Policing - Early Policing, Professional Policing, Private Police, Seeking Reform, National Crime Spree, Counterterrorism
united forces century system
Policing in the United States is highly decentralized, meaning the legal authority to police is split among federal, state, and local forces. Most police forces largely operate independently, unlike policing in other countries. Many nations including European countries have strong national police forces. In the United States, a number of federal agencies have their own police powers. At the beginning of the twenty-first century some seventeen thousand police organizations existed in the United States, all operating with some degree of independence.
The U.S. policing system is highly decentralized, meaning its forces are widely spread throughout the states and each with varying amounts of power and independence. This kind of policing system was created by early American colonists who opposed having an authoritarian (highly centralized government power) police force, the kind they had while under British rule. The decentralized structure of the U.S. system, however, meant it evolved very slowly for the next century and beyond.
For much of U.S. history, few rules existed to guide policing. Not until the early twentieth century did police reformers
A fingerprint seen on a wireless device that can send the print via a wireless connection to be immediately checked against a database. (AP/Wide World Photos)
and the courts begin setting strict rules about police procedures. In the 1960s, the most active period during which courts established guidelines, new rules guided key police activities such as identifying suspects, arrest procedures, searching for evidence, and interrogation. Much of this court activity resulted from minorities seeking protection from police abuse.
Police in modern society look after the health, safety, welfare, and general morals of society. They maintain social order in communities and protect people's civil liberties (protections from unreasonable government actions). Police are responsible for solving crimes; enforcing traffic, drug, and firearms laws; carrying out routine patrols; and working with communities to prevent crime of all kinds.
For More Information
Books
Conser, James A., and Gregory D. Russell. Law Enforcement in the United States. Gaithersburg, MD: Aspen, 2000.
Gaines, Larry K., Victor E. Kappeler, and J. B. Vaughn. Policing in America. Cincinnati, OH: Anderson, 1994.
Miller, Wilbur R. Cops and Bobbies: Police Authority in New York and London, 1830–1870. Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press, 1977.
Morn, Frank. "The Eye That Never Sleeps": A History of the Pinkerton National Detective Agency. Bloomington, IN: Indiana University Press, 1982.
Oliver, Willard M. Community-Oriented Policing: A Systematic Approach to Policing. Upper Saddle River, NJ: Prentice Hall, 2001.
Walker, Samuel. The Police in America: An Introduction. New York: McGraw-Hill, 1992.
Additional Topics
Though societies have had codes of behavior for thousands of years since ancient Babylon and the later civilizations of Rome and Greece, the existence of professional police forces to enforce the codes has a much shorter history. The term "police" comes from a Greek word politeia meaning business concerning the order of the state. France established police including constables and ni…
Through the first decades of the nineteenth century U.S. communities were growing into cities with rapid industrial growth. Along with larger populations and increased crowding came civil disorder. The volunteer system of constables and night watchmen were soon outmatched by growing crime rates. Various cities tried new arrangements of replacing volunteer constables and night watchmen with more fo…
By the end of the nineteenth century, politicians and the public pushed for reform to make police departments more professional and part of the city government. As part of the city, police forces would no longer be controlled by political leaders such as mayors and councilmen. The reformers wanted training programs, increased standards for recruits, and focus more on crime and less on civil servic…
Through the 1920s crime became a national issue for the first time. Prohibition, which banned the sale, manufacture, possession, and transportation of liquor, brought crime syndicates, gangsters, and bootleggers (those who sold liquor illegally) plenty of business. The U.S. Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, and Firearms (ATF), first formed in 1862 during the Civil War, had much of the responsibility for…
Following the terrorist attacks on the World Trade Center in New York City and the Pentagon in Washington, D.C., on September 11, 2001, killing some three thousand people, policing in the United States experienced major new challenges. Intelligence gathering gained greater attention and counterterrorism led to much greater cooperation among police organizations of all levels of government. Police …
Major steps toward professionalism were led by a number of prominent police chiefs around the nation including Vollmer. Police departments adopted codes of ethics to combat corruption and established education requirements for recruits. Police academies were established and San Jose State College offered the first training program for professional policing in 1931. Police departments adopted forma…
A trend toward forming state police organizations grew throughout the 1920s and 1930s. Fifteen states established state police forces by World War II. State police forces first appeared in Texas and Massachusetts during the previous century. The Texas Rangers had existed off and on through the 1800s and were officially established in 1874. Massachusetts also experimented with a state police force …
Two national commissions on crime were established in the mid-1960s to determine how to improve policing in America—President Lyndon Johnson's (1908–1973; served 1963–69) Crime Commission on Law Enforcement and the Administration of Justice, and the National Advisory Commission on Civil Disorders. The commissions found major police weaknesses including abuse of power, b…
During the 1960s police also saw increased restrictions on their activities. Congress passed the Omnibus Crime Control and Safe Streets Act of 1968 requiring warrants for any kind of electronic eavesdropping (like tapping someone's phone to listen in on conversations). The U.S. Supreme Court under Justice Earl Warren (1891–1974) made several landmark decisions between 1961 and 1966 a…
The increased professionalism of public police departments in the 1930s led to their dominance over private police organizations until the 1970s. The high crime rates of the 1960s and 1970s, however, led to the rapid growth of private security firms. By 1975 there were twice as many private police as public. By 1990 two million private security officers
A major change in policing brought back…
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