01482nam a2200181   4500001000700000100004100007101000800048200014700056311004000203330082400243461009701067606002401164606002401188606001701212606002101229606002701250700002301277373431  a20080108u           y0pory50      ba  aeng  aPolice and the prevention of crimeecommerce, temptation and the corruption of the body politic, from Fielding to ColquhounfFrancis Dodsworth  aResumo inserto no próprio artigo.  aExamining the conception and legitimization of systems for the prevention of crime in eighteenth-century Britain, particularly in the work of Henry Fielding and Patrick Colquhoun, I argue that the conceptualization of the causes and effects of crime as stemming from social processes rather than individual character is central to the history of the social. Examination of the work of eighteenth-century theorists of police demonstrates a particular understanding of links between economic, social and political change. Fielding and Colquhoun argued that crime was a public problem because, through imitation, vice spread like disease throughout the body politic, corrupting the state and leaving it weak and liable to dissolution. To prevent crime was to prevent corruption spreading by removing temptations into vice.  cOxforddMay 2007vVol. 47, n. 3tBritish Journal of Criminology (The)x0007-0955pp. 439-454  aPOLÍTICA CRIMINAL  aPOLÍTICA POLICIAL  aORDEM SOCIAL  aANÁLISE SOCIAL  aPOLÍCIA E COMUNIDADE  aDODSWORTHbFrancis