunken little “rotter,” who was pulp before the [police] examination began, is pulp at the end of it, and remains pulp to the last‟. The paper scoffed at the play‟s social commentary, referencing Charles Dickens‟s famous „telescopic philanthropist‟ from Bleak House: „Only the Mrs. Jellyby type of mind can be fervently interested in the abuses of other nations, and London cannot be expected to grow excited over flaws in the police system of the United States.‟32 However, in terms of both fiction and reality, Britain was fascinated by American crime. Whether on stage or screen (the first film of The Third Degree was released in 1913), crime thrillers were tremendously popular.33 So-called „crook plays‟—crime dramas that frequently had American settings or themes—often featured hostile interrogations. In 1913, an American troupe presented The Sign of the Rose at the London Palladium, in which a police officer threatens the main character with „the infamous “third degree” (police torture, that is)‟.34 In 1917 Under Cover was described as „unmistakably hall-marked‟ by the „American “crook” tradition‟: „There are the usual revolvers and hands-up, and cocktails and the rest of the American details which are associated with “crook” plays.‟35 In 1920, British cinemagoers could see the second film version of Klein‟s The Third Degree, based, as one advertisement put it, on „the 31 Cited in the New York Times, 18 June 1912, 7. Observer, 23 June 1912, 7. John Stokes, „Body parts: The success of the thriller in the inter-war years‟, in Clive Barker and 32 33 Maggie Barbara Gale (eds), British Theatre between the Wars, 1918-1939 (Cambridge, 2000), 38-62. 34 Manchester Guardian, 27 May 1913, 8: „The acting has the good American qualities of quick neatness and the knowledge of where to be tensely silent and where to speed up, but the sentimentality is so direct as to be a little disconcerting. American acting is so remorselessly affectionate.‟ 35 Scotsman, 4 December 1917, 6. The Third Degree, 10 Great Stage Play‟.36 „Crook plays‟ remained popular through the 1920s, on stage, screen and radio.37 In 1927, the third silent film of Klein‟s play was released in Britain, directed by Michael Curtiz and starring Jason Robards, Sr. and Delores Costello.38 The New York Times thought „those passages in which the police are giving the third degree to the supposed culprit are brilliant, for they reflect the dizzy mind of the man who is being mentally tortured by the minions of the law in their efforts to find the murderer.‟39 The „third degree scene‟ featured a „progression of speedy forceful shots which end with the words “Confess, confess” flying out of the screen until an explosion signifies Robards‟s confession‟.40 Crime drama helped popularize the term „third degree‟, and the emphasis remained on American settings; however, by the late 1920s the British context had changed. THE THIRD DEGREE AND THE BRITISH PRESS: 1918-1928 36 Scotsman, 7 July 1920, 1. Scotsman, 31 May 1921, 10; Daily Mirror, 4 September 1925, 3; Daily Mirror, 26 March 1926, 9; 37 Daily Mirror, 21 July 1926, 18; Scotsman, 20 Jan 1927, 7; Scotsman, 14 October 1927, 8; Scotsman, 13 December 1927, 11. The Daily Mirror, 4 February 1922, 8, presented images from The Sign on the Door („the thrilling crook play‟) that could be seen both on stage and at the cinema that month. The Third Degree, by Frank Bremner, was presented by the Aberdeen Radio Players: Scotsman, 7 May 1927, 6. See also, Scotsman, 6 August 1927, 11. The Times, 19 October 1927, 12; Sunday Express, 23 October 1927, 5. 38 Sunday Express, 16 January 1927, 5. Film still: Daily Mirror, 25 March 1927, 5. New York Times, 15 February 1927, 23. Time thought otherwise: „The Third Degree (Delores Costello) 39 was once a startling play dealing with brutal police and their peculiar methods of bleeding confessions out of tortured hearts. The picture staggers ineffectually over the same plot. Everybody suffers: strong, silent men; good, beautiful, true women; the audience.‟ „New Pictures‟, Time, 28 February 1927, www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,730106,00.html, accessed 24 December 2009. 40 James C. Robertson, The Casablanca Man: The Cinema of Michael Curtiz (London, 1994), 13. The Third Degree, 11 Foreign and domestic crime reporting remained a staple of the British press after the war. Although it was not the only term used to describe harsh interrogations— references to the (Soviet) „Cheka‟ or to „Star Chamber‟ were also made—the „third degree‟ remained the most common and widespread expression in the press of the 1920s and 1930s.41 The emphasis remained on foreign contexts, even if some were close to home. In October 1920, for example, a Labour MP raised concerns about Republican prisoners in Ireland being „flogged to extort confessions‟.42 The following year, during a debate regarding the funding of the Royal Irish Constabulary, one MP accused the Government of using „torture‟ on „helpless men in prison‟, describing it as a form of „third degree‟.43 From the second half of the 1920s, the term was applied to the police of fascist Italy44, the Soviet Union45, Turkey46 and Japan47. Weimar Germany was seen to 41 The Times, 19 May 1928, 15; Observer, 20 May 1928, 16; Manchester Guardian, 1 December 1929, 12. Australia and New Zealand saw similar debates in the 1930s: see Dean Wilson and Mark Finnane, „From sleuths to technicians? Changing images of the detective in Victoria‟ and Graeme Dunstall, „Local “demons” in New Zealand policing c. 1900-55‟, both in Clive Emsley and Haia Shpayer-Makov (eds), Police Detectives in History 1750-1950 (Aldershot, 2006), 152 and 171-72 (respectively). There may have been different resonances to terms such as „Cheka‟, „Star Chamber‟ and „third degree‟, but they appear to have been used largely synonymously. 42 Parliamentary Debates (Commons) 133, 20 October 1920, 955. Comments made by Thomas Power O‟Connor, Nationalist Party member for a district in Liverpool. He 43 described the „third degree‟ as „a form of torture borrowed from America who in turn had borrowed it from Russia‟: „It consisted of a series of difficult and ingenious methods by means of which men were compelled to give evidence, true or false, quite as often false as true.