NCJ Number
180453
Editor(s)
Bryan Vila,
Cynthia Morris
Date Published
1999
Length
355 pages
Annotation
This collection of 95 primary documents traces the history and development of police policy and the role of police in American society.
Abstract
These documents provide substantive and background material on an event or issue through the text of pivotal primary documents that shaped policy or law, raised controversy or influenced the course of events and trace the controversial aspects of the event or issue through documents that represent a variety of viewpoints. The book is divided into seven sections: (1) Night Watchmen, Constables, and Sheriffs: The Role of Early “Police” in Seventeenth- and Eighteenth-Century America; (2) Rangers, Marshals, and Municipal Police Forces: The Role of the Police in the Nineteenth Century; (3) Police Reform and Social and Technological Advances in the Early Twentieth Century; (4) A Growing Emphasis on Police Training, Professionalism, Efficiency, and Ethics, 1930-1959; (5) Social Change and Conflicting Expectations of the Police Role, 1960-1978; (6) Reexamining and Redefining the Role of the Police, 1979-1989; and (7) The Role of the Police in the 1990s. Notes, glossary, appendixes, bibliography, index