LAW

Types of Police Agencies

Types of Police Agencies

Introduction

The development of modern police forces in American cities exemplifies the enhancement and growing complexity of municipal authority. At the same time, it reveals a shift in the basis of community order from a general consensus on moral and religious rules to reliance on a criminal justice system—of which the police force is only a part—to control an environment viewed by many urbanites as inherently deviant and contentious.

The earliest police arrangements in the English colonies were European carryovers. Until the early nineteenth century, towns and cities relied mostly on constables and night watchmen. The former ...