Police History

Introduction

Comes from the word latin Politia, which means civil administration

• “Politia” is now the french word for police

• Police meaning the administration of public order in france durring the eighteenth century

• English used it to when talking about the marine police, a force that protected the merchandice of the port

Police as a civil authority

• Civil vs military

• Military can kill when needed, police do not do that (or they shouldn’t)

Early Police

Policing - Maintaining order and dealing with lawbreakers

• Originally a private matter

• Citizens were in charge of protecting themselves

  • Uniformed and organized police were rare

First law enforcement officers were unpaied magistarial judges in Athens

Romans created the first investigative unit, called questors (trackers of murder)

In most early societies, townpeople would form a group and watch over the city, making sure no badpeople got in

Praetorian Guard - Select group of highly qualified members of the military established by the Roman emperor Augustus to protect him and his palace.

• Concidered the first police officers

• Also created Praefectus Urbi which used executive and judicial powers to protect the city

Vigiles - Early Roman figherfighters who also protrolled Rome’s streets to protec the citizens

• The first civil police force used to protect the citizens

Public officials called lictors were bodyguards for the magistrate

• They brought criminals in front of the magistratial judges and carry out the punishmnet

European kings used the administration of law to replace watches and private forms of defense

• King Louis IX appointed a provost to watch over the night patrol and enforce the law

  • Provosts were assisted by commissioners and sargents

English Policing and Our Heritige

American law borrowed from the english system

Early History

Sir Robbert Peel created the first English Police department, the London Metropolitan police in 1829

• the first refrences to english police actually date back 1,000 years earlier

  • King Alfred the Great was preparing for an invasion by the danish. He focused on creating stability within his own kingdom

  • Mutual Pledge - A form of community self protecting developed by King Alfred the Great in the latter part of the ninth century in England. Organized the protection of the community into multipal levels

    • Lowest Level: tithings, 10 families who grouped together to protect one another

    • Middle Level: Constable: In charge of 10 tithings (100 families). The groups of the constable were put together based on geographic location called shires (modern day county)

      • Shire-reeve - An Early English official placed in charge of shires as part of the mutual pledge, evolved into the modern concept of a sherif

    • Hue and Cry - A method developed in the early England for citizens to summon assistance from fellow community members if trouble arrises

Frankpledge System: Focus on capturing criminals

• Tything (smallest)

• Hundreds

• Shires

• Shire Reeve (largest)

As formal governments were established and became more common, the criminal system changed

• The Statute of Winchester - created a basic legal criminal justice system in which most of the law enforcement responsibilty was placed on the people themselves, 1285

• Watch and Ward - Required all men in a town to serve on the night watch. A rudementary form of modern policing

  • Had three major duties:

    • 1. Patrol the streets from dusk till dawn

    • 2. Put out fires, light street lamps, clean garbage

    • 3. Enforce criminal law

• If a Watchman yelled, then everyone would leave their home and assist the watch

• The rise of powerful centralized governments and the decline of regional ones created a more formal criminal justice system

17th Century Policing: Thief Takers

A very fragmented and poor criminal justice system

• Magistrate - presided in court, ordred arrests, called witnesses, and examined prisoners

• Beadles - assistants to the magistrate

Thief Takers - Privete English citizens with no official status who were paid by the king for every criminal they arrested. Similar to the bounty hunter of the american west.

• Focus on combatting highway robbery of outlaws (robbin hood)

In 1693, Parlement established a monitary reward for the capture of any road agent/armed robber

Thief takers later expanded to include other crimes (with less of a reward)

If the highway robber was not convicted, the thief taker would not be paid though

• caused people to work together and frame others for crimes in order to split the cash prize

Henry Fielding and the Bow Street Runners

In 1748, Henry Fielding was appointed as a magistrate in Westminster, his house on Bow street was his office

Fielding and his half brother attempted to decrease the amount of robberies by becoming friend with the pawnbrokers

• Created a list of recently stollen items and asked any pawnbrokers to notify him if any of these items came into their shop

  • Created the first Crime Report

Created a small investigative unit called the bow street runners. They were privete citizens who were allowed to take thief takers rewards. The runners were eventually publically funded

• Created of constables and former constables

• Focus on arresting serious offenders (murders, thieves)

• The Thief Taker rewards was how they funded

In 1763, John Fielding created a civilian horse patrol of 8 men to fight robbers

• disbanded after 9 months due to no government support

A small foot patrol unit was established in 1770

Peel’s Police: The Metropolitan Police for London

1828, Sir Robbert Peel drafted the first police bill “The Act for Improving Police in and near Metropolis” (Metropolitan police act). The increase in immigration to london created more crime

