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

was not created in response to escalating crime rates, but developed as a meansof social control by which an emerging dominant class could impose their valueson the larger population.This shilt can only be understood against a backdrop of much broader socialchanges. Industrialization and urbanization produced a new class of workersand, with it, new challenges for social control. They also produced opportunitiesfor social control at a level previously unknown. 'The police representedone aspect of this growing apparatus, as did the prison, and sometime later,the public school. Furthermore, the police, by forming a major source ofpower for emerging city governments (and for those who would controlthem) , also contributed to the development of other bureaucracies andincreased the possibilities for rational administration. The reasons for thesedevelopments have been made fairly clear, but the means by which the policeidea evolved and spread deserves further explication.IMITATION , EXP ERIMENTATION , EVOLUTIONStudies of police history that focus on the experience of a particular city ofteninadvertently imply that the police in New York, for example, (or Philadelphia,or Boston) developed independently based on the unique needs and specificcircumstances of that city. \0(, This perspective obscures a very importantaspect of police development, namely the degree to which city administratorsconsciously watched the innovations of other cities, drawing from them assuited their needs.lo7 This system of communication and imitation explainsthe sudden appearance of very similar police organizations in cities all acrossthe country, in a relatively short period of time. For though it took a very longtime for the characteristics of modern policing to develop, once they crystallizedinto a cohpfpnt form, the idea spread vcr-y quickly. "'"Of course, the practice of borrowing police models from elsewhere was notitself new. American cities borrowed their earliest law enforcement mechanismsfrom European cities, especially London and Paris.]I),! Georgia modeled its slavepatrols on those already established in South Carolina, which were themselvescopied from similar systems in Barbados; later it became cornmon for towns tocopy the patrolling techniques of others nearby. llo Thus it is not especially surprisingthat New York, Philadelphia, Baltimore, Boston, and Washington, D.C.,all took inspiration from the Metropolitan Police of London. I I IBut. the English influence on American policing should not be over-stated.Imitation occurred, but it was not total. Instead, "America's borrowing fromEngland was selective. The general form of innovation came from England,although Americans modified and transformed English patterns to fit theirparticular culture."1 12 Hence, the two countries prescribed very differentrelationships between the officers and the communities they patrolled. InEngland, the Bobbies were recruited from the countryside and from thelower ranks of the army. They were housed in barracks, denied the vote, andmade accountable to Parliament rather than to the local authorities. In theUnited States, the police were expected to be a part of the communities theyserved. They were to act not only as police, but as citizens and neighbors as72