Throughout America’s history, our laws have been a reflection of who we are, of what we value, of who has control. They embody our society’s genetic code. In the masterful hands of the subject’s greatest living historian, the story of the evolution of our laws serves to lay bare the deciding struggles over power and justice that have shaped this country from its birth pangs to the present. Law in America is a supreme example of the historian’s art, its brevity a testament to the great elegance and wit of its composition.
The purpose of this comprehensive history of American law enforcement is to fill the void of such a text. American policing is three hundred and fifty years old and the historical information is now collected in one place. The movement to professionalize the police service is moving rapidly forward and law enforcement student are graduating and seeking careers in a field whose history they know little about.
The police are constantly under scrutiny. They are criticized for failings, praised for successes, and hailed as heroes for their sacrifices. Starting from the premise that every society has norms and ways of dealing with transgressors, A Short History of Police and Policing traces the evolution of the multiple forms of 'policing' that existed in the past. It examines the historical development of the various bodies, individuals, and officials who carried these out in different societies, in Europe and European colonies, but also with reference to countries such as ancient Egypt, China, and the USA. By demonstrating that policing was never the exclusive dominion of the police, and that the institution of the police, as we know it today, is a relatively recent creation, Professor Emsley explores the idea and reality of policing, and shows how an institution we now call 'the police' came to be virtually universal in our modern world.
This groundbreaking history of how American police forces have been militarized is now revised and updated. Newly added material brings the story through 2020, including analysis of the Ferguson protests, the Obama and Trump administrations, and the George Floyd protests. The last days of colonialism taught America’s revolutionaries that soldiers in the streets bring conflict and tyranny. As a result, our country has generally worked to keep the military out of law enforcement. But over the last two centuries, America’s cops have increasingly come to resemble ground troops. The consequences have been dire: the home is no longer a place of sanctuary, the Fourth Amendment has been gutted, and police today have been conditioned to see the citizens they serve as enemies. In Rise of the Warrior Cop, Balko shows how politicians’ ill-considered policies and relentless declarations of war against vague enemies like crime, drugs, and terror have blurred the distinction between cop and soldier. His fascinating, frightening narrative that spans from America’s earliest days through today shows how a creeping battlefield mentality has isolated and alienated American police officers and put them on a collision course with the values of a free society.
This book provides knowledge on the history of law enforcement and its development and explains the factors leading to the evolution of the modern police officer. The first chapter provides information about the book’s purpose and methods of data collection and analysis. The next two chapters summarize ancient forms of law enforcement in Europe and the Middle East. Chapters Four through Ten describe the eras of American history from the early settlements to the modern metropolitan areas and how law enforcement evolved to serve and protect through these eras. Chapters Eleven and Twelve explain the Omnibus Crime Control and Safe Streets Act of 1968 and how this legislation affected law enforcement through increased availability of equipment and opportunities for education for all personnel in the criminal justice system. Chapters Thirteen through Fifteen describe specific problems that have developed throughout modern American society and how law enforcement has responded to these problems. Chapter Sixteen summarizes the evolution of police technology and how it affects the most visible member of policing: the patrol officer. Chapter Seventeen reviews the recent criticism and politicization of law enforcement. The final chapter provides conclusions that can be reached about the past and recommendations for improvement in the future. Whether the reader is a college student preparing to enter a career in criminal justice or a seasoned professional, this book will help avoid systemic mistakes of the past. For politicians, journalists, educators, and other people whose professions take them close to law enforcement personnel, this book will explain the evolution of those who have chosen to serve and protect and how they have gone from captured slaves to caring professionals.
In the second edition of this popular book, the author has thoroughly updated his analysis of the history of American criminal justice, exploring the tension between popular passions and the rule of law. Surveying the topic from the colonial era to the present day, Walker examines changing patterns in criminal activity, the institutional development of the system of criminal justice, and the major issues concerning the administration of justice. Comprehensive and concise, this book is the best single volume treatment of American criminal justice.