• The home secretary of England

• This created the metropolitan police in September 29, 1829

1,000 men were hired

The first modern day police department

• Called the Father of modern day policing

Structured as a military, and they wore uniforms

• Officers were called “Bobbies or Peelers”

• Military like fashion, higherarchy

  • Organized, chain of command, accountability

First police commissioners were Colonel Charles Rowen and Richard Mayne

Thought that respect between officers and the citizens was needed

• the police officers were chosen based on the ideals of that society

• They were responsible to the public

• Focus on Crime Prevention

  • Not law enforcement

  • “If a crime happened, then I failed to prevent it”

Created a centralized manner

Peel’s Nine Principles

1. The basic mission for which the police exist is to prevent crime and disorder

2. The ability of the police to preform their duties is dependent upon public approval of police actions

3. Police must secure the willing cooperation of the public in voluntary observance of the law to be able to secure and maintain the respect of the public

4. The degree of cooperation of the public that can be secured diminishes proportionally to the necessity of the use of physical force

5. Police seek and preserve public favour not by catering to public opinion but by constantly demonstrating absolute impartial service to the law

6. Police use physical force to the extent necessary to secure observance of the law or to resore order only when the exercice of persuassion, advice, and warning is found to be insufficient

7. Police, at all times should maintain a relationship with the public that gives reality to the historic tradition that the police are the public and the public are the police, the police being only members of the public who are paied to give full-time attention to duties which are incumbent on every citizen in the intrests of community welfare and existence

8. Police should always direct their action strictly towards their functions and ever appear to userp the powers of the judiciary

9. The test of police effectiveness is the abense of crime and disorder, not the visible evidence of police action in dealing with it

The disordered law enforcement officers ended and it centralized policing

Beat System - System of policing created by Sir Robert Peel for the London Metropolitan Police in 1829 in which officers were assigned to relatively small permanant posts

• The officers were supposed to become framilier with the area and the people who lived there

  • Citizens needed to know that at any moment, a police officer could be there

• Focus on suppressing mob disorder, winning approval from the public, and creating a disoplined force

• Preventative Patrol - deter crime, Omnepresence

  • They don’t know where you are going and what you are doing (no routine), drive amilessly

Police were not originally well recieved

• Citizens saw them as an “occupying army” and battles occured between the police and citizens

• This hatred ended after a police officer was killed in the line of duty

Wanted to legitimize the police!

• Wanted the police to be under government control (create standards, create accountability)

Central headquarters located where most people are

Must have a means to measure sucessiveness

• Effectiveness of solving crimes? Good community report? A low number of cases?

  • It should never be measured by “number of arrests” → makes police arrest more people

American Policing: The colonial Experience

Community-based watch groups in Colonial America

• mostly ineffective

Sheriffs caught criminals

• They also went around collecting taxes (not the best idea? Corruption in the Sherrifs? Police should never be involved in collecting money)

Law enforcement was not a top priority for sherifs (tax collecting was)

Question: Should police carry guns? Police in London do not carry guns. In the US, they originally did not cary guns, not uniformed,

• Peel said they should be armed, wear uniformed, and should be allowed to use a “reasonable amount of force”

  • what is a necessary amount of force? The police would carry their clubs and tap them against the wall as they walked along to let people know where the police were

• Who should we hire to be police officers?

  • Peel said Men should be of stable mind to be police officers (good at controlling their emotions). Even though women are more calm and better at de escalation.

The North: The Watch

American colonialists were constantly at risk by native americans and other colonists

• used self defense and military/militia

17th century, northern colonies established a criminal justice system that was similar to the one in England

County sheriff was the most important law enforcemnet official. They collected taxes, supervised elections and were paied based on how many arrests were made

In cities, Town marshalls were in charge, aided by constables and night watchmen

• Boston created the first colonial night watch and the constable

The South: Slave Patrol and Codes

Protection against crime was the duty of the individual citizen

People took matters into their own hand

Slave Patrols - Police type organizations created in the American South during colonial times to control slaves and support the southern economic system of slavery

Called “Paddy Rollers” nickname for the slave patrolers

• Eventually became the modern system of policing in America

• Used to capture runaway slaves and protect white people from slavery uprising

  • High level of brutality, even after the civil war

Slave codes were enforced by southern police departments in order to supprt slavery and the economic system based off of it

• Charlston SC had 100 officers responsible for slave patroling

Dred Scott Decision - SCOTUS decision of 1857 ruling that slaves had no rights as citizens because they were considered to be property

Slave Patrols became so common that they were integrated into local militias

Where do police get their authority?

