Book Review: A Force on the Move
| DOI | 10.1177/0032258X9606900419 |
| Author | R. Jerrard |
| Date | 01 October 1996 |
| Published date | 01 October 1996 |
| Subject Matter | Book Review |
chiefs in urban centres. Using many sources, including some personal
interviews, Dulaney chronicles the role of the black police officer.
The book includes a foreword by Chief Reuben M. Greenberg of the
Charlestown, South Carolina Police Department.
An interesting and informative book, Appendix A gives an insight
to the attitudes of the 1930s in America when R.B. Eleazer sent a letter
and questionnaire to police chiefs employing African American officers,
dated October 5, 1930, which said, inter alia,
"Dear Sir,
As a means of lessening the tension between the police departments
of Atlanta and the large Negro element of the population it has been
suggested that the appointment of a few Negro police to patrol their
own areas might be distinctly helpful. Before sponsoring such a step,
however, the group of citizens who are considering it feel the need
of definite information as the results of the policy in other Southern
cities."
The book is dedicated to, "Strong African-American men". Perhaps that
dedication should also go to Thurgood Marshall (b. 1908), great-grandson
of a slave and the first black man to be appointed to the United States
Supreme Court who died at the Bethesda Naval Medical Centre on
January 24, 1993, aged 84.
As a contribution to the social history of America this book is a
welcome addition.
A FORCE ON THE MOVE, by Pauline Appleby. Images, Malvern
Wells.
Hardback
£24.
A Force on the Move is the full story of the British Transport Police
from 1825 to 1995 and is a very stimulating and colourful book.
The cover states correctly that the British Transport Police are unique
in many ways, not least because they are responsible for policing a
mobile population of some three million people travelling on and around
the
UK's
increasingly complex rail network. As the reviewer prepares
this review it becomes even more complex with the privatization and
break-up of the network.
The story takes us, inter alia, through the beginnings; the early
railways; the detectives; the underground; the docks; the war years;
nationalization; and onwards to such incidents as the Moorgate rail
crash and the Kings Cross fire. Seeing some of the photographs of the
Moorgate rail crash brought back memories of that terrible incident to
your reviewer (thankfully the reader is not subjected to the full horror
of the photographs that were available at the inquest).
There are one or two small points which must not detract from afirst-
class book, eg, something seems to have gone amiss with the indexing
because p.225 is not, as claimed, "the Moorgate rail crash", but contains
aphotograph of a WPC sat at a computer. Also on p.118 a sergeant with
372 The Police Journal October 1996
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