J
U.S. Department of Justice
Office of Justice Programs
National Institute of Justice
Perspectives on Policing
January 1990 No.13
A publication of the National Institute of Justice, U.S. Department of Justice, and the Program in Criminal Justice Policy and Management.
John F. Kennedy School of Government, Harvud University
The Evolving Strategy of Police:
A Minority View
By Hubert Williams and Patrick V. Murphy
. . . then is an IUldersuu to evuy age abolU which history does ""'
often spealc, bectiJl.se history is wrinenfrom records /'ft by the
privileged. We learn abo"1 po/iii.cs from the po/iii.cal leadus, abo111
economics from the DllnpreMws, aboiu slavery from the
planla1ion owMrs, abolU the thinlcing of an age from ils inlellectwal
elite. - Howard Zlnn 1
Introduction
Kelling and Moore, in their recent interpretation of the
strategic history of American policing, succinctly summarize
that history as falling generally into three eras: (1) political ,
(2) refonn, and (3) community.2 This attempt to create
paradigms, as with all such attempts, should be seen
metaphorically, providing us with ways to crystalli7.e the
complexities of history in simplified terms. Seen in this way,
their analysis provides useful insights and a clearer
interpretation of the changing role of police in American
society-81 least with respect to the majcrity in that society.
&spite its utility, we find their analysis disturbingly
incomplete. It fails to take account of how slavery, segregation,
discrimination, and racism have affected the development of
American police departments-and how these factors have
affected the quality of policing in the Nation 's minority
communities. Furthermore, we find Kelling and Moore to be
silent on the important role that minorities have played in the
past, and will play in the future, in affecting and improving the
quality of policing in America. These omissions seriously
diminish the accuracy and objectivity of their analysis and
make it less useful than it otherwise could be in understanding
the past and predicting the future of American policing.
This is one in a series of reports originally developed with some
of the leading figures in American policing during their periodic
meetings at Harvard University's John F. Kennedy School of
GovemmenL Th~ reports are published so that Americans
inlereSted in the improvement and the furure of policing can
shue in the information and perspectives