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

(2) citywide jurisdiction and centralization,(3) an intended continuity in office and procedure,15(4) a specialized policing function (meaning that the organization is only ormainly responsible for policing, not for keeping the streets clean, puttingout fires, or other extraneous duties) ,(5) twenty-four-hour service, and(6) personnel paid on a salary basis rather than by fee.There is one final characteristic that deserves consideration. The developmentof policing has been guided in large part by an emerging orientationtoward preventive rather than responsive activity. Though this ideawas firmly established by the time modern departments took the stage, itwas not until quite some time later that specific techniques of preventionentered into use, and the degree to which the police do, or can, or should,act to prevent crime remains even now a matter of intense debate.Fig. B. Characteristics of Modern Policing"POLICING" CHARACTERISTICSauthority to use forcepublic: accountable to centralgovernment authoritygeneral lawenforcement duties"MODERN" CHARACTERISTICSsingle organizationcitywide jurisdiction:centralized controlcontinuity in office andprocedurespecialized function24-hour servicesalaried personnelpreventive orientationRather than use these factors to draw a sharp line demarcating a clearlyidentifiable set of modern police (a line most police departments will havecrossed and re-crossed) , I propose we use these criteria to place various organizationson a continuum as being more or less modern depending on thedegree to which they display these characteristics.14 (1 have listed the traitshere in order of what 1 take to be their relative significance.) This approachmay seem a bit impressionistic, but I think the picture it offers is helpful inunderstanding the evolution of police systems. For the most part, the creatorsof the new police did not see themselves as marching inexorably toward anideal of modern policing. Instead, they adapted preexisting institutions to thedemands of new circumstances, evolving their systems slowly through a processof invention and imitation, improvisation and experimentation, promiseand compromise, trial and error. The rate of progress was unsteady, its pathwavering, its advances frequently reversed, and its direction determined by avariety of factors including political pressure, scandals, wars, riots, economics,immigration, budget constraints, the law, and sometimes crime.29