Macdaniel affair
The Macdaniel affair or Macdaniel scandal was a political scandal that occurred in the United Kingdom in 1754, when a group of bounty hunters, led by Stephen MacDaniel, were revealed to have been prosecuting innocent men to their deaths in England in order to collect reward money from bounties.[1] The scandal was an unintended consequence of the British government offering rewards for the capture of criminals, as before those rewards were instituted, thief-takers depended primarily on privately funded rewards from victims seeking return of stolen property or other restitution. The Macdaniel affair formed part of the impetus for the formation of salaried public police forces, who did not depend on rewards, to combat crime in the country.[2][3][4][5]
Stephen Macdaniel | |
|---|---|
 | |
| Born | ? |
| Died | ? England, United Kingdom? |
| Cause of death | likely from complications from injuries received in the pillory |
| Nationality | English |
| Occupation | prison bailiff, knife maker, public house keeper, criminal gang leader, fence, thief, thief-taker |
| Employer | Marshalsea Prison, self-employed |
| Known for | Led a criminal gang of thieves disquised as thief-takers who were responsible for the execution of innocent people for crimes they did not commit |
| Criminal status | misdemeanour |
| Allegiance | Marshalsea Prison |
| Criminal penalty | pillory |
Background
Stephen MacDaniel and his gang
Legacy
See also
References
- Delmas-Marty, Mireille; J. R. Spencer (first published in French 1995, English translation 2002). "European Criminal Procedures (pdf)" (PDF). Presses Universitaires de France / Cambridge University Press. Retrieved 2008-07-05. Check date values in:
|date=(help) - Benson, Bruce (1998). To Serve and Protect: Privatization and Community in Criminal Justice. NYU Press. ISBN 0-8147-1327-0.
- Rawlings, Philip; Tim Newburn; Les Johnston; Frank Leishman (2002). Policing: A Short History. Willan Publishing. ISBN 1-903240-26-3.
- McLynn, Frank (1989). Crime and punishment in eighteenth-century England. Routledge. ISBN 0-415-01014-4.
- Langbein, John H. (2003). The Origins of Adversary Criminal Trial. Oxford University Press. ISBN 0-19-925888-0.
- Hitchcock, Tim and Robert Shoemaker. London Lives. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 2015.
- Ward, Richard M. Print Culture, Crime and Justice in 18th-Century London History of Crime, Deviance and Punishment. London, UK: Bloomsbury Publishing, 2014.