Origins of the police

[Demeter]

https://worxintheory.wordpress.com/2014/12/07/origins-of-the-police/

In England and the United States, the police were invented within the space of just a few decades—roughly from 1825 to 1855.

The new institution was not a response to an increase in crime, and it really didn’t lead to new methods for dealing with crime. The most common way for authorities to solve a crime, before and since the invention of police, has been for someone to tell them who did it.

Besides, crime has to do with the acts of individuals, and the ruling elites who invented the police were responding to challenges posed by collective action. To put it in a nutshell: The authorities created the police in response to large, defiant crowds. That’s

— strikes in England,
— riots in the Northern US,
— and the threat of slave insurrections in the South.

So the police are a response to crowds, not to crime.

MORE

[Dyedinthewoolliberal]

1. Hard to accept

any article on police or policing and the origin of such that doesn't mention Sir Robert Peel, acknowledged as the person responsible for convincing the citizens of England to accept a police force.
http://www.nytimes.com/2014/04/16/nyregion/sir-robert-peels-nine-principles-of-policing.html

[bemildred]

2. +1. nt

[brer cat]

3. One of the reasons I love DU

is learning something new. I had never heard of Sir Robert Peel or these principles. Thanks for posting this, Dyedinthewoolliberal. It is very timely.

[Hoppy]

5. Especially, principle # 4.

[FBaggins]

4. Exactly

You also have to ignore centuries of police history prior to this point (including decades in London where the police were explicitly intended to reduce crime).

[Demeter]

6. Hard to understand what you are talking about, when the 1st P of YOUR article states:

Police Commissioner William J. Bratton lists the following guidelines on his blog. There is some doubt among scholars that Sir Robert Peel actually enunciated any of his nine principles himself — some researchers say they were formulated in 1829 by the two first commissioners of London’s Metropolitan Police Department.

[Dyedinthewoolliberal]

7. That's because I'm a lazy poster

the fact is Sir Robert Peel is responsible for developing the worlds first police department in London. Whether he actually articulated those principles or not is beside the point, in my mind. They are concepts that certainly police in America don't seem to follow.
Here is a better link; http://www.historic-uk.com/HistoryUK/HistoryofEngland/Sir-Robert-Peel/

[Demeter]

8. You might consider the different "kinds" of policing

and see that just because you haven't been "kettled and pepper-sprayed" (yet) doesn't mean that this is not an authorized and mandated style of policing supported all the way up to the Supreme Court and applied at will without legal basis upon citizens...

Consider the Sherlock Holmes stories...the author was anything but complimentary to the British constabulary, and I am certain he had good reasons why. Ditto Gilbert and Sullivan. Art in Victorian England reflected and mocked real events and times, just as it does in our time, when it's not perverted by Corporate Agenda into what passes as entertainment in these benighted times.

Most people are NOT in the 1%. But in a democracy, we are told, that shouldn't matter. Sadly, our reality doesn't even come within spitting distance of our ideals.

[Odin2005]

9. For the most part professional police are unnecessary.

With the exception of situations where a SWAT team is necessary, crime can by handled by a neighborhood watch. The only "bonus" for having a professional police force is that then those who enforce "law and order" are loyal to the ruling class and not the people.