The History of Policing America

From Militias and Military to the Law Enforcement of Today

By (author) Laurence Armand French

Publication date:

05 April 2018

Length of book:

272 pages

Publisher

Rowman & Littlefield Publishers

ISBN-13: 9781538102039

America’s first known system of law enforcement was established more than 350 years ago. Today law enforcement faces issues such as racial discrimination, use of force, and Body Worn Camera (BWC) scrutiny. But the birth and development of the American police can be traced to a multitude of historical, legal and political-economic conditions. In The History of Policing America: From Militias and Military to the Law Enforcement of Today, Laurence Armand French traces how and why law enforcement agencies evolved and became permanent agencies; looking logically through history and offering potential steps forward that could make a difference without triggering unconstructive backlash.

From the establishment of the New World to the establishment of the Colonial Militia; from emergence of the Jim Crow Era to the emergence of the National Guard; from the creation of the U.S. Marshalls, federal law enforcement agencies, and state police agencies; this book traces the historical geo-political basis of policing in America and even looks at how certain events led to a call for a better trained, and subsequently armed, police, and the de facto militarization of law enforcement.

The current controversy regarding policing in America has a long, historical background, and one that seems to repeat itself. The History of Policing America successfully portrays the long lived motto you can’t know who you are until you know where you’ve come from.

Part I: Origins of U.S. Law Enforcement: Militias, Military, Marshals, and Sheriffs
Chapter 1: Introduction: Colonial Roots in Policing America
Chapter 2: Introduction to the Origins of American Jurisprudence
Chapter 3: Growing Pains—1783–1865: Insurrections, Rebellions, and Indian Removal
Chapter 4: Post–Civil War Unrest and Social Control during the Nineteenth Century

Part II: Law and Order in the Americas and Beyond, 1898–1946
Chapter 5: U.S. Colonial Expansionism in the Caribbean and Pacific
Chapter 6: Reinforcing WASP White Supremacy: Eugenics and Prohibition
Chapter 7: Post–World War II Challenges to Law Enforcement

Part III: Civil Rights Aftermath: Increased Militarization and Racial Myths Enhancement
Chapter 8: The Omnibus Crime Control and Safe Streets Act
Chapter 9: Role of Academia in Validating “Institutional Racism”
Chapter 10: The War on Drugs and Its Escalation
Chapter 11: Factors Contributing to the Militarization of the Police

Part IV: Twenty-First-Century Concerns
Chapter 12: Understanding Group Dynamics, Biases, Prejudices, and Discrimination
Chapter 13: Assessing Law Enforcement Personnel
Chapter 14: Politics and Policing
Chapter 15: Recommendations for American Law Enforcement

Postscript: An Ethno-Methodological Note

French (emer., psychology, Western New Mexico Univ.) does not offer just another historical survey of policing. He has written a loosely chronological account of the injustices perpetrated by the justice system against Native Americans, African Americans, and Mexican Americans (among others) from the Colonial period to the present. He traces the roots of this discriminatory enforcement of the law to early colonists’ Puritan culture, which fostered the embrace of Manifest Destiny and white (Anglo-Saxon Protestant) supremacy. Under the direction of these WASP elites, the police, courts, armed forces, and other legal (and extralegal) entities have regularly used violence to control other classes and races. . . French’s catalog of abuses serves to remind readers of the social and political context in which policing must be studied. . . his recommendations that reforms be based on a more sophisticated understanding of bias, and that psychological assessments of personnel be used to identify prejudice, appear sound.

Summing Up: Recommended. . . Undergraduates and general readers.