Police filming english streets in 1935: The limits of mediated identification

Abstract

This article considers an early example of technologically-mediated visual surveillance: the use of cine cameras by the British police in 1935 in the English town of Chesterfield in an operation to crack down on illegal street betting. The paper argues that the operation and its consequences in the judicial system illustrate a number of issues: unreliable policing on the ground; the enthusiasm for technological approaches to crime; and the limits of those approaches in producing usable evidence. The paper concludes that the Chesterfield case should prompt us to take another look at the impact of technology on interwar British policing, and its relationship to surveillance. This article accompanies the original 1935 film.