Kristian Williams - Our Enemies in Blue - Police and Power in America

252Chicago offering one of the few examples to survive into the 1960s. But even without the machines,corruption continued to be a pervasive fe ature of police departments across the country.Fogelson, Rig- Cit), Po /ice, 1 (,7-168 and 172. William Chambliss ,,,"scribes his findings: "Inmy rescnch on organized criml' in Sl'1tdc, Washington, I discovered a symbiu[ic rebtiollshipbetween organized crime and the police that made it impossible to differentiate between them.Law enforcement officers, from street patrolmen to police chiefs to members of the proseclltingattoflley" office, not only accepted payotfs frolll people who organized illegal gambling, prostitution,and drug sales, but the police and prosecutors were instrumental in organizing and managingthese activities. Scat tie is not the exception, it is the rule." William J. Chamhliss, Power,/'u/itics, rlnr! Crime (Boulder, co: Westview Press, 1999), 1.)6. The mid- and Iate- 1990s saw awave of corruption scandals, most notably in Los Angeles, Miami, Philadelphia, Chicago, andNew Orleans-but also in smaller cities like Rochester and Cleveland. Ofllcers were convictedof charges rdating 10 hrutality, theft, planting evidence, drug traHlcking, extortion, and murder.ec, t'H example: Amnesty Imcrnational USA, Vll itcd Stllics o/Alllait/l: Rig/w jil ( All (New Yo rk:Amnesty International. 1998), 2:l; Human Rights Watch, Shielrlcd from Justire: Polire Bruta/ityfind Acc(llItI"dJilit)' ill the Unital Stiltes (New York: Hum,lI1 Righb \Vatch, 1 ')')R). 36, 164-165,2'i9-260; and Chamhliss, i'll/Ocr. Po/itics, lind Crime, U6-.l7.49 Philadelphia t'lilowed the same path as London, where "in 1829 ... local ofIicials helped transferpower to the centre, hecoming consumers of a government service instead of providers." ElaineA. Reynolds, Bej())'{' II,I' Bobhies: n){, Night 1X'litch fllld Polire /?,form ill Jl1etro/,ulittlr/ Londo ll,1720-1830 (Stanf(Hd, CA: Stant(lfJ University Press, 1 ')98), 6.')0 "Because the police organization's structure cast its net over the whole city, an unintended consequenceor the adaptation of t he semi-military model or cornmunicarion meant char the policeended up with access to and coordinating power over the city's daily operations not achieveduntil the twentieth century hy other parts of the city government." Eric H. Monkkonen, j'o/iceill Urhiln /lit/trim, lR60- 1 920 (Cambridge: Camhridge University Press, 1 ')8 1 ) , 15')- 1 (;0.51 Reynolds, l!tjiirf the Bobbies, 21-22.52 Quoted in Selden Daskan Bacon, "The Early Development of rhe American Municipal Po lice: ASmdy of the Evolution of formal Controls in a Clunging Society, vol. 2." (PhD diss., Yale University,193