In December 1729, members of a well-known criminal gang in Dublin were arrested and sent to the Castle-Marshalsea prison following an investigation by MPs. Judging by the number of newspaper reports in the following weeks, there was a considerable amount of interest in the gang's activities from the general public in Dublin and London. Most of that attention was given to the leader of the gang, John Hawkins, a well-known figure in Dublin life in the 1710s and 1720s, and his wife, known only as ‘Madam Prue’. People debated what sort of charges should be utilised when, as they expected, the suspects were sent to trial. It was rumoured, for instance, that Hawkins had committed several murders, as well as fraud and theft, and that he even indulged in devil worship. This was not the first time the arrest of Hawkins produced ‘much chat’ among people in Dublin. When he was convicted in a court in Chester nine years earlier, and expected to be hanged there, it was reported that ‘several hundred of the inhabitants of this city [Dublin] would to go thither to see the execution’.

However, the interest in John Hawkins, and his associates, was generated not only from his long-standing reputation as a notorious criminal but also from his being employed by Dublin Corporation as its principal law enforcer. For over eight years prior to his arrest Hawkins controlled a criminal ring from inside the Sheriff-Marshalsea prison (commonly known as the ‘Black Dog’), where he was employed as a sheriff's marshal. He was also the keeper of Newgate prison (then Ireland's largest prison) and was directly involved in general policing duties, including the execution of arrest warrants and the suppression of riots. Various lord mayors of Dublin, who authorised gaolers to work in the city, repeatedly stated that Hawkins had been a highly effective and well-respected servant of the law. Consequently, in the 1720s Hawkins was the best known, and most feared, ‘law enforcer’ in Dublin.

In the absence of a full-time, professionalised police force, justices of the peace enforced laws by utilising gaolers, constables, watchmen, troops and bands of men sometimes known as thief-takers.