‟ Manchester Guardian, 8 March 1921, 10; The Times, 8 March 1921, 17. 44 Manchester Guardian, 29 October 1929, 10; Manchester Guardian, 15 June 1932, 12; Manchester Guardian, 25 June 1932, 17. 45 Manchester Guardian, 7 July 1928, 12; see also „The Moscow trial‟s finale‟, The Economist, 13 December 1930, 1107. 46 Manchester Guardian, 13 August 1915, 7. Manchester Guardian, 11 October 1919, 12; Manchester Guardian, 6 July 1934, 15; Manchester 47 Guardian, 26 July 1934, 8. See also Manchester Guardian, 16 August 1934, 16. The Third Degree, 12 have reformed its police before the Nazis reintroduced brutal methods.48 In British eyes, France was especially notorious for its version of the „third degree‟.49 However, the United States generated the most stories of brutal police interrogation in the inter-war period. The Manchester Guardian complained that „torture under the name of the Third Degree is regularly used by the municipal police of most American cities‟.50 In January 1928, the World’s Pictorial News commented on a Los Angeles murder and dismemberment case: the crime was terrible, but „the means used to obtain his confession were terrible, and may even breed controversy in America, where the Third Degree is legally condoned if not universally approved.‟51 In May 1928, the Guardian reported on an inquiry by the New York City Bar Association confirming the use of third-degree methods, suggesting that „the “third degree” is in daily and hourly use not only in New York but in practically every other city in the country‟.52 This was not mere exaggeration: in his history of American police interrogation methods, Richard A. Leo has recently labelled this an „era of the third degree‟ characterized by „the widespread and systematic use of physical coercion and psychological duress to elicit confessions and punish suspects‟.53 48 Manchester Guardian, 12 November 1927, 8; Manchester Guardian, 27 February 1934, 3. Manchester Guardian, 6 October 1922, 10; World’s Pictorial News, 12 August 1928, 3; World’s 49 Pictorial News, 3 June 1928, 10; World’s Pictorial News, 10 August 1929, 3; World’s Pictorial News, 19 April 1930, 3; World’s Pictorial News, 12 May 1929, 20; Manchester Guardian, 28 October 1929, 13. Clive Emsley, „From ex-con to expert: The police detective in nineteenth-century France‟, in Emsley and Shpayer-Makov, Police Detectives, 61-78. 50 Manchester Guardian, 25 June 1927, 13. The crime was William Edward Hickman‟s murder of Marian Parker: World’s Pictorial News, 8 51 January 1928, 1. 52 Manchester Guardian, 29 May 1928, 5. Emanuel H. Lavine, The Third Degree (London, 1930), 5. Richard A. Leo, Police Interrogation and American Justice (Cambridge, 2008), 318. 53 The Third Degree, 13 But unlike the pre-war period, the connotations in Britain of the term „third degree‟ subtly shifted to express domestic concerns. In this regard, „third-degree‟ narratives were similar to other American-related crime discourses in the inter-war years. As Andrew Davies, focusing on Glaswegian narratives of the „gangster‟ has observed: On one level, commentaries on the American underworld were used to highlight the profound cultural differences between the United States and Great Britain, thus illuminating the supposedly essential virtues of the more „peaceable‟ British. However, they simultaneously pointed to the danger of contagion.54 In the case of the „third degree‟, of course, the „danger of contagion‟ involved not the methods of criminals but rather those of the police. Still, we see here a similar mixture of themes, emphasizing both Britain‟s essential difference as well as its potential susceptibility to American influences. To understand such concerns, it is necessary to consider the context of police powers and questioning in Britain. Police questioning in custody was far less acceptable in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries than it is today (when it has become „central‟), and police procedure was rather vague, being regulated largely by judges‟ decisions about the admissibility of statements in court.55 General guidelines on interrogation were set out by the first head of the Criminal Investigation Department, Howard Vincent, in his 1881 54 Andrew Davies, „The Scottish Chicago? From “hooligans” to “gangsters” in inter-war Glasgow‟, Cultural and Social History, 4 (2007), 515. 55 Mario Matassa and Tim Newburn, „Social context of criminal investigation‟, in Tim Newburn, Tom Williamson and Alan Wright (eds) Handbook of Criminal Investigation (Collumpton, 2007), 73: „Only comparatively recently does police questioning in custody seem to have become accepted practice‟. See also, Royal Commission on Criminal Procedure, 1981, Cmnd. 8092, 16. See also, David Bentley, „Acquitting the Innocent. Convicting the Guilty. Delivering Justice?‟, in Judith Rowbotham and Kim Stevenson (eds) Behaving Badly: Social Panic and Moral Outrage—Victorian and Modern Parallels (Aldershot, 2003), 17-19. The Third Degree, 14 Police Code, which was issued in revised editions for the next fifty years.56 The judicial view was expressed by Mr. Justice Hawkins (later Lord Brampton) in an address that was included in a foreword to Vincent‟s Code: a constable should „keep his eyes and ears open and his mouth shut‟.57 In 1906, the Chief Constable of Birmingham wrote to the judges of the King‟s Bench about guidelines for police questioning; the Chief Justice, Lord Alverstone, wrote a response.58 Nearly six years later, he asked the Home Secretary whether the response had been generally circulated; it had not, but the Home Secretary asked for another statement that could be distributed to the police. However, this was only sent out „as occasion arose‟, and the outbreak of war caused further interruption. During the war, the police gained new powers and tasks, everything from fighting espionage and monitoring blackouts to enforcing new restrictions on drinking or drug use.59 These were granted by statute under the Defence of the Realm Act— popularly known as „Dora‟—which suspended some common-law limits on state power for the duration of the war. Finally, in 1918, the Home Office drew up a memorandum based on the 1912 judges‟ statement: following amendment (five guidelines were added to the original four) and King‟s Bench approval, they were distributed to the police and criminal courts.60 56 Bob Morris, „History of criminal investigation‟, in Tim Newburn, Tom Williamson, Alan Wright (eds) Handbook of Criminal Investigation (Cullompton, 2007), 27. 