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

influence in wards where popular support was weak. As it did, however, itbegan the process by which control was shifted both upward and toward thecenter.49 Inadvertently, the creation of a citywide police force both drew upthe blueprint and laid the groundwork for the creation of other municipalbureaucracies, and the eventual destruction of the ward-based machinesystem.50 While somewhat ironic, this turn of events represents a continuationof the trends that had shaped the development of law enforcement asit approached the modern period-specifically, the growing emphasis onprevention, the tendency to expand police duties, and the move towardspecialized agencies. Each of these three factors contributed to the processof modernization, but the ideal of prevention occupied a special place as aguiding principle of police development.THE PREVENTIVE IDEAL, GENERALIZED POWERS, AND SPECIALIZATIONThe idea of preventing crime has long been the avowed aim of policing, butit has undergone significant revision over time. In the London Night WatchActs of 1737 and 1738, crime prevention was explicitly cited as the goal ofthe watch, though it is unclear how the body was supposed to contribute tothis aim.51 The instructions offered the Philadelphia Watch in 1791 were onlyslightly more explicit:[T]he said constable and watchmen, in their respective turns and coursesof watching, shall use their best endeavors to prevent murders, burglaries,robberies and other outrages and disorders within the city, and tothat end shall, and they are hereby empowered and required to arrestand apprehend all persons whom they shall find disturbing the peace, orshall have cause to suspect of any unlawful and evil design .. . . 52By 1800, the preventive rationale had been refined. The watch's role wasto ensure that criminals would be punishedY To this end, in 1794, the St.Marylebone Watch Committee resolved unanimously "that in case any Robberybe committed within the Parish, the Watchmen in whose Walk the sameshall happen be absolutely discharged." Several other London districtsadopted a similar standard, though eventually the limits of the system hadto be admitted. A few months later, St. Marylebone's committee relented,acknowledging that "many Robberies are committed within this Parish withoutthe possible knowledge of the Watchmen .... "54Watchmen were thought to deter crime by their mere presence and theycould detain people they suspected of criminal acts, but the watch was not adetective force and had no means for discovering the culprits after a crimewas committed. 55 The odds, then, were against apprehension. While the ideabehind the watch was preventive, the watch's methods were essentially reactive,and even their reactive capabilities were quite limited.When Robert Peel created the London Metropolitan Police in 1829, theprevention of crime was singled out as the new body's chief concern:It should be understood, at the outset, that the principal object to be attainedis 'the Prevention of Crime.'63