It featured sensational and melodramatic reports and illustrations of murders and hangings and was a direct descendant of the execution broadsheets of the 18th century.

It appeared in literature as early as Chapter 14 of Charles Dickens' 1864-1865 Our Mutual Friend, in which Sloppy states "I used to give Mrs Higden the Police-news in different voices".

Its standards of illustration and tone were reminiscent of an earlier publication, The Newgate Calendar, and the popular "penny dreadfuls".

Around the turn of the 20th century The Illustrated Police News ran numerous articles dealing with the "alien immigration question" that promoted xenophobic attitudes and paranoia amongst its mostly working-class readership.

[1] Due to its detailed descriptions of violent and some-times disturbing crimes, it was banned in Ireland by the Committee on Evil Literature in 1926.