The Founding and Evolution of the Police Force

The power to serve, protect, and enforce.

The American police system has been around one way or another since the colonies were created.

Most colonies in the earliest version of the United States had some form of law enforcement. There were night watches in all parts of the United States, however the south also had slave patrols that were kept until the end of the civil war. The first official police force in the United States was formed in Boston Massachusetts around 1838, by 1880 most larger US cities had established some kind of official police force. These departments were made to be bureaucratic unlike most of the law enforcement groups before.

In the beginning of the Police they came to find out that patrolling does not stop as much crime as earlier intended. They elected the help of the citizens to call in and report crimes so they would be able to cover the aftermath or stop the before mentioned crime from finishing. This method turned out to be far more effective than the police patrolling and stopping crime they saw, as large cities were beginning to grow and police forces were expanded thinly across them.

Some would argue that leaving this up to the citizens would cause more harm than good, one one side more crime was being reported and stopped, on another hand discrimination and prejudice raised a problem. This all goes back to one of the original law enforcement groups, the slave patrol. This group was the most prominent in the south at the time, due to this southern law enforcement was built on prejudice. Slave Patrols were responsible for taking escaped slaves back into custody, they spared no cruelty in doing so either. Careful not to kill them, but usually causing permanent damage–both mental and physical–that would prevent them from attempting another escape.

After the Civil War, during the Reconstruction era, this group had to adapt and change to fit into new laws. Most southern Americans felt threatened by the mass release of those subjected to slavery, this is where the new age of Slave Patrols started. Slave patrols were founded by wealthy former plantation owners, they became a gap between the poverish and rich. Due to the funding the already biased became less influenced to change their fundamentals.

When the 13th amendment was ratified and Jim Crow laws were instilled it was a matter of time before the slave force began to capatilize on it. They became the group that would enforce these laws the most, they focused on enforcing these laws to exploit a loophole for the 13th amendment. This loophole came in forcing freed slaves into indentured servitude to repay for their crimes, by arresting and serving harsh sentences they were able to continue to profit off of slave labor after the Civil War had ended. This Slave labor was conducted in designated labor camps for all those who were charged and convicted.

These people were not only unfairly policing minorities, but these same people were the ones who judged and sentenced them. This was not only a problem for freed slaves, but other Americans that suffered from poverty, although a different and far less widespread problem. These prejudices, that continued from the civil war forward, became the building blocks of the police forces in the United States: gray states included. This continued through the entirety of the Jim Crow Laws’ existence. Black crime rose when protests started, not because more crime’s were being committed, but because police and white citizens targeted the protesting population to enforce harsher punishments. This was used to stop protesting and keep people of color opressed. Stunting these protests was one of the police’s main jobs around the Civil Rights movements.

As Civil rights movements started and the Jim Crow laws were ended, the police force’s discrimination did not cease. Whether or not this is due to the police force or prejudice’s established by civilians is heavily speculated and debated amongst all forms of media.

Changes in the police force throughout the years were more enforced through societal standards changing than laws and bills being passed to change the way the police force changed. Individual police forces policies change based on the county, state and region of the United States. The recent changes due to societal standards, rather than laws, is to reflect the wants of the US citizens that the police were always supposed to stand for.

The modern day police force–especially during early 2020, the pandemic and the peak of the Black Lives Matter (BLM) movement–is regularly accused of discrimination againts minorities. The same police force has been working by the same rules for decades, little change has been made on a federal level. However there are bills, as of late 2022, that are being considered. Such as one that would hold police responsible for the mistakes they make that leave citizens injured or killed that was drafted after the George Floyd case. More change is coming to the police force, and it’s coming soon.

This is a huge change from the very beginning of the American police force–formerly the slave patrol–while the police will continue to evolve and change as societal norms change they have come a long way since their begginging based purely on violence, racism and a corrupt system that preyed on all minorities.