Community Policing and Police Essay

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Police: History, Structure, and Functions

The policing system's development in Britain was closely followed by a similar development in America. Policing by the initial colonizers assumed two forms: "The Big Stick" (for-profit, private agency policing) and the "Watch" (communal as well as informal) (Spitzer, 1979). Community volunteers primarily charged with warning citizens of imminent danger made up the latter system. The night watch was first implemented in the year 1636 in Boston. New York and Philadelphia implemented night watch system in the years 1658 and 1700, respectively. This system did not prove particularly successful in controlling crime. Supplementing the "watch" mode of policing was a group of official law enforcers, labeled "constables," who were often salaried by a fee system, based on number of warrants served by them. Policing's informal procedure continued for several years following the 1765-83 American Revolution. Only in the 1830s did the U.S. first introduce a municipal, centralized police department.

Widely recognized as contemporary policing's founding father, Sir Robert Peel implemented several key reforms to English criminal law when he was Home Secretary. The changes he effected to the English penal code decreased crimes whose penalty was 'death' and ensured convict education. Robert Peel instituted London's "Metropolitan Police" on the basis of nine self-formulated law enforcement principles. These contemporary police bodies had the following characteristics in common: (1) Bureaucratic and publicly supported organization; (2) Full-time police officers, rather than case-based fee retainers and community volunteers, constituting the organization; (3) Fixed, unchanging procedures and rules, and continuous employment as an official; and (4) Accountability to a main governmental organization (Lundman 1980).

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Impact of Sir Robert Peel on American policing

Contemporary community policing's founder, Peel, was Home Secretary of the UK, between 1812 and 1818. He was known for his stern yet kindly personality. He aided Ireland in instituting a native police force for calming the region's conflicts that surfaced after it joined the United Kingdom. He accomplished far-reaching penal reform, going on to ensure the passing of the 1829 MPA (Metropolitan Police Act) that had a central role to play in the Met's creation. Besides the MPA, he also composed law enforcement's famous 9 "Peelian Principles," which basically maintained that policemen are the citizens and the citizens are policemen; further, crime can be prevented without closely intruding into the lives of citizens (Lewis, 2011).

Certain practices like qualitative meetings with the people rather than counting how many arrests one made and badge-number issuance for guaranteeing officer accountability were derived from Peel's model of community policing. English policemen who were taught the Peelian Principles were stationed across urban areas; society commonly called them 'Bobbies' or 'Peelers' (Lewis, 2011). Robert Peel emphasized crime prevention, and not detection, as the policemen's chief responsibility. He decided to make them….....

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