57 Report of the Royal Commission on Police Powers and Procedure, 1929, Cmd. 3297, 51 (hereafter, „RCPPP Report‟); Matassa and Newburn, „Social context‟, 73. See also RCPPP Report, 60. 58 Unless otherwise noted, the history of the Judges‟ Rules that follows derives from the draft response of the Home Office to the Royal Commission‟s questionnaire, The National Archives: Public Record Office (TNA:PRO), Kew, HO 45/25860/19, 6-7. 59 Marek Kohn, Dope Girls: The Birth of the British Drug Underground (London, 2001), 29. RCPPP Report, 69. 60 The Third Degree, 15 These „Judges‟ Rules‟ became the main guide to police procedure regarding questioning until the 1980s, when they were superseded by the Police and Criminal Evidence Act.61 Although they were not law, violating them might lead to statements being ruled inadmissible or to disciplinary action, though both rarely occurred.62 Even if they were terse and vague about particular aspects of questioning, they were one of the topics „particularly stressed‟ during training at the Met, but it was not until the mid 1920s that they were systematically circulated.63 As Bob Morris points out, „uncertainty and ambiguity about investigative power remained‟; in 1929, the Economist even dubbed them „a very masterpiece of confusion and ambiguity‟.64 Nonetheless, the Judges‟ Rules expressed an established judicial consensus about questioning: „voluntary statements‟ by people in custody were acceptable, but the police were allowed neither to induce them (through threats or promises of lenient treatment) nor to actively question („cross-examine‟) prisoners. Only questions „for the purpose of removing ambiguity in what he has actually said‟ were allowed.65 Unlike American cases, British „third-degree‟ allegations referred almost exclusively to psychological pressure or forms of (sometimes lengthy) „crossexamination‟. In April 1922 the barrister defending eighteen-year-old Henry Jacoby on a charge of murder, claimed that his client‟s treatment by detectives „was a true example 61 They were slightly revised in January 1964: T.E. St. Johnston, „The Judges‟ Rules and Police Interrogation in England Today‟, The Journal of Criminal Law, Criminology and Police Science 57 (1966), 88-92. Michael Zander, Cases and Materials on the English Legal System (Cambridge, 2007), 160. 62 Zander, Cases and Materials, 159. TNA: PRO, MEPO 2/1902/5a, Response of the Metropolitan Police to the RCPPP questionnaire, 1928, 63 4. The Judges‟ Rules are in the RCPPP Report, 70-1. 64 Morris, „Criminal investigation‟, 27; „The police and the citizen‟, The Economist, 30 March 1929, 672. RCPPP Report, 71. 65 The Third Degree, 16 of what was known in America as the “third degree”‟: „a severe cross-examination, almost amounting to torture to extract a confession from him‟.66 In May 1922, counsel for an accused thief „declared that third-degree methods had been introduced into the case‟ after the accused „had been visited in prison by persons who had tried to force him to say something‟.67 At about the same time, detectives denied that third degree methods („as practised by the police in France and America‟) had been used against Jack Hewitt, a 15-year-old accused of murder in 1922.68 In May 1925, similar charges accompanied George Jeffrey‟s murder trial.69 Police denied any wrongdoing, but concerns lingered, and the Daily Mirror referred to the Jeffrey case while reporting on the scandal that ensued when the Metropolitan Police wrongly arrested Major Robert Osborne Sheppard for theft: In view of the allegations—though not substantiated—of „third degree‟ measures adopted by the police in a recent murder case, there is a demand by some members for a very full inquiry into police methods in general.70 No general inquiry resulted from the Sheppard case, but a report criticized the police for ignoring the Judges‟ Rules.71 The Times called it „disquieting‟, noting that „anybody accused in like circumstances may be so treated at the unfettered discretion of a police sergeant tomorrow‟.72 Following promises of reform, however, the paper praised the police and chalked the matter up to „the errors of a few individuals‟.73 66 Manchester Guardian, 29 April 1922, 13. Manchester Guardian, 18 May 1922, 6. Manchester Guardian, 2 May 1922, 8; Scotsman, 22 May 1922, p. 9; Daily Mirror, 3 June 1922, 3. Daily Mirror, 20 May 1925, 2; Daily Mirror, 4 June 1925, 14. Daily Mirror, 16 July 1925, 3; Scotsman, 16 July 1925, 6. The Times, 17 August 1925, 7. The Times 17 August 1925, 11. The Times 28 August 1925, 13. 67 68 69 70 71 72 73 The Third Degree, 17 Third-degree accusations provoked little official action before 1928 and might even be dismissed out of hand. Appealing against a manslaughter conviction in 1926, Henry Adams claimed a detective had intimidated him into signing a confession with the phrase, „I should like you to tell me the truth‟: this, his counsel argued, „constituted an implied threat or promise‟. The judge derided the claim, provoking laughter by asking, „Did you think he should have added, “I shall love you for evermore if you do?”‟ and „Ought a detective to say, “I don‟t want you to tell me the truth?”