 Despite the introduction of the Bow Street Runners and other paid professionals, private citizens were still overwhelmingly responsible for initiating criminal charges against culprits.Research suggests this reliance on the public to exercise Judicial discretion may have put immigrant groups such as the Irish at a disadvantage.The practical application of the concept in the English policing system is attributed to Patrick Colquhoun, who presented his ideas in "A Treatise on the Police of the Metropolis" (1797).