The rosy retrospective view of London as relatively crime-free during the war has long been demolished, notably by Edward Smithies in Crime in Wartime (1982), and it is now recognised that many criminals continued their normal careers, seizing the fresh opportunities presented by emergency conditions. The blackout, in particular, provided good cover for criminal activities of many kinds, usually less alarming than the serial killings by Frederick Cummins in February 1942 that spread panic for a time. Theft and prostitution rackets flourished. Confidence tricksters found a new crop of victims among the many servicemen and other visitors passing briefly through London. Rationing 'fiddles' and pilfering offered easy profits, and most Londoners took advantage of the black market in scarce goods at some point, however minimally. Police and the courts were busy throughout the war and their records reflect the continuing problem, though it never became a serious crime wave. Newspapers, both national and local, are an invaluable source for this topic as for so many others.

Looting from bombed buildings was quite common; premises with particularly valuable contents were guarded as soon as possible after the raid, often by Home Guards. Newspapers carried frequent accounts of looters' court appearances. On 8 November 1943 the Yorkshire Post reported a destructive raid on Putney High Street, though it was not named in the article. The bombs had hit a dance hall, with considerable loss of life, but local opportunist thieves had got busy in nearby premises: 'LOOTING CHARGES - Youth accused of rifling milk bar till'. Roy F.D. Ford (17) was charged with stealing £1 cash, a half-pound of tea and 520 cigarettes from a bomb-damaged milk bar. He had been spotted by a police constable sent to collect the till money for safe keeping. In a separate case arising from the same raid, a Canadian Army corporal was remanded in custody for stealing a coat from a shop in the High Street. Some thieves did not scruple to rob the dead and the injured. As Mrs Blair-Hickman lay injured in the rubble of the Café de Paris a man came past and - as she thought - felt her pulse. He was stealing a ring from her finger. Her taped memories of the incident are in the IWM Sound Archive, on 2302.

The records of law and order in the wartime capital are spread among a variety of repositories. Those relating to London are divided between the PRO, LMA, the county and borough record offices and some specialist collections. They fall within three main groupings - records of policing, of the courts, and of prisons. For all three groups as represented at the PRO Michelle Cale's Law and Society: An Introduction to Sources for Criminal and Legal History Since 1800 (1996) is very helpful.