Limmited police authority

• They get their authority through laws (State tells the local government that they can make a police department, and the local government organizes the department)

  • City ordinances

  • But there is state police

• But what about jurisdiction questions? (who cares just catch the bad guy)

• PA has municipal and sheriffs department (sherifs do not have police authority, they can only do DUI enforcement)

• State police covers areas where there are no municipal/town police

• PA has the most in the nation

American Policing: Eighteenth and Nintheenth Centuries

The Urban Experience

With increases in population due to immigration, an increase in crime also came

Law enforcment was incompetent

Early Police Departments

Many cities created police based off of the Peel Model

First police department in the US was in Philidalphia (oldest police department in the US, 1751)

• Chicago 1854,

New York gave funds to create a 24/7 police system

At the start of the civil war, many major cities had police departments

• due to this, constables and sheriffs were releved of their patrol and investigative duties

Politics in American Policing (Political Era)

Policing was dominated by politcs and politicians, andcorruption

• Politicians hired officers, who helped politicians (officers would work for the mayor to get more money)

  • Officers would be at the polls

• Police ligitimacy came from formal law

• Outcome measured by:

  • Crime control and order maintenancce

• Politicians controlled police agencies:

  • Hired officers and promoted officers

Full scale police war between the democrates who controlled NYC and the Republicans who controlled New York Legislate

Main job of police in this era is to serve as the law enforcement arm of the political party in power, protect property, and control the immigrants

Politics determined who would get a raise or not

No screening for potential policing!

Precints ran like mini-Indepentnt departments

• Little oversight, each precint was different

Wide varity of police services

Limited supervision and accountability over patrol officers

• Bad supervisors → bad officers

Violence accepted as part of practice

• Violence was given to “alleged perpatraitors” and done to get confessions (give em the old “third degree”)

• Citizens didn’t complain because nothing would be done and if you did complain, then the police would hurt you

Lexow Commission

Group appointed to examine police corruption

Formed in NYC, put together by the state senate

Issued 300 supenas

The findings:

1. police were not to act as guardians of the public peace at the election polls

   1. duh

2. Instead of suppressing crime, officers allowed these activities to take place for a cut of the profit

3. Would only look for stolen property if they were given a reward

4. The evidence the police used would be given by harassing citizens

Some officers were fired, but the courts repealled the convictions (judges are politicians)

Sliker life rule: If you see a bad police officer what was fired but rehired, it was because the management didn’t know what they were doing

Early Police Officers Role

Role was Varied

• provided little service to the residents

They cleaned streets, cared for the poor/homeless

They were not given guns untill an officer shot at a felon with his own personal weapon

• By the 1900s, officers were given revolvers

Citizens hated police and thought of them as political hacks

The Southern Experience

Police in the south during the civil war expanded

very difficult finding trustworthy police officers

After the civil war, law enforcemnt duties were carried out by the military

The Fronteer Experience

Life on the Fronteer was hard

Sherrifs and Town Marshalls

Usually the only law enforcemnt out west

• Sherrifs were elected

• Town Marshalls were chosen by the mayor

Posse Comitatus - Common law decendent of the old hue and cry. If a crime spree occured or a dangerous criinal was in the area, the U.S frontier shieriff would call upon the posse comitatus, a latin term meaning “The power of the county”

• basically legal vigilantialism

Federal Marshalls

The Posse Comitatus Act of 1879 ended the use of the military to enforce law except when it was expressly stated by law

State Police Agencies

States and Territories also created their own policing

• Think of the “Texan Rangers”

Private Policing

Way more effective than public policing

EX: The Pinkerton Agency in Chicago discovered and thwarted a plot to kill the president

Reform Era, 20

Policing from 1900 to 1960 - reform era How they did it?

At the start of the twentieth century, attempts were made to reform the police

• Teddy Rosevelt tried to reform the police when he was on the New York City Board of Police Commissioners

Goal of reform era was the remove politics from policing

• Came up with different ways for police to do their work, control crime, and apprehend criminals

• Main goal of policing is to keep police, prevent crime from happening in the first place

  • If crime has happened then they have failed

• Do citizens feel safe in their communities?

PenMaps - why is crime up in this era? Buracratized

Standaredized police officers work

• No to situations are ever the same, discretion (there is no routine traffic stop, you don’t know anything about the person)

Allowed supervisors to be held accountable for their officers

• This is hard because policing isn’t a job that has the boss constantly watching over them 24/7

• Hard to supervise but you have to do it

• This control is monetored through reporting

Rank based policing: Go through the ranks when you have a message to give (Chain of Command)

1. Police chief

2. Management role (major, captor, deputy chief)

3. Lutenents (on teh road and in the office)

4. Sargents (on the street with the troops, a field supervisor)

5. Corporal (not a supervisor, but a intermediate supervisor there to help)

6. patrol officers

Intrecate record keeping

• Middle management slows stuff down

  • Have some, but not alot

• Buracrate stucture can be effective but oftens low stuff down and deligitimize the police