‟.74 Counsel for a former police sergeant in Wallasey charged with perjury argued his client had been „subjected to a tiring examination, and, in fact, a kind of third degree‟ in making a statement. Prosecuting counsel objected: „it was silly to talk about the third degree in England‟.75 Even when they accepted the possibility of „third degree‟, British commentators generally meant something rather different than the truncheons, rubber hoses and „sweat boxes‟ employed in the United States.76 Still, by 1928 the British public had become accustomed to claims of „thirddegree‟ questioning. Most such allegations came from male, working-class suspects in homicide cases and were directed at detectives. Such accusations accompanied other criticism of the police. Left-wing activists and trade-union leaders complained about police surveillance and harassment of (and brutality toward) their members.77 In 1927, the Sunday Worker was successfully prosecuted for defamatory libel (a criminal offence) after making accusations against the police under the headline „Third Degree 74 Daily Mirror, 19 December 1925, 15; Scotsman, 30 March 1926, 8. Manchester Guardian, 29 October 1926, 18. E.g. see a review of Emanuel H. Lavine‟s book The Third Degree: Manchester Guardian, 26 April 75 76 1931, 6. 77 Emsley, English Police, 136, 140; Barbara Weinberger, Keeping the Peace? Policing Strikes in Britain, 1906–1926 (Oxford,1991), 68. The Third Degree, 18 Methods to Extort Confession from Class War Prisoner‟.78 But police scandals involving respectable men, such as the Sheppard case, though rare, meant that discontent was not confined to the lower classes or the political left. They had a disproportionate effect in a decade that saw increasing tension between the police and the middle classes as a result of motor traffic regulation.79 The stage was set for a remarkable storm of controversy that broke in 1928. ACCUSATIONS AND INVESTIGATIONS: 1928-29 In early 1928, each month brought new charges against the police.80 At the trial in January of ten former Liverpool constables for taking bribes from bookmakers, the defendants‟ counsel raised the issue of whether „any form of third degree‟ had been used. The police denied it, but the men had been interrogated from midnight until shortly before ten in the morning, leaving one of the ex-constables (in the defence‟s words) in a „state of collapse‟.81 In February, police methods were questioned at the magistrates‟ court hearing for two suspects in the murder of an Essex constable. Under the heading, „Third Degree Allegations‟, the World’s Pictorial News highlighted defence objections: one defendant‟s statement had been „pumped out of him‟ by „four 78 Daily Mirror, 25 March 1927, 2; The Times, 25 May 1927, 13. Clive Emsley, „“Mother, what did policemen do when there weren't any motors?” The law, the police 79 and the regulation of motor traffic in England, 1900-1939‟, Historical Journal, 36 (1993), 357-81. 80 The year 1928 saw a significant increase in police complaints. There had been one complaint from „persons at large‟ in addition to the Sunday Worker accusation in 1927: two cases were „round about normal‟. By October 1928, however, there had been eight complaints from „persons at large‟ not including the Pace and Savidge cases. TNA: PRO, HO 45/25860/27a, Blackwell to Pick, 25 October 1928. 81 Scotsman, 7 January 1928, 11. The Third Degree, 19 hours of interrogation, of promises, hopes, and threats‟.82 The accusations were repeated at the trial, but to no avail for the defendants.83 Under another „third-degree‟ headline in March, the claims of an ex-policeman that his chief constable had threatened him during an investigation were published.84 In April, there were „third-degree‟ accusations from a man accused of murder in Cornwall.85 However, concerns about the police were most dramatically driven by two cases involving women. In mid-March, the People newspaper claimed that Beatrice Pace, the widow of a recently deceased Forest of Dean farmer, had been questioned „for thirteen hours‟ and reduced to „a state of collapse‟.86 By the next week, the case was on the front page and questions were being asked in Parliament.87 After Pace was charged with murder in late May, opposition MPs condemned a „wicked system‟ of „third-degree methods‟, while the Conservative Home Secretary, William Joynson-Hicks, denied there was „anything in the nature of third degree in this country at all‟.88 Pace was acquitted in early July, and the People, facing a threatened libel suit by the detectives, settled out of court and published a retraction.89 But unease about Pace‟s treatment set the stage for a further scandal, one that began, as the Economist put it, as „one of those clouds, no bigger than a man‟s hand, which rapidly spread and gather into a political storm of serious 82 World’s Pictorial News, 19 February 1928, 9; World’s Pictorial News, 26 February 1928, 2. The Times, 27 April 1928, 11. Daily Mirror, 27 March 1928, 2. The Times, 19 April 1928, 13; Daily Mirror, 19 April 1928, 2; Scotsman, 19 April 1928, 11; Daily 83 84 85 Mirror, 20 April 1928, 22. See also, World’s Pictorial News, 10 June 1928, 3. 86 People, 18 March 1928, 2. People, 25 March 1928, 1. Parliamentary Debates (Commons) 217, 23 May 1928, 1890-2. TNA: PRO, MEPO 6/1638, File 95/GEN/44/7b, Muskett to Cornish, 29 October 1928; People, 28 87 88 89 October 1928, 5. The Third Degree, 20 magnitude‟.90 In Hyde Park on 23 April, plainclothes constables arrested a twenty-twoyear-old woman named Irene Savidge along with Sir Leo Chiozza Money, a prominent (and married) journalist and former politician: the pair was charged with public indecency.91 Their case was dismissed by a magistrate, setting in motion an internal investigation into possible police perjury, in the course of which detectives questioned Savidge for five hours in mid-May. The original arrest had itself raised anxieties about excessive policing, but Savidge‟s accusations regarding her interrogation—aired in Parliament by Scottish Labour MP Tom Johnston—caused a wave of outrage: police had, she claimed, bullied her and, as we might put it today, sexually harassed her. Johnston insisted that the House had to offer „resolute and determined opposition to anything in the nature of the “Cheka,” a Turkish system, Star Chamber methods, or what was known in the United States of America as the Third Degree‟.92 The charges were somewhat over-dramatized, but, the Economist observed, „It is no good blinking the fact that such phrases as “chekka [sic] methods,” or “third degree” which were echoed in the House of Commons debate, are vaguely passing through the minds of thousands of citizens, and are being bandied by myriads of less careful lips.