In sheer numbers, no form of government control comes close to the police stop. Each year, twelve percent of drivers in the United States are stopped by the police, and the figure is almost double among racial minorities. Police stops are among the most recognizable and frequently criticized incidences of racial profiling, but, while numerous studies have shown that minorities are pulled over at higher rates, none have examined how police stops have come to be both encouraged and institutionalized. Pulled Over deftly traces the strange history of the investigatory police stop, from its discredited beginning as “aggressive patrolling” to its current status as accepted institutional practice. Drawing on the richest study of police stops to date, the authors show that who is stopped and how they are treated convey powerful messages about citizenship and racial disparity in the United States. For African Americans, for instance, the experience of investigatory stops erodes the perceived legitimacy of police stops and of the police generally, leading to decreased trust in the police and less willingness to solicit police assistance or to self-censor in terms of clothing or where they drive. This holds true even when police are courteous and respectful throughout the encounters and follow seemingly colorblind institutional protocols. With a growing push in recent years to use local police in immigration efforts, Hispanics stand poised to share African Americans’ long experience of investigative stops. In a country that celebrates democracy and racial equality, investigatory stops have a profound and deleterious effect on African American and other minority communities that merits serious reconsideration. Pulled Over offers practical recommendations on how reforms can protect the rights of citizens and still effectively combat crime.
Listen to the History Repeating Itself podcast with the author. Watch this short YouTube clip of the author discussing Vollmer's use of bicycles in the Berkeley police department. August Vollmer was one of the most extraordinary men ever elected town marshal and appointed police chief in American history. It was Vollmer who brought policing out of its wholly corrupt and often brutal era of politics, by professionalizing not only his own police department in Berkeley, California, but police departments across the country and around the world. He was instrumental in the creation of the polygraph machine (lie detector), patrol car radio communication systems, and, as the Los Angeles Police Chief, the first crime lab in America. His greatest legacy, however, was the higher education program he created at UC Berkeley, which developed into the disciplines of criminal justice and criminology that are so widespread today. This riveting biography by Willard M. Oliver, ten years in the making, is the first single-volume, full-length biography of marshal, police chief, and Professor August Vollmer. It is a profound work of both biography and history, and brings to life the man who forever changed American policing and police education, reaffirming Vollmer's rightful title as "The Father of American Policing." Meticulously researched, the book draws upon newly discovered material, interviews, and writings of Vollmer's never before used, allowing Oliver to craft a richly detailed and fascinating narrative of Vollmer's life story. This magisterial portrait of one of policing's greatest leaders promises to reshape our understanding of both the man and his era and to rightfully restore August Vollmer as a household name.
During his 28-year career, Matthew Horace rose through the ranks from a police officer working the beat to a federal agent working criminal cases in some of the toughest communities in America to a highly decorated federal law enforcement executive managing high-profile investigations nationwide. Yet it was not until seven years into his service- when Horace found himself face down on the ground with a gun pointed at his head by a white fellow officer-that he fully understood the racism seething within America's police departments. Through gut-wrenching reportage, on-the-ground research, and personal accounts from interviews with police and government officials around the country, Horace presents an insider's examination of archaic police tactics. He dissects some of the nation's most highly publicized police shootings and communities to explain how these systems and tactics have hurt the people they serve, revealing the mistakes that have stoked racist policing, sky-high incarceration rates, and an epidemic of violence. "Horace's authority as an experienced officer, as well as his obvious integrity and courage, provides the book with a gravitas." -- The Washington Post "The Black and the Blue is an affirmation of the critical need for criminal justice reform, all the more urgent because it/DIVDIVcomes from an insider who respects his profession yet is willing to reveal its flaws." -- USA Today
In a remarkable book based on prodigious research, Morton J. Horwitz offers a sweeping overview of the emergence of a national (and modern) legal system from English and colonial antecedents. He treats the evolution of the common law as intellectual history and also demonstrates how the shifting views of private law became a dynamic element in the economic growth of the United States. Horwitz's subtle and sophisticated explanation of societal change begins with the common law, which was intended to provide justice for all. The great breakpoint came after 1790 when the law was slowly transformed to favor economic growth and development. The courts spurred economic competition instead of circumscribing it. This new instrumental law flourished as the legal profession and the mercantile elite forged a mutually beneficial alliance to gain wealth and power. The evolving law of the early republic interacted with political philosophy, Horwitz shows. The doctrine of laissez-faire, long considered the cloak for competition, is here seen as a shield for the newly rich. By the 1840s the overarching reach of the doctrine prevented further distribution of wealth and protected entrenched classes by disallowing the courts very much power to intervene in economic life. This searching interpretation, which connects law and the courts to the real world, will engage historians in a new debate. For to view the law as an engine of vast economic transformation is to challenge in a stunning way previous interpretations of the eras of revolution and reform.
