The name, police, comes from what it is that they do which is policy enforcement. That’s right, policy enforcement; not law enforcement. Law enforcement has always been up to the sheriff’s of each county to do. Sheriff’s are an elected office and can be held accountable by the people each time they come up for election. With the police, there is no election process, when is the last time you ever had a vote for the chief of police for your city on the ballot you casted? You never have would be the answer, so rack your brain all you want thinking about that time, you won’t be able to recall a time doing it.
Now for the history...
Policing got its start here in the United States by following a couple similar programs that were in place back in England known as “the watch” and “the big stick”. Boston was the first city to implement the night watch system back in 1636 and it was a volunteer system that the primary function was to keep an eye out during the night and warn if any impending dangers presented themselves. Twenty two years later New York added a night watch and in 1700 Philadelphia became the third city to add the program.
The night watch system was not all that effective; since the programs were voluntary and a lot of the volunteers would be drinking and pass out or just sleep when they were supposed to be watching.
First centralized municipal police...
Boston again led the charge when they established the first centralized municipal police force in 1838, New York City followed along in 1845. By the time the 1880’s came about pretty much every major municipality had its own police force. These police forces were publicly supported and had full time employees; they also had fixed rules and were accountable to the people running the municipal government.
Policing in the southern states was a little different story and started with a different purpose in mind. Because of slavery being in place in the southern states and slaves having a tendency to try and run away from their owners “slave patrols” were the actual forerunner to policing in the south.
Slave patrols...
The first slave patrols started in the Carolina's in 1704 with three main duties. The primary duty was to chase down and apprehend runaway slaves and return them to their owners. They were also used as fear tactic to help deter any potential revolts by the slaves; you could say that they were the original home grown terrorist organization here in America. The slave patrol folks were also the policy enforcers for plantations and would dole out punishment for the slaves who broke plantation rules.
When after the slaves were freed, following the civil war, these slave patrols ended up becoming the police departments in the south and now were tasked with trying to keep the freed slaves, who were working as laborers and farm workers, under control in the communities.
The catalyst to policing...
The catalyst behind the growth of policing was the growth of the urban cities. As these cities grew in population one would think that crime was the major component that led to modern day police forces but that really wasn’t the case, it was mercantile businesses that wanted someone other than themselves to keep their workers “in line” so to speak. They needed a mechanism that could keep and enforce social policy which would insure that they would have a stable work force to keep their businesses running.
Those businesses would much rather pay the taxes and let the local governments provide the services than them having to do it themselves, plus the police became the security force for protecting their physical properties. Social policy is what policing was all about, it was never about law.
For the most part it still is about enforcing social policy; the problem is that law and social policy are two different things. Rather than admit that, the government has over the years down played the existence of law and substituted with codes and statutes, which are social policy, and called them law.
Washington's finger prints...
Local municipal police and even state police agencies posed a big problem for the people running the nation up in Washington, D.C.. The federal government couldn’t really dictate what the local agencies were doing and so the needed a way to get involved in the local policing. You have to remember, there is a lot of money changing hands in Washington between elected officials and lobbyists. It is the job of the lobbyist to” influence”, (bribe would be a better word) influence the elected officials into passing laws (codes and statutes) that will set social policy that is favorable to the businesses the lobbyists represent. In 1977 congress passed the Federal Grant and Cooperative Agreement Act of 1977 and federal money started being pumped into local police agencies, thus giving the federal government leverage over these local agencies. After the end of the first Gulf War in 1991 we started seeing a massive amount of surplus war vehicles in the form of armored transports and even tanks being sent to local police departments for use in their policing efforts.
Now with all these specialized police units, like the SWAT teams and bomb squads, local police forces are looking more like army squadrons than police agencies. Which makes you kind of wonder just how much leverage does Washington have on these local agencies and is there something else in store that we just might not be aware of yet?
That civil asset forfeiture we discussed the other day is just another carrot the federal government is using to gain even further cooperation and control over local police agencies and it seems to be working well for the government, not so much for the people who have lost millions in seizures collectively.
So now you at least know a little of the history behind policing in the USA, and that it was all about, and still is, social policy enforcement and not about law.
Suggested reading...
#wakeupamerica
Until next time,
