[bcdtttt]

While some night watches were public safety distributed among community members, they were often there to protect the goods of merchants rather than protect the ordinary citizens of an area from petty crime. As merchants grew, and their goods became more valuable targets, the merchants would hire on guards, but saw the opportunity to turn the existing night watch systems in place to their favor, essentially insisting on distributing the cost of guarding their goods across the community.

I'm not saying the night watches didn't evolve into police departments, I'm saying the night watches were co-opted prior to them becoming uniformed departments.

And slave patrols led directly into being police departments in some parts of the US. I do not claim that's in the history of all depts, but across the south there are many cases of patrols becoming formalized into police departments.

[andrewla]

For the warehouse guards, to summarize, you're saying that night watchmen and city watchmen were de facto warehouse guards before the formation of professional police forces? That seems a far cry from "evolved out of warehouse guards". Police still put resources into protecting property, but this does not make them "warehouse guards" any more than resources put on petty crime make them "cutpurse chasers" unless you're just making rhetorical points.

For the slave patrol point, I would appreciate a single example of this phenomenon. Is it the claim that there exists at least one professional police force that was created to replace a "slave patrol", which previously performed some subset of the civil duties of police officers? I have not been able to find an example; can you point me to one?

[bcdtttt]

The establishment of the Charleston police department directly traces roots into slave patrols. The department was formed from city guard, who were used to round up spaces and put down slave revolts.

[andrewla]

From my admittedly cursory reading, this does not appear to be accurate.

The antecedent organizations to the modern Charleston police department, notably the Town Watch and the City Guard, were both dissolved in the aftermath of the civil war, while civil order was kept by federal forces until the end of reconstruction.

But regardless of whether we can chase down a chain of organizations that meets the colloquial meaning of "evolved", it does not appear that either the City Guard nor the Town Watch were principally slave patrols, although they did enforce the slavery regime as part of their policing functions.

An organization that participates in the suppression of slaves as part of its function is not a "slave patrol". If the statement "[modern police forces] evolved out of warehouse guards and slave patrols" is to be parsed as "modern police forces evolved out of earlier organizations that sometimes protected private property or enforced slavery laws" then I grant the accusation, but it is rather hollow and meaningless at that point.

[sangnoir]

> For the slave patrol point, I would appreciate a single example of this phenomenon

Potter, Gary "The History of Policing in the United States"[1] references Platt, Tony, "Crime and Punishment in the United States: Immediate and Long-Term Reforms from a Marxist Perspective, Crime and Social Justice 18"

1. https://www.academia.edu/30504361/The_History_of_Policing_in...

[adolph]

Did you read Platt? Its a mistake to grant any assertion as valid, especially given what we now know about academic fraud. The Platt article is freely available and does not reference slavery in any way that I can see from searching (the bad OCR) and quickly reading through the paragraphs.

Potter: The genesis of the modern police organization in the South is the “Slave Patrol” (Platt 1982).

Potter: Platt, Tony, “Crime and Punishment in the United States: Immediate and Long-Term Reforms from a Marxist Perspective, Crime and Social Justice 18 (1982).

  "CRIME AND PUNISHMENT IN THE UNITED STATES: IMMEDIATE AND LONG-TERM REFORMS FROM A MARXIST PERSPECTIVE"
  Tony Platt
  Crime and Social Justice, No. 18, REMAKING JUSTICE (Winter 1982), pp. 38-45 (8 pages)

1. https://www.jstor.org/stable/29766165

[sangnoir]

I have noted we have shifted from "I can't find a single example" to "I don't trust the first provided source", and yet there are plenty of other sources, if you're searching in good faith.

The history of the United States is well documented - it was only for a brief period during reconstruction that policing was deracialized in the American South, and even saw a number of formerly-enslaved lawmen. There were numerous violent revolts against this, and in support of white supremacy in places like Oklahoma, Louisiana[1], Mississippi and elsewhere where egalitarian leaders were ran out of town, and the law enforcement (along other administrative leadership) was reconfigured against the then "new", post-civil-war ways.

Do you see any functional differences between slave patrols (membership free from white land owners or their nominees) and the group that overthrew and reconstituted reconstruction-era law enforcement (mobs drew from white landowners, or their hired grunts).

https://naucenter.as.virginia.edu/blog-page/1761

[adolph]

Don’t “good faith” me with a reference that you claim supports your assertion but in actuality does not. You made an assertion and can defend it or abandon it.

If evidence for your claim was as plentiful as you claim, you would just add another link. You didn’t.

[sangnoir]

> If evidence for your claim was as plentiful as you claim, you would just add another link.

I gave examples of 3 southern states (and a link to one, detailing how the law enforcement was devolved to antebellum mores in Louisiana)

[joemazerino]

Marxist references are valid?

[sangnoir]

I suppose if you dismiss an article out of hand due to the ideology of the author without even seeing what historical facts they claim or their references, they might not be valuable to you.

Should progressive academics declare all CATO papers invalid because they are ideologically misaligned with the institute?

[graemep]

Given the origin of modern police forces in the Met, the principles set down by Peel would indicate that the aim was to have a force that was backed by the public - "policing by consent".

One of their predecessor organisations was the Bow Street Runners which was set up by magistrates with the aim of providing a less corrupt system than that of "thief takers" and a more professional one than parish constables.

[adolph]

>>> That concept is from the mid 1800s. They evolved out of warehouse guards and slave patrols.

>> This is not accurate.

> I do not claim that's in the history of all depts, but across the south there are many cases of patrols becoming formalized into police departments.

What percentage of current police departments were conversions from slave patrols? What is the source of this data?

[WarOnPrivacy]

>> And slave patrols led directly into being police departments in some parts of the US.

> What is the source of this data?

https://duckduckgo.com/?hps=1&q=police+departments+were+conv...

[adolph]

Ok, first link in results contradicts "slave patrols led directly into being police departments in some parts of the US":

While it is true that slave patrols were a form of American law enforcement that existed alongside other forms of law enforcement, the claim that American policing “traces back” to, “started out” as, or “evolved directly from,” slave patrols, or that slave patrols “morphed directly into” policing, is false. This widespread pernicious myth falsely asserts a causal relationship between slave patrols and policing and intimates that modern policing carries on a legacy of gross injustice. There is no evidence for either postulate.

https://www.nas.org/academic-questions/36/3/did-american-pol...

[bcdtttt]

And did not mean to imply exclusively. Plenty of police departments don't have roots in slave patrols.