Professionalism

Internal Association of Chiefs of Police (IACP) in 1893 was the first professional society. Became a champion of professionalism through wanting a civil service police and removing political influence over policing

Pedlington Act established a civil service system that tested, appointed, and promotted officers on a merrit system

Set standards for the quality of the police they are hiring

• Better training

  • If politicians take money from police budet, then the police find the money by taking away the best training

Technology - high tech stuff

Use of technology increased - allowed police officers to get off of foot and to increase the rapid response

• Increases officers response time, increase routine preventative patrol (greater area, make them look like they are everywhere)

• Faster response time → public will call the police more when needed

• Sliker doesn’t like rapid response

Putting police in Cars!

Two way radios

Most police did reacting to crime rather than proventative patrol because more people were calling the polcie

• The cars/radios detached the police from the public which deligimized the police

The Boston Police Strike

The Boston Social Club (fraternal order of police officers) voted to unionize and join the American Federation of Labor (AFL). On September 9th, 70% of the boston police force went on strike. The govoner Calvin Coolige used the state militia and fired the striking officers

Ending police unionizing for decades

National Prohibition

Volstead Act (National Prohibition, Eighteenth Amendment) - Made illegal the sale and production of alcahol

Organized crime families used this to make money by selling alcahol

• When the act got appealed by the 21 ammendment, the crime families funnled their activity into other illegal schemes (gambling, prosetution, loan sharking)

Police were unable to stop it and were often corrupt, working with the crime organizations

The Whickersham Commission

Whickersham Commission - The first national study of the Criminal Justice system

• said the Volstead act was unenforcible because it was unforseable

criticised how short police commissioner’s terms were, saying they were to short to be effective

No effective and honest officers

Police were innept

In 1931, there was a national commission on law observence and comission (the wickersham commission)

• Looked at rising crime rates and the ability for police to manage the crime

• Police officers could deal with crime by focuses efforts on crime control intead of social services

• Don’t be social servencts, focus on fighting crime → not what they were founded for

First systematic investigation in police misconduct in the US

• A catalyst for police reform

August Vollmer

Chief of police in Berkley California

Put into place many practices that increased professionalism in the force

• use of intelligence, psychiatric and neurological tests

O.M Willsion

Reformed the Wichita Kansas police department

Studied the effectiveness of cop patrol cars

Raymond Blaine Fosdick and Bruce Smith

Neither were police officers

did research regarding hte police

John Edgar Hoover

An assistant director for the Bureau of Investigation (before it became the FBI)

• named director soon after

Under his direction, the FBI became the worlds leading law enforcement agency

• highered accountants, created the Unified crime report, NCIC, created the 10 most wanted list, FBI academy at Quantico

Kefauver Committee

Created in response to fear regarding corruption of law enforcement

The senate hearings found a network of organized crime (mafia) and that many law enforcement officers were on the payroll for the mafia

Policing in 1960s and 1970s

Great times of tension in the US

Supreme Court Decisions

Many police acctions were being declared unconstitutional

Mapp V Ohio - applied the exclusionary rule to all states

Escobedo v Illinois - defined the consitutional right to counsel at police interrogations

Miranda v Arizonia - people in police custody must be made aware of their constitutional rights

The Civil Rights Movement

Brown V Board of Education - desegregated all schools

Police were often used to arrest civil rights protesters

Police Response to Civil Disobedience

America is founded on civil disobedience

Media has played a big role in publicising confrontations between protesters and police

Anti-Vietman War Demonstrations

Many violent confrontations between protesters and police/government due to vietnam war

1968 Democratic national convention and the trial of the Chicago 7

Campus Disorders

Demonstrations also took place on college campuses

students burning their draft card

Urban Riots

Many protests in cities started as a result of a police action

Creation of National Commission

Presidents Commission on Law Enforcement and Administration of Justice - A commission that issued a report in 1967 titled The challange of Crime in a Free Society. The commission was created in the wake of the problems of the 1960s, particularly the problems between police and citizens

Kerner Commission - An commission that tried address the reasons for the riots in the 60s

Corruption and the Knapp Commission

Came from the allegations of NYPD officer Frank Serpico and Sargent David Duke

• Both of them witnessed the corruption. they told their higherups but after nothing happened they went to a reporter

Policing in the 1980s and 90s

violent crime dropped

Compstat - Weekly crime strategy meetings, which included the latest crime statistics and high stress brainstorming

Rodney King video of police beeting a black man

Policing in the 2000s

DC sniper case

Crime rates continue to decline

9/11

violence on police officer

Black Lives Matter

2020 and beyond