‟93 Responding to the cross-party outrage generated by the Savidge issue, JoynsonHicks instigated two parliamentary investigations: one specifically into Savidge‟s charges and another into police methods generally. The former ended in division: while a majority report found no police wrongdoing, a minority report excoriated the police 90 „Liberty and the police‟, The Economist, 26 May 1928, 1063. On Savidge, see Clayton, „Police Savidgery‟; Martin Fido and Keith Skinner, The Official 91 Encyclopedia of Scotland Yard (London, 2000), 378-9. 92 Daily Herald, 18 May 1928, 1. „Liberty and the police‟, 1064. 93 The Third Degree, 21 and urged fundamental reforms.94 The lack of agreement likely increased interest in the broader inquiry, the Royal Commission on Police Powers and Procedure, which began its sittings in September.95 In the intervening time, public concerns remained acute, fuelled in part by the conviction of two Met constables who had brought false charges against a young woman named Helen Adele after one of them tried to sexually assault her.96 Fictional manifestations of the third degree also continued: toward the end of July—in the immediate wake of the divided Savidge inquiry—the World’s Pictorial News began a serialized novel entitled The Third Degree by E.C. Buley; however, the paper assured that it had been purchased „long before recent events focussed public attention upon police methods...‟.97 The „third degree‟ was a central issue at the Royal Commission. The questionnaires it sent out to police officials throughout England and Wales did not refer to „the third degree‟, but they posed related questions: were the Judges‟ Rules observed „both in the spirit and in the letter‟? Were the „interests of justice‟ as well as the „liberties of the subject‟ being served? Were statements being taken „under the influence of physical or mental exhaustion‟? Had practice changed since the war?98 In oral 94 Report of the Tribunal...in Regard to the Interrogation of Miss Savidge by the Police, July 1928, Cmd. 3147. 95 The Royal Commission‟s terms of reference included only England and Wales. Despite appeals from the Edinburgh Women Citizens Association and the Edinburgh National Society for Equal Citizenship, Joynson-Hicks resisted extending the inquiry to Scotland. As his private secretary responded to an MP who had made a similar request: „[The Home Secretary] desires to point out that, though the administrate framework of the Police in Scotland is similar to that in England and Wales, the Police functions in relation to prosecutions for offences differ in such important respects that he is convinced it would be impossible to extend the enquiry he is setting up to cover Scottish conditions without seriously complicating and impeding that enquiry.‟ See TNA: PRO, HO 45/25860/12a. 96 The Times, 15 September 1928, 7. Fido and Skinner, Encyclopedia, 2-3. World’s Pictorial News, 22 July 1928, 6, 12, 14. The series continued through October. Questionnaire sent to the Metropolitan Police, TNA: PRO, MEPO 2/1902/1a. 97 98 The Third Degree, 22 testimony, many direct references to the „third degree‟ were made and highlighted by the press. Reporting on the comments of Sir Archibald Bodkin, the Director of Public Prosecutions, the World’s Pictorial News took the side of the police: For many months there has been all sort of gassy, alarming talk about the terrible methods of the English police. All this has been nuts to the Communists, and to the criminal classes of the worst species, who are always glad to defame officers of the law, their enemies.99 Bodkin suggested it had become „the usual thing‟ for defence counsel to make thirddegree claims.100 Sir Joseph Priestly, KC, Chairman of the Hertfordshire Quarter Sessions, had „never‟ had a case of abuse in his county, and insisted that he would „strongly condemn‟ any introduction of French or American methods.101 During the testimony of some officials, it was suggested that fictional crime dramas had influenced perceptions of the police. Metropolitan Police Commissioner William Horwood agreed when the Commission‟s chair, Lord Lee, asked whether „the new literature, the detective story, and the crook play, which is generally imported from a country where the third-degree is not unknown‟ might have influenced „the public mind‟ through „mass suggestion‟. Another Commission member, Sir Reginald Poole, observed, „It is the American invasion‟: „It amounts to that‟, Horwood replied.102 An experienced solicitor stated, „“Third Degree” is an unfortunate expression imported from America‟: „although we had adopted the expression from America we had not adopted, and never would adopt, the American methods‟.103 Nonetheless, „a great change‟ in police 99 World’s Pictorial News, 28 October 1928, 11. See also: World’s Pictorial News, 15 July 1928, 5. It had „become the fashion to attack the police‟ and allege „third degree‟ methods. „Nothing could be 100 more nonsensical.‟ News of the World, 30 December 1928, 6. 101 TNA: PRO, HO 45/25860/36, Testimony by Sir Joseph Priestley, KC, Chairman of Hertfordshire Quarter Sessions, 3 December 1928, 379. 102 Scotsman, 16 October 1928, 11; Manchester Guardian, 16 October 1928, 4. Testimony of F. Freke Palmer, The Times, 27 November 1928, 11. 103 The Third Degree, 23 procedure since the war had led to a system („rapidly growing unchecked‟) of taking of lengthy „voluntary‟ statements. Another solicitor agreed.104 The Recorder of Hythe, suggested police powers had increased and the Judges‟ Rules „expanded very much since the war‟: The Chairman: In favour of the accused person?—No, the other way, in asking more questions than were usual before the war. The Chairman: So you mean generously in the interests of justice?— Rather than in the interests of the individual.105 H.J. Turrell, the Recorder of Banbury, admitted he did not know the Judges‟ Rules (he had „never heard of them‟ and said he had „spoken to one or two others and they have told me the same‟) but also criticized the quality of police evidence: „Almost as a matter of course one police officer supported another.