
The birth and
development of the American police can be traced to a multitude of historical,
legal and political-economic conditions. The institution of slavery and the
control of minorities, however, were two of the more formidable historic
features of American society shaping early policing. Slave patrols and Night
Watches, which later became modern police departments, were both designed to
control the behaviors of minorities. For example, New England settlers
appointed Indian Constables to police Native Americans (National Constable
Association, 1995), the St. Louis police were founded to protect residents from
Native Americans in that frontier city, and many southern police departments
began as slave patrols. In 1704, the colony of Carolina developed the nation's
first slave patrol. Slave patrols helped to maintain the economic order and to
assist the wealthy landowners in recovering and punishing slaves who
essentially were considered property.
Policing was not the
only social institution enmeshed in slavery. Slavery was fully
institutionalized in the American economic and legal order with laws being
enacted at both the state and national divisions of government. Virginia, for
example, enacted more than 130 slave statutes between 1689 and 1865. Slavery
and the abuse of people of color, however, was not merely a southern affair as
many have been taught to believe. Connecticut, New York and other colonies
enacted laws to criminalize and control slaves. Congress also passed fugitive
Slave Laws, laws allowing the detention and return of escaped slaves, in 1793
and 1850. As Turner, Giacopassi and Vandiver (2006:186) remark, “the literature
clearly establishes that a legally sanctioned law enforcement system existed in
America before the Civil War for the express purpose of controlling the slave
population and protecting the interests of slave owners. The similarities
between the slave patrols and modern American policing are too salient to
dismiss or ignore. Hence, the slave patrol should be considered a forerunner of
modern American law enforcement.”
The legacy of slavery
and racism did not end after the Civil War. In fact it can be argued that
extreme violence against people of color became even worse with the rise of
vigilante groups who resisted Reconstruction. Because vigilantes, by
definition, have no external restraints, lynch mobs had a justified reputation
for hanging minorities first and asking questions later. Because of its
tradition of slavery, which rested on the racist rationalization that Blacks
were sub-human, America had a long and shameful history of mistreating people
of color, long after the end of the Civil War. Perhaps the most infamous
American vigilante group, the Ku Klux Klan started in the 1860s, was notorious
for assaulting and lynching Black men for transgressions that would not be
considered crimes at all, had a White man committed them. Lynching occurred
across the entire county not just in the South. Finally, in 1871 Congress
passed the Ku Klux Klan Act, which prohibited state actors from violating the
Civil Rights of all citizens in part because of law enforcements’ involvement
with the infamous group. This legislation, however, did not stem the tide of racial
or ethnic abuse that persisted well into the 1960s.
Though having white
skin did not prevent discrimination in America, being White undoubtedly made it
easier for ethnic minorities to assimilate into the mainstream of America. The
additional burden of racism has made that transition much more difficult for
those whose skin is black, brown, red, or yellow. In no small part because of
the tradition of slavery, Blacks have long been targets of abuse. The use of
patrols to capture runaway slaves was one of the precursors of formal police
forces, especially in the South. This disastrous legacy persisted as an element
of the police role even after the passage of the Civil Rights Act of 1964. In
some cases, police harassment simply meant people of African descent were more
likely to be stopped and questioned by the police, while at the other extreme,
they have suffered beatings, and even murder, at the hands of White police.
Questions still arise today about the disproportionately high numbers of people
of African descent killed, beaten, and arrested by police in major urban cities
of America.
Victor E. Kappeler,
Ph.D.
Associate Dean and
Foundation Professor
School of Justice
Studies
Eastern Kentucky
University
References
National Constables
Association (1995). Constable. In W. G. Bailey (Ed.), The Encyclopedia of
Police Science (2nd ed., pp. 114–114). New York, NY: Garland Press.
Turner, K. B. ,
Giacopassi , D. , & Vandiver , M. (2006) . Ignoring the Past: Coverage of
Slavery and Slave Patrols in Criminal Justice Texts. Journal of Criminal
Justice Education, 17: (1), 181–195.
Written by Victor E.
Kappeler, Ph.D.
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