The political economy of thief-taking

This paper is a focussed reassembly and interpretation of the world of the monied police in London from 1650 to 1750. It begins by tracing early commercial strategies in informing for profit, spying, thief-taking and crime-control. Next it examines the connections between thieving, receiving and deceiving as a form of policing in the first half of the eighteenth century. Then, the paper analyzes the political economy of blood for blood, especially the relations between law, the commercial compromise of the state and the market in the production of thief-taking. The paper concludes by discussing some limits of commercial policing for security and public order.