‟106 Nonetheless, the Royal Commission‟s report in March 1929 concluded that no „third-degree‟ methods (whether physical brutality or „the use of threats and improper inducements‟) had been uncovered.107 But while the police generally observed the strictures of the Judges‟ Rules, the report noted that „a volume of responsible evidence which it is impossible to ignore‟ suggested that „a number of the voluntary statements now tendered in Court are not “voluntary” in the strict sense of the word‟.108 „No allegations of violence or bullying have been made in this connection‟, it was emphasized; however „such devices for extracting statements as keeping a suspect in 104 Testimony of Percy Robinson, Manchester Guardian, 4 December 1928, 18. Manchester Guardian, 30 October 1928, 11. „The police inquiry‟, The Economist, 3 November 1928, 105 790. 106 Manchester Guardian, 21 November 1928, 4. See also, J. Hayes, „Notes on the royal commission‟, Police Review, 30 November 1928 and „The Recorder of Banbury‟, Police Review, 30 November 1928 in TNA: PRO HO 45/25860/34. 107 RCPPP Report, 100. RCPPP Report, 101. 108 The Third Degree, 24 suspense by saying nothing to him for half an hour or so at a time, or keeping him waiting for a long period in the passage, or constant repetition of the same question by one or more officers, have been quoted as not unknown in Police practice.‟109 The report was also critical of Scotland Yard, the target of most „third-degree‟ allegations: „There is, we fear, a tendency amongst this branch of the service to regard itself as a thing above and apart, to which the restraints and limitations placed upon the ordinary Police do not, or should not, apply.‟110 Thus, while it found no evidence of American-style „third degree‟, some of the practices noted (such as lengthy interrogations, repeated questioning or psychological pressure) were associated, in Britain, with „the third degree‟. The report made several recommendations, urging a more strict and consistent interpretation of the Judges‟ Rules. The press reacted generally positively toward the report, reassured by the lack of evidence of serious, „third-degree‟ methods.111 Still, the report was critical enough to provoke warning commentaries. The Royal Commission had found that „the rules governing statements are ambiguous and hard to interpret‟ and even „very variously interpreted‟, observed the Economist; this posed grave dangers for the prisoner: He may have been cross-examined in secret and in secret badgered into admissions that put the noose round his neck before ever he comes into the court. That is the possibility that makes the man in the street distrust these statements and confessions, and we have no doubt that the uncomfortable feeling of the plain layman finds some echo in the minds of those who constituted this Commission.112 The police accepted much of the report except for the recommendations regarding questioning. The Sunday Express cited a general view „in police circles‟ that the report 109 RCPPP Report, 101-2. RCPPP Report, 102. Daily Herald, 23 March 1929, 5; Manchester Guardian, 23 March 1929, 18. „The police and the citizen‟, The Economist, 30 March 1929, 672. 110 111 112 The Third Degree, 25 offered „a Magna Charta for criminals‟: in particular, the recommendation to „caution‟ all witnesses and to refrain from asking any questions that might prove „incriminating‟ were seen as potentially hindering investigations.113 CONCLUSION While a parliamentary report on a limited set of issues could not settle all of the public‟s concerns, the Royal Commission seems to have successfully closed a difficult period in police-public relations. Problems were to a large extent blamed on individual failings or the unavoidable challenges faced by officers in applying an increasingly complicated law. (Like the report, some press commentators—mainly conservative—blamed not the police but rather legislators for imposing so many duties upon them.114) A number of the recommendations were of a technical nature, and in the absence of media-friendly scandals such matters retreated to the behind-the-scenes world in which they were usually decided. In November 1928, William Horwood was replaced by Lord Byng of Vimy as Commissioner of the Metropolitan Police. Almost immediately, newspapers suggested a shakeup was underway in Britain‟s most visible police force.115 As was often the case, an argument about procedure had been turned into one about 113 „Detectives might as well be handcuffed, or told to pursue their investigations by correspondence‟, was one CID officer‟s reported comment: Sunday Express, 24 March 1929, 15. 114 RCPPP Report, 76-82. World’s Pictorial News, 16 December 1928; 4; World’s Pictorial News, 10 June 1928, 4; Sunday Pictorial, 1 July 1928, 8. 115 The year‟s scandals „confirmed the public in the belief that the London force contains more than its proportion of black sheep‟; however, since Lord Byng had taken over, „the new broom is now busy sweeping up Soho‟: Manchester Guardian, 1 January 1929, 7. See also Sunday Express, 6 January 1929, 13. The Third Degree, 26 personnel.116 Furthermore, counter-arguments were made that the police—far from abusing their powers—were too restricted. A Daily Express series in July 1930 examined what it claimed was a substantial growth in unsolved murders, arguing that the Royal Commission had made police work more difficult.117 When it was revealed that month that a circular had been sent out by the Home office to clarify the Judges‟ Rules, some papers took that as a sign that limits on the police were being loosened: some saw this positively or even claimed the „shackles‟ had been removed from detectives.118 Others expressed concern.119 Through a series of parliamentary questions, Conservative MPs suggested that „restrictions‟ on interrogations had hampered police crime fighting. Such comments were greeted with bemusement in the Home Office and higher reaches of the Metropolitan Police, where internal memos argued that, essentially, little had changed.120 Charges of „third degree‟ arose in the early 1930s, though with less press attention, and the allegations continued to be relatively minor. A labourer charged in Bolton in September 1931 with malicious damage claimed police used „third-degree 116 See e.g. Clive Emsley, „Sergeant Goddard: The story of a rotten apple, or a diseased orchard?