[Pfhreak]

Sorry, I was a bit vague. Yes, obviously law enforcement has existed for centuries. Uniformed police departments have not. Especially in the United States, where police violence is especially bad. (I had sort of implied this with the North/South dichotomy, but was not explicit about it.)

Historically, enforcement of the law was a military, community, religious, or rotating obligation. It was not particularly respected, organized, or high class. There were some exceptions, but in general our current model of policing evolved from English tithings. Groups of men who were responsible for bringing criminals forward. These groups were collected into Shires, overseen by a Shire-reeve (later "Sheriff"). The shire reeve could round up a posse to go collect a criminal.

Over time, cities started to want to improve the protections for their capital. They wanted to try and prevent crime rather than hunt criminals. The night watch had a reputation of being low class and unruly, and the city of Glasgow decided to clean up their act. They founded the first uniformed police department in 1800 in an effort to be a visible presence in hopes of deterring crime.

Police in America were largely slave patrols, sheriffs and posses, and militias until the middle of the 1800s, when larger cities started following Glasgow's model.

[manfredo]

As I pointed out in a response to your other comment [1] this is incorrect. Police as a public institution in the US date back to the colonial era, centuries before you claim the first police departments were formed. Altering the statement to saying that police were reformed to be more professional in the 1800s immensely different than claiming that police did not exist. The latter is akin to saying that armies didn't exist until the early modern period because most soldiers were levies instead of professional solder.

1. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=25341633