page_title: Thief-taker
section_title: The profession of thief-taking
hierarchical_section_title: Thief-taker / The profession of thief-taking
caption_attribution_description: English: £20 reward offered for information in Kidderminster house burglary, 1816.
context_page_description: In English legal history, a thief-taker was a private individual hired to capture criminals. The widespread establishment of professional police in England did not occur until the 19th century. With the rising crime rate and newspapers to bring this to the attention of the public, thief-takers arose to partially fill the void in bringing criminals to justice. These were private individuals much like bounty hunters. However, thief-takers were usually hired by crime victims, while bounty hunters were paid by bail bondsmen to catch fugitives who skipped their court appearances and hence forfeited their bail. Both types also collected bounties offered by the authorities. Sometimes, thief-takers would act as go-betweens, negotiating the return of stolen goods for a fee. However, they were often corrupt themselves, for example extorting protection money from the crooks they were supposed to catch. Government-funded rewards for the capture of criminals were a corrupting influence, leading directly to the Macdaniel scandal.
context_section_description: There is evidence that thief-takers were active since the late sixteenth century, paid by both private citizens and public authority. The practice of hiring thief-takers continued to grow during the next century keeping pace with the exponential growth of the population and the better economic conditions. The national government started to be more concerned with crime in the 1690s, leading them to draw upon thief-takers to a greater degree, and to introduce permanent rewards, which were meant to encourage citizens to participate more actively in bringing serious criminals to the justice. This behaviour induced several people to start making their living by dedicating to thief catching as a specialized profession.
  Several thief-takers were previous criminals who faced the danger of being sentenced to death, but could rescue themselves thanks to the possibility of being pardoned for being instrumental in convicting other defendants, that is to say, for betraying their fellow criminals in trial. Prosecuted felons who managed to save their lives found in collaborating with constables and magistrates a suitable business for them, and a safer option than continuing to risk death penalty for committing serious offences. In fact, convicting perpetrators required a substantial degree of expertise in the criminal underworld, which administrations had not and would have paid for. Skilled thief-takers gained considerable power and reputation among their legal and illegal acquaintances: they were able to move at the limits of legality by taking personal advantage of their insight into the criminal world as well as of the crucial role they fulfilled in active policing for the public institutions.
  Statutory rewards were not the only responsible for the growth and settlement of such a new profession. In addition to this, thief-takers exploited the demand for arranging the return of stolen goods for a fee advertised in newspapers by the victims of theft, who preferred to have their belongings back than to engage in the costly and uncertain prosecution of their attackers. Furthermore, thief-takers were involved in a series of hidden activities that provided them with further sources of income: indeed acting as intermediates among different worlds offered plenty of temptation for corruption. Magistrates were aware of the dark side of thief-takers, but concerns with crime and the rise of criminal gangs, and no official active police force available, were some of the causes that obliged them to suffer thief-takers as effective instruments to reach the conviction of felons and to seal the gap in the judiciary system.
caption: £20 reward offered for information in Kidderminster house burglary, 1816.
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