Chicago 1930 play online1/8/2023 ![]() cities had municipal police forces in place. In 1838, the city of Boston established the first American police force, followed by New York City in 1845, Albany, NY and Chicago in 1851, New Orleans and Cincinnati in 1853, Philadelphia in 1855, and Newark, NJ and Baltimore in 1857 (Harring 1983, Lundman 1980 Lynch 1984). It was not until the 1830s that the idea of a centralized municipal police department first emerged in the United States. These informal modalities of policing continued well after the American Revolution. In many cities constables were given the responsibility of supervising the activities of the night watch. Constables had a variety of non-law enforcement functions to perform as well, including serving as land surveyors and verifying the accuracy of weights and measures. Philadelphia created the first day watch in 1833 and New York instituted a day watch in 1844 as a supplement to its new municipal police force (Gaines, Kappeler, and Vaughn 1999).Īugmenting the watch system was a system of constables, official law enforcement officers, usually paid by the fee system for warrants they served. While the watch was theoretically voluntary, many “volunteers” were simply attempting to evade military service, were conscript forced into service by their town, or were performing watch duties as a form of punishment. The night watch was not a particularly effective crime control device. Boston created a night watch in 1636, New York in 1658 and Philadelphia in 1700. ![]() The watch system was composed of community volunteers whose primary duty was to warn of impending danger. It was both informal and communal, which is referred to as the “Watch,” or private-for-profit policing, which is called “The Big Stick” (Spitzer, 1979). In the early colonies policing took two forms. The development of policing in the United States closely followed the development of policing in England.
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