This article examines the history of American policing, from its English heritage to the community policing movement of the latter part of the twentieth century.
The English System
The origins of modern policing in the United States are linked directly to its English heritage. Ideas about police and the community, crime prevention, the posse, constables, and sheriffs developed from English law enforcement. Beginning at about 900 c.E., the role of law enforcement was placed in the hands of the common, everyday citizen. Each citizen was held responsible for aiding neighbors who might be victims of outlaws and thieves. Because no police officers existed, individuals used state-sanctioned force to maintain social control. This model of law enforcement is known as ”kin police”—individuals were considered responsible for their ”kin” (relatives) and followed the adage, ”I am my brother’s keeper.” Slowly this model developed into a more formalized ”communitarian,” or community-based, police system.
After the Norman Conquest of 1066, a community model was established, which was called frankpledge; this system required that every male above the age of twelve form a group with nine of his neighbors, called a tything (a group of ten). Each tything was sworn to apprehend and deliver to court any of its members who committed a crime. Each person was pledged to help protect fellow citizens and, in turn, would be protected. This system was ”obligatory” in nature, in that tythingmen were not paid salaries for their work but were required by law to carry out certain duties (Klockars 1985, 21). Tythingmen were required to hold suspects in custody while they were awaiting trial and to make regular appearances in court to present information on wrong doing by members of their own or other tythings. If any member of the tything failed to perform his required duties, all members of the group would be levied severe fines.
Ten tythings were grouped into a hundred, directed by a constable (appointed by the local nobleman), who in effect became the first policeman. That is, the constable was the first official with law enforcement responsibility greater than simply helping one’s neighbor. Just as the tythings were grouped into hundreds, the hundreds were grouped into shires, which are similar to counties today. The supervisor of each shire was the shire reeve (or sheriff), who was appointed by the king.
Frankpledge began to disintegrate by the thirteenth century. Inadequate supervision by the king and his appointees led to its downfall. As frankpledge slowly declined, the parish constable system emerged to take its place. The Statute of Winchester of 1285 placed more authority in the hands of the constable for law enforcement. One man from each parish served a one-year term as constable on a rotating basis. Though not paid for his work, the constable was responsible for organizing a group of watchmen who would guard the gates of the town at night. These watchmen were also unpaid and selected from the parish population. If a serious disturbance took place, the parish constable had the authority to raise the ”hue and cry.” This call to arms meant that all males in the parish were to drop what they were doing and come to the aid of the constable.
In the mid-1300s, the office of justice of the peace was created to assist the shire reeve in controlling his territory. The local constable and the shire reeve became assistants to the justice of the peace and supervised the night watchmen, served warrants, and took prisoners into custody for appearance before justice of the peace courts.
The English system continued with relative success well into the 1700s. By the end of the eighteenth century, however, the growth of large cities, civil disorders, and increased criminal activity led to changes and eventually a new system. In 1829 Parliament passed the London Metropolitan Police Act, which established a paid, full-time, uniformed police force with the primary purpose of patrolling the city. Sir Robert Peel, Britain’s home secretary, is credited with the formation of the police. Peel synthesized the ideas of his predecessors, convinced Parliament of the need for police, and guided the early development of the force.
American Policing in the Colonial Period
In colonial America, policing followed the English systems. The sheriff, constable, and watch were easily adapted to the colonies. The county sheriff, appointed by the governor, became the most important law enforcement agent, particularly when the colonies remained small and primarily rural. The sheriff’s duties included apprehending criminals, serving subpoenas, appearing in court, and collecting taxes. The sheriff was paid a fixed amount for each task he performed. Since sheriffs received higher fees based on the taxes they collected, apprehending criminals was not a primary concern. In fact, law enforcement was a low priority.
In the larger cities, such as New York, Boston, and Philadelphia, constables and the night watch conducted a wide variety of tasks. They reported fires, raised the hue and cry, maintained street lamps, arrested or detained suspicious persons, and walked the rounds. For the most part, the activities of the constables and the night watch were ”reactive” in nature. That is, these men responded to criminal behavior only when requested by victims or witnesses (Monkkonen 1981). Rather than preventing crime, discovering criminal behavior, or acting in a ”proactive” fashion, these individuals relied on others to define their work.