‟, in Amy Gilman Srebnick and René Lévy (eds), Crime and Culture: An Historical Perspective (Aldershot, 2005), 85-104. 117 Daily Express, 15 July 1930, 1; Daily Express, 16 July 1930, 1; Daily Express, 17 July 1930, 9; Daily Express, 18 July 1930, 9; Daily Express 19 July 1930, 9. 118 Daily Express, 22 July 1930, 9; Daily Mail, 24 July 1930, 8: „The Royal Commission has made crime easier and life unsafer‟. 119 E.g. Daily Herald, 23 July 1930, 8 See TNA: PRO HO 45/22971/45 and /63. See also TNA: PRO MEPO 3/2973/4a, Memo from Sir 120 Frank Trevor Bigham, Assistant Commissoner of the Metropolitan Police: „But all that has happened since the Royal Commission is that there is a tendency for the Police to avoid taking any risk of overstepping the Judges‟ Rules and incurring criticism thereby.‟ I thank Bob Morris for assistance interpreting this source. The Third Degree, 27 methods‟ simply by closing the door while interviewing him.121 More seriously, in what was depicted as a „third-degree‟ case, three Scottish police officers were tried—though acquitted—for having assaulted a youth.122 Commenting on the case, the Manchester Guardian argued that, since 1928, the public had become „properly vigilant to secure that there shall not creep into our police methods any tincture of the brutality that too often disgraces the pursuit of the criminal in the United States‟.123 In 1933, the Observer argued that „since the Hyde Park episode a few years ago‟, protections against „anything even savouring of the so-called “third degree”‟ were so strong as to lead to complaints that the police were „handicapped in collecting evidence‟.124 In 1935, however, a pamphlet published by the recently formed National Council for Civil Liberties (NCCL) complained that practices the Royal Commission had „unanimously condemned continue quite openly‟.125 Opinions remained divided, but in the mainstream press and among the general population, concerns about police powers seem to have subsided. Use of the third degree as a fictional plot element continued. In 1929, a theatre review of Because of Irene noted that one character, „a journalist well versed by a course of police court reporting in the manners and tactics of Scotland Yard‟ posed as a detective to apply „third degree‟ methods to another character.126 In a collection of short stories appearing in 1933, Dorothy L. Sayers showed the lingering relevance of the Savidge case by having a character urge a police officer to treat a witness „nicely‟: „But 121 Manchester Guardian, 15 September 1931, 11. Manchester Guardian, 5 October 1932, 11; Manchester Guardian, 6 October 1932, 5; Manchester 122 Guardian, 7 October 1932, 2. 123 Manchester Guardian, 7 October 1932, 8. Observer, 23 April 1933, 10. „Police methods‟, NCCL, 1935, contained in TNA: PRO HO 45/25462. I thank Janet Clark for this 124 125 reference. 126 Manchester Guardian, 26 March 1929, 14. The Third Degree, 28 no third degree, you know, sergeant. No Savidgery.‟127 This admonition was carried over into the cinema. In the United States, the Hays Code adopted in 1930 by American filmmakers (though only enforced from 1934) insisted that „third degree‟ must „be treated within the careful limits of good taste‟.128 In Britain, at least six films were censored in the 1930s because of their depiction of police methods.129 It would take a shift in the nature of police drama in the late 1950s and 1960s to put the topic of violence and intimidation in police custody back onto the British popular culture agenda.130 Sensational American third-degree cases continued to interest British newspaper readers.131 A notable incident concerned the suicide of Violet Sharpe, a British servant, after questioning by New Jersey police investigating the kidnapping of Charles Lindbergh‟s infant son in 1932. „Was a respectable and highly-strung English girl‟, the Manchester Guardian asked, „driven to suicide by the third degree methods of the American police?‟132 But despite some parliamentary discussion, the case quickly blew over. In the US, the Wickersham Commission—a congressional investigation into police methods that sat between 1929 and 1931—confirmed the widespread use of psychological and physical abuse by American police and urged reforms; followed by a 127 Dorothy L. Sayers, „The image in the mirror‟, published 1933, quoted in Clayton, „Police Savidgery‟, 30. 128 Manchester Guardian, 16 April 1930, 7. Jeffrey Richards, The Age of the Dream Palace: Cinema and Society in Britain, 1930-1939 (London, 129 1984), 114-15. 130 Anthony Aldgate and Jeffrey Richards, Best of British: Cinema and Society from 1930 to the Present (London, 1999), 138-41. 131 E.g. Manchester Guardian, 26 May 1931, 13; Manchester Guardian, 18 July 1932, 12; Manchester Guardian, 25 February 1937, 11. 