short history of police

policing in england before 1829

• Up until early 19th century, constables were volunteers

• Men of social standing whose role was to collect taxes and investigate felonies

• But as Lyman notes, men of social standing began hiring out their turns at keeping the peace: “The result was that the parish’s poorest and most unfit were often the parish constables.”

• There were repeated bills in parliament in the early 19th century to create a professional, centralized police system, but they languished until 1831.

english politics 1800-1832 (significant events)

• Tories are in government repeatedly/Whigs are in opposition

• Corn Laws and Poor Laws are major political issues of the time

• Luddite Riots (1811)

• Peterloo Massacre (1819)

• Queen Caroline’s Funeral (1821)

fear of continental methods

idea of uniformed body of policemen patrolling the strets was not good and looked to much like the french - and englishmen generally saw continental monarchy as being based on polcie tyranny

police act of 1829

• declared that the police exist “to prevent crime and disorder as an alternative to the repression of crime and disorder by military force.”

• Lyman (151): “The most important provision established that ultimate responsibility for police finances, as well as administration, lay with parliament.”

• The notion that crime prevention is a central function of the modern state is born.

police and political repression

- Police as the enforcement arm of an authoritarian state

• Police used against organized labor in Europe and the US

• Police helped to “manage elections” in the United States as well

- Police in many states composed of army veterans

• Police poorly paid (and hence easily corrupted)

emergence of prisons

prisons emerged aorudn the 19th century as the main means of punishment while before incarceration(long term) was an exception. previously punishment was often public (brutal?) and showed the power of the sovereign - prison was seen as gentler way with the goal of reforming prisoners - with it emerges minute regulation of daily life, punishment by internalization of norms/rules/surveillance

prison and police systems grow across europe and US in 19th century

early US

- Colonial justice was (as in the UK) a business of amateurs

• No desire for federal law enforcement agencies

• Fear of standing armies (as in UK)

• Constitutional limits (4th Amendment: The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures unless theres probable cause under oath to search a specific place/person)

US law enforcemnt development

Late development of some key policing institutions

• 1870– Department of Justice created

• 1909– Bureau of Investigation (FBI)

• Before 1900, only Texas and Massachusetts had even statewide police forces

• No federal prison system until 1930

policing in the north

Role of policing (and prisons) in Boston, NYC, and Philadelphia of central importance

• Urban disorder, gang wars, and ethnic rioting in the 1830s and 1840s

• Police came from the areas they policed (contrast with Britain)

• Police jobs were source of patronage

• Corruption and scandal widespread, as was police brutality (no oversight mechanisms) - widely seen also as incomptent and weak

- growth of privtae securtity in late 19th early 20th century - then fbi emulated this but didnt replace private security till 1920s

policing sexuality

ealry 20th centuryt here was focus on policing sexuality and “vice” which meant prostitution (legal and tolerated in most cities)

mann act of 1910 made interstate or foreign commerce of transporting women fr purpoes of prostitution/debauchery or any other “immoral purpose” illegal

policing in the south

Policing was built around institution of slavery

• Slave patrols and police were indistinguishable

• South was (and remains) more violent than rest of the country

• Insults of family led to murder

• Dueling legal until after Civil War (and persisted thereafter)

• Mob violence and extralegal mechanisms (lynch mobs) were ignored or sanctioned by local authorities

• Not until 1930s that lynching even became a federal crime

policing prohibition (in short)

Rise of gangsters in 1920s and 1930s

• Perception of crime being “out of control” (see comic books)

• Prohibition was manned by poorly paid and inefficient government agents

• Police in general were once again viewed as weak and incompetent

• At same time, prohibition (like policing prostitution) led to widespread use of surveillance, wiretapping, use of informants)

rise of law and order politics (1930)

1934 crime package led to vast expansion in size and authority of FBI

• Reputation improved in popular perception (again, see comic books)

• “Organized crime” was the enemy (anti-Italian prejudice)

• Rise of the crusading DA

• Thomas Dewey declared “war” on gangsters in NYC and almost becomes president (1948)

• Dewey was the political patron of a young Richard Nixon