Nineteenth-Century American Policing
In the nineteenth century, American cities and towns encountered serious problems—urban areas grew at phenomenal rates, civil disorders swept the nation, and crime was perceived to be increasing. New York, for example, sprouted from a population of 33,000 in 1790 to 150,000 in 1830. Between the 1830s and 1860s, numerous conflicts and riots occurred because of ethnic and racial differences, economic failures, and moral questions and during elections of public officials. At the same time, citizens perceived that crime was increasing. Homicides, robberies, and thefts were thought to be on the rise. In addition, vagrancy, prostitution, gambling, and other vices were more observable on the streets. These types of criminal activities and the general deterioration of the city led to a sense of a loss of social control.
The first American police departments modeled themselves after the London Metropolitan Police. The most notable carryover was the adoption of the preventive patrol idea—the notion that police presence could alter the behavior of individuals and could be available to maintain order in an efficient manner.
American police systems followed the style of local and municipal governments. City governments, created in the era of the ”common man” and democratic participation, were highly decentralized. City councilmen or aldermen ran the government and used political patronage freely. The police departments shared this style of participation and decentralization. The police were an extension of different political factions, rather than an extension of city government. Police officers were recruited and selected by political leaders in a particular ward or precinct.
Cities began to form police departments from 1845 to 1890. Once large cities such as New York (1845) had adopted the English model, the new version of policing spread from larger to smaller cities rather quickly. Where New York had debated for almost ten years before formally adopting the London style, Cleveland, Buffalo, Detroit, and other cities readily accepted the innovation.
Across these departments, differences flourished. Police activity varied depending upon the local government and political factions in power. Standards for officer selection (if any), training procedures, rules and regulations, levels of enforcement of laws, and police-citizen relationships differed across the United States.Proper arrest procedures, rules of law, and so on were unknown to the officers. Left to themselves, they developed their own strategies for coping with life in the streets.
Police officers walked a beat in all types of weather for two to six hours of a twelve-hour day. The remaining time was spent at the station house on reserve. During actual patrol duty, police officers were required to maintain order and make arrests, but they often circumvented their responsibilities. Supervision was extremely limited once an officer was beyond the stationhouse. Sergeants and captains had no way of contacting their men while they were on the beat since communications technology was limited.
One of the major themes in the study of nineteenth-century policing is the large-scale corruption that occurred in numerous departments across the country. The lawlessness of the police—their systematic corruption and nonenforcement of the laws—was one of the paramount issues in municipal politics during the late 1800s. Officers who did not go along with the nonenforcement of laws or did not approve of the graft and corruption of others found themselves transferred to less than desirable areas. Promotions were also denied; they were reserved for the politically astute and wealthy officer (promotions could cost $10,000 to $15,000). These types of problems were endemic to most urban police agencies throughout the country. They led to inefficiency and inequality of police services.
A broad reform effort began to emerge toward the end of the nineteenth century. Stimulated mainly by a group known as the Progressives, attempts were made to create a truly professional police force. These reformers found that the police were without discipline, strong leadership, and qualified personnel. To improve conditions, the progressives recommended three changes: (1) The departments should be centralized, (2) personnel should be upgraded, and (3) the police function should be narrowed (Fogelson 1977). Centralization of the police meant that more power and authority should be placed in the hands of the chief. Autonomy from politicians was crucial to centralization.
Upgrading the rank-and-file meant better training, discipline, and selection. Finally, the reformers urged that police give up all activities unrelated to crime. Police had run the ambulances, handled licensing of businesses, and sheltered the poor. By concentrating on fighting crime, the police would be removed from their service orientation and their ties to political parties would be severed.
From 1890 to 1920, the Progressive reformers struggled to implement their reform ideology in cities across the country. Some inroads were made during this period, including the establishment of police commissions, the use of civil service exams, and legislative reforms.
A second reform effort emerged in the wake of the failure of the Progressives. Within police circles, a small cadre of chiefs sought and implemented a variety of innovations that would improve policing generally. From about 1910 to 1960, police chiefs carried on another reform movement, advocating that police adopt the professional model. This model embodied a number of characteristics. First, the officers were experts; they applied knowledge to their tasks and were the only ones qualified to do the job. Second, the department was autonomous from external influences, such as political parties. Third, the department was administratively efficient, in that it carried out its mandate to enforce the law through modern technology and businesslike practices. These reforms were similar to those of the Progressives, but because they came from within the police organizations themselves, they met with more success.
Overall, the professional movement met with more success than the Progressive attempt. The quality of police officers greatly improved during this period. In terms of autonomy, police reformers and others were able to reduce the influence of political parties in departmental affairs. Chiefs obtained more power and authority in their management abilities, but continued to receive input from political leaders.
In terms of efficiency, the police moved forward in serving the public more quickly and competently. Technological innovations clearly assisted the police in this area, as did streamlining the organizations themselves. However, the innovations also created problems. Citizens came to expect more from the police—faster response times, more arrests, and less overall crime. These expectations, as well as other difficulties, led to trying times for the police in the 1960s.
Crisis of the 1960s
Policing in America encountered its most serious crisis in the 1960s. The rise in crime, the civil rights movement, antiwar sentiment, and riots in the cities brought the police into the center of a maelstrom. During the decade of the 1960s, crime increased at a phenomenal rate. Between 1960 and 1970, the crime rate per hundred thousand persons doubled. Most troubling was the increase in violent crime— the robbery rate almost tripled during these ten years.
The civil rights movement and antiwar sentiments created additional demands for the police. The police became the symbol of a society that denied blacks equal justice under the law. Eventually, the frustrations of black Americans erupted into violence in Northern and Southern cities. Riots engulfed almost every major city between 1964 and 1968. Most of the disorders were initiated by an incident involving the police. In Los Angeles and Newark, the riots were set off by routine traffic stops. In Detroit, a police raid on an after-hours bar touched off the disorders. In Chicago, the brutality of the police toward antiwar demonstrators during the Democratic National Convention highlighted the difficulties of the police and the community.
The events of the 1960s forced the police, politicians, and policy makers to reassess the state of law enforcement in the United States. For the first time, academics rushed to study the police in an effort to explain their problems and crises. With federal funding, researchers began to study the police from a number of perspectives. Sociologists, criminologists, political scientists, psychologists, and historians began to scrutinize different aspects of policing. Traditional methods of patrol development, officer selection, and training were questioned. Racial discrimination in employment practices, in arrests, and in the use of deadly force were among the issues closely examined.
In addition, the professional movement itself came into question. The professional movement had unintended consequences— a police subculture developed, police-community relations suffered, modern technology separated the officer from routine contact with citizens, and the impersonal style of professionalism often exacerbated police-community problems. Tactics such as aggressive patrol in black neighborhoods, designed to suppress crime efficiently, created more racial tensions.
As a result of the problems of the 1960s and 1970s, a third wave of reform of police operations and strategies began to emerge— community-oriented policing. Community policing came to light as an idea and philosophy in response to the communication gap between police and community and because of research studies that questioned police tactics and strategies. A new paradigm that incorporated the “broken-windows” theory, proactive policing, and problem-oriented policing shaped the community policing reform era.
Police strategists recognized that simply reacting to calls for service limits the ability of law enforcement to control crime and maintain order. Police on patrol cannot see enough to control crime effectively— they do not know how to intervene to improve the quality of life in the community. The reactive strategy used during the professional era no longer was effective in dealing with complex problems in the 1980s and 1990s. Instead, Herman Goldstein (1979, 1990) and James Q. Wilson and George Kelling (1982) called for police to engage in proactive work and problem-oriented policing. Like other reform movements, community policing took time, resources, and strong leadership before it was adopted by law enforcement agencies. By the end of the twentieth century, however, many agencies had adopted the community policing philosophy, and all of the largest agencies in the country had community policing officers working on the street.