132 Manchester Guardian, 12 June 1932, 15. See also Manchester Guardian, 13 June 1932, 9. The Third Degree, 29 1936 Supreme Court decision in Brown v. Mississippi (which, Richard Leo observes, „unambiguously prohibited police use of physical violence to elicit confessions‟) it led to a sharp decline in physically brutal police methods.133 The country that had spawned the term „third degree‟ began to move decisively away from its use. Britain has long had what Clive Emsley has labelled an „indulgent tradition‟ regarding its police: despite periodically acute tensions with at least some section of the population, the police have broadly been seen as having a harmonious relationship with the public.134 The foregoing examination of the „third degree‟ both questions and supports this tradition. The sustained vehemence of critical commentary on the police in the late 1920s reveals how, in the right circumstances, this indulgence might be withdrawn. Nonetheless, nearly all commentators who addressed the topic of police powers—from across the mainstream political spectrum—believed that British policing was different (and superior) to that of other nations, particularly the United States. Those factors identified as a source of worry (such as the impact of the war or excessive regulation) were depicted as a deviation from a distinctively British norm. Despite elements of exaggeration and myopic national self-regard, such views reflected a genuine distinction: the British police in this period were comparatively more restrained than their American counterparts, and „the third degree‟ meant something rather different in Britain and America.135 In 1930, the Harvard Law Review noted the „sharp contrast‟ in police procedure in America and England: in the latter, „not one case showing evidence of third degree methods has been found in the past twenty years‟. A 133 Leo, Police Interrogation, 44-6, 319. Clive Emsley, „The English bobby: An indulgent tradition‟, in Roy Porter (ed.), Myths of the English 134 (Oxford, 1992), 114-35. 135 See, e.g. Sunday Pictorial, 27 May 1928, 9 („These things cannot happen in England—or, at least, if it be alleged that in a modified degree they may have happened in one or two cases, such cases are completely isolated.‟) and Manchester Guardian, 18 June 1929, 10. The Third Degree, 30 footnote does refer to the Savidge case: „But this would hardly be considered a case of third degree in this country; after the questioning had proceeded for some time, tea was served.‟136 Like many of the other sources used here, such comments contribute to what we might see as a public narrative about police powers, reflecting only those complaints and incidents that reached the press. There are undoubtedly many other, private narratives that might tell a different story. What actually happened during arrests and interrogations is difficult, perhaps impossible, to reconstruct; however, there are suggestions that police violence in Britain was not uncommon in some contexts and was almost certainly more prevalent than press or official opinion allowed.137 The British use of „third-degree‟ terminology, however, tended to downplay actual violence, emphasising psychological pressure and forms of intensive questioning that—according to many interpretations of the Judges‟ Rules—were illegitimate. As frustrated police officials suggested, such criticism was driven partly by defence counsels‟ efforts to discredit police evidence. The term was, however, also used by journalists trying to highlight the more sensational elements of their reports on police investigations. Press editorials—whether left-wing, liberal, populist or libertarian conservative—also kept the phrase in the public consciousness, as did its popularity as a fictional plot element in books, plays and films. Finally, some MPs—especially 136 „Notes‟, Harvard Law Review, February 1930, 618. See, e.g. Emsley, English Police, 142; Cecil Chapman, The Poor Man’s Court of Justice: Twenty-Five 137 Years as a Metropolitan Magistrate (London, [1925]), 150-2; C. H. Rolph, „What Does it all Amount To?‟, in C. H. Rolph, ed., The Police and the Public: An Inquiry (London, 1962): 180-199; Harry Daley, This Small Cloud: A Personal Memoir (London, 1986), 81-2, 120-1; Mike Brogden, On the Mersey Beat: Policing Liverpool Between the Wars (Oxford, 1991), 104-10; Stephen Humphries, Hooligans or Rebels? An Oral History of Working-Class Childhood and Youth 1889-1939 (Oxford, 1981), 147; Peter Kingsford, The Hunger Marchers in Britain 1920-1939 (London, 1982); Andrew Davies, „Sectarian violence and police violence in Glasgow during the 1930s‟, in Richard Bessel and Clive Emsley (eds), Patterns of Provocation: Police and Public Disorder (Oxford, 2000), 41-62; Jerry White, „Police and people in London in the 1930s‟, Oral History 11, 2 (1983), 34-41. The Third Degree, 31 Labourites and Liberals—gave the term added political relevance by using it to put pressure on Conservative governments on this issue throughout the 1920s. While specific domestic issues and scandals drove concerns about police powers, the popularity of this distinctly American terminology in discussing them may be related to a broader issue. As Chris Waters has observed: In short, in Britain between the wars the term „Americanization‟ became a kind of shorthand for talking about a number of what were increasingly perceived to be unsettling changes that were affecting the nation‟s cultural landscape, a baggy receptacle for a strange amalgam of fears and anxieties about the presumed effects of American ideas, customs, language, cultural forms and social practices on what, by contrast, was articulated by a growing number as a distinctive national tradition.138 Such connections extended beyond crime to include crime fighting, and if some Britons were concerned that criminals were aping American methods, others, it seems, worried that their police may have been doing the same. The scandal surrounding the Savidge affair sparked a significant political response, prompting a more general inquiry into police methods. But although the Royal Commission changed little in police procedure, it contributed to calming public concerns. Not until the late 1950s would the issue of police powers again loom so large in the British press, public opinion and politics (as a result, again, of a series of scandals). The issue of interrogation methods has remained, perhaps unsurprisingly, a troubled area in police-public relations, emphasising the importance of the late 1920s debates in the longer-term history of British police powers.139 138 Chris Waters, „Beyond “Americanization”: Rethinking Anglo-American cultural exchange between the wars‟, Cultural and Social History 4, (2007): 453. 139 Tim Newburn and Robert Reiner, „From PC Dixon to Dixon PLC: Policing and policing powers since 1954‟, Criminal Law Review (2004), 601-18; James Whitfield, Unhappy Dialogue: The Metropolitan Police and Black Londoners in Post-War Britain (Cullompton, 2004): 87-9, 94-5.