1860, we are faced with a much more protracted process. We find police departments approaching their modern form quite a while earlier; and yet, we can recognize that these same departments may not be fully modernized, even now.15 In short, this view avoids the tendency to treat our contemporary institution as the final product of earlier progress, as an end-point marking completion, and instead situates it as one stage in an ongoing process.
English Predecessors
Many people find it astonishing that the police have predecessors. They seem to imagine that the cop has always been there, in something like his present capacity, subject only to the periodic change of uniform or the occasional technological advance. Quite to the contrary, the police have a rich and complex history, if an ugly one. Our contemporary institution owes much of its character to those that came before it, including those offices imported or imposed during the colonial period. These in turn have their own stories, closely linked to the creation of modern states. It is worth considering this lineage and the forces that propelled change, from one form of control to another.
During the time between the fall of Rome and the rise of modern states, policing—like political authority—became quite decentralized.16 Policing initially took an informal mode, such as that of the frankpledge system in England.17 Under this system, families grouped themselves together in sets of ten (called “tythings”) and collections of ten tythings (called “hundreds”). The heads of these families pledged to one another to obey the law. Together they were responsible for enforcing that pledge, apprehending any of their own who violated it, and combining for mutual protection. If they failed in these duties, they were fined by the sovereign.18
Under the frankpledge system, the responsibility for enforcing the law and maintaining order fell to everyone in the community. Bruce Smith writes:
Our extremely modern concept of a specialized police force did not then exist. Neither was there any public means for repressing or preventing crime, as distinguished from its detection and the apprehension of offenders. The members of each tything were simply bound to a mutual undertaking to apprehend, and present for trial, any of their number who might commit an offense.19
This arrangement relied on the social conditions present in small communities, especially the sense of interpersonal connection and interdependence. But we should be careful of romanticizing this idyllic scenario. The frankpledge system was imposed by the Norman conquerors as a means of maintaining colonial rule. Essentially, they forced the conquered communities to enforce the Norman law.20
Still, the system was rather limited in its authoritarian uses, as it depended on a common acceptance of the law. Hence, English sovereigns later found it necessary to supplement the frankpledge with the appointment of a shire reeve, or sheriff, to act in local affairs as a general representative of the crown. The sheriff was responsible for enforcing the monarch’s will in military, fiscal, and judicial matters, and for maintaining the domestic peace. Sheriffs were appointed by and directly accountable to the sovereign. They were responsible for organizing the tythings and the hundreds, inspecting their weapons, and, when necessary, calling together a group of men to serve as a posse comitatus, pursuing and apprehending fugitives. The sheriffs were paid a portion of the taxes they collected, which led to abuses and made them rather unpopular figures. Eventually, following a series of scandals and complaints, the sheriff’s powers were eroded and some of his responsibilities were assigned to new offices, including the coroner, the justice of the peace, and the constable.21
According to the 1285 Statute of Winchester, the constable was responsible for acting as the sheriff’s agent. Two constables were appointed for every hundred, thus providing more immediate supervision of the tythings and hundreds.22 As Smith describes:
[The constable’s] early history is closely intertwined with military affairs and with martial law; for after the Conquest the Norman marshals, predecessors of the modern constable, held positions of great dignity and were drawn for the most part from the baronage. As leaders of the king’s army they seem to have exercised a certain jurisdiction over military offenders, particularly when the army was engaged on foreign soil, and therefore beyond the reach of the usual institutions of justice. The disturbed conditions attending the Wars of the Roses brought the constables further powers of summary justice, as in cases of treason and similar state crimes. They therefore came to be a convenient means by which the English kings from time to time overrode the ordinary safeguards of English law. These special powers, originating in the “law marshal,” were expanded until they came to represent what we know as “martial law.”23
Beyond his original military function, and the additional job of serving the sheriff, the constable was also responsible for a host of other duties, including the collection of taxes, the inspection of highways, and serving as the local magistrate. Ironically, as the posse comitatus came increasingly to act as a militia, the constable was without assistance in policing.24 By the end of the thirteenth century, the constable was no longer connected to the tything; he acted instead as an agent of the manor and the crown.25 By the beginning of the sixteenth century, the constable’s function was quite limited; constables only made arrests in cases where the justice of the peace issued a warrant.26
Around the middle of the thirteenth century, towns of notable size were directed by royal edict to institute a night watch.27 This was usually an unpaid, compulsory service borne by every adult male. Carrying only a staff and lantern, the watch would walk the streets from late evening until dawn, keeping an eye out for fire, crime, or other threats, sounding an alarm in the event of emergency. “Charlies”—so called because they were created during the reign of Charles II28—were unarmed, untrained, under-supervised, often unwilling, and frequently drunk.
In 1727, Joseph Cotton, the Deputy Steward of Westminster, visited St. Margaret’s Watchhouse and complained that there was “neither Constable, Beadle, Watchman, or other person (save one who was so Drunk that he was not capable of giving any Answer) Present in, or near the said Watchhouse.” A few years later, in 1735, John Goland of Bond Street complained to the Burgesses that he had been robbed three times in five years, noting that he “generally finds the Watchmen drunk, and wandering about with lewd Women.”29
The watch thus represented neither a significant bulwark against crime nor a major source of power for the state. Yet the watch continued in various forms for 600 years.
During the eighteenth century, the London Watch underwent a long series of reforms.30 While neglect of duty and drunkenness remained major complaints, most of the characteristics of modern police were introduced to the watch in this period, first in one locale and then in the others. “The goal,” as historian Elaine Reynolds notes, “was a system of street policing that was honest, accountable, and impartial in its administration and operation.”31 Toward this end, several West End parishes began paying watchmen in 1735; most other parishes adopted the practice within the next fifty years.32 During this same time, more men were hired, hours of operation were expanded, command hierarchies and plans of supervision were drafted, minimum qualifications established, record-keeping introduced, and pensions offered.33 Reynolds explains:
By 1775, Westminster and several neighboring parishes had a night watch system that was both professional and hierarchical in structure, charged with preventing crime and apprehending night walkers and vagabonds. While police authority did remain divided between several local bodies and officials, decentralization was not necessarily synonymous with defectiveness. These parochial authorities put increasing numbers of constables, beadles [church officials], watchmen, and [militia] patrols on the street, paid and equipped them. They spent increased amounts of time disciplining them when they were delinquent and increasing amounts of money on wages.34
Thus, during the eighteenth century the London Watch came very nearly to resemble the modern police department that replaced it.
The watch was also supplemented by various private efforts, including a “river police”
