Partly because of Biden`s law enforcement record, the National Association of Police Organizations endorsed the Obama-Biden ticket in 2008 and 2012. In 2014, after police shot and killed Michael Brown in Ferguson, Missouri, the Obama administration created a task force on policing in the twenty-first century. The report argued that the police had become warriors, when they were supposed to be guards. Most of its recommendations have never been implemented. In the second half of the 20th century, the law enforcement model remained essentially the same, with the exception of a few major policy changes. These included the introduction of a suspect`s right to the presence of a lawyer during interrogation, the prohibition of the use of evidence in a trial obtained by unlawful search and seizure, and the Miranda warnings, which became a mandatory precursor to arrest in the 1960s. Police officers were also held to a higher standard and were expected to undergo significantly more training before joining the police. Community policing efforts also helped bridge the gap between police and citizens in the 1970s. In the 1980s, community policing helped police become familiar with and consult with the communities they served, reducing hostility between the public and public servants. In the 2000s, two-thirds of all local police services had a community policing plan.
Law enforcement systems existed in the various kingdoms and empires of ancient India. The Apastamba Dharmasutra dictates that kings must appoint officers and subordinates in towns and villages to protect their subjects from crime. Various inscriptions and publications from ancient India suggest that a variety of roles existed for law enforcement officers, such as that of a constable, a hunter thief, a guard, and a detective. [23] In ancient India until the Middle Ages and early modern times, feces were responsible for enforcing local law. [24] In the South, the development of American policing has taken a different path. The genesis of modern police organization in the South is the “slave patrol” (Platt 1982). The first official slave patrol was established in the Carolina colonies in 1704 (Reichel 1992). Slave patrols had three main functions: (1) to hunt, arrest, and return fugitive slaves to their owners; (2) provide a form of organized terror to deter slave uprisings; and (3) maintain a form of discipline for slave laborers who were subject to summary justice outside the law if they violated plantation rules. After the Civil War, these organizations developed in the style of vigilantes in modern Southern police departments, primarily to control freed slaves who were now workers working in an agricultural caste system and to enforce “Jim Crow” segregation laws designed to deny freed slaves equal rights and access to the political system. In cities, increasing urbanization has made the night guard system completely useless as communities have become too big.
The first state-funded organized police force with full-time officers was established in Boston in 1838. Boston was a large commercial center for shipping, and the companies had hired people to protect their property and move goods from Boston Harbor to other locations, Potter says. These merchants developed a way to save money by passing on the cost of maintaining a police force to citizens, arguing that it served the “collective good.” In 1779, Thomas Jefferson created a chair of law and police at the College of William & Mary. The meaning of the word began to change. In 1789, Jeremy Bentham noted that “police” had recently entered the English language, roughly in its modern sense, and made this distinction: the police keep the peace; Justice punishes disorder. (“No justice, no peace!” Black Lives Matter protesters cry in the streets.) Then, in 1797, a London judge named Patrick Colquhoun published “A Treatise on the Police of the Metropolis.” He, too, distinguished peace on the streets from the judiciary administered by the courts: the police were responsible for regulating and correcting behaviour and “preventing and detecting crimes”. In colonial America, the county sheriff was the primary law enforcement officer. For example, the New York Sheriff`s Office was established in 1626 and the Albany County Sheriff`s Department in the 1660s. The county sheriff, who was an elected official, was responsible for enforcing laws, collecting taxes, supervising elections, and managing the legal affairs of the county government.
Sheriffs investigated crimes and made arrests after citizens filed complaints or provided information about a crime, but did not patrol or take preventative action. Villages and towns usually hired police and marshals to make arrests and execute arrest warrants. Many communities also formed a night watch, or a group of volunteer citizens who patrolled the streets at night to search for crime or arson. Typically, gendarmes and marshals were the main law enforcement officers available during the day, while the night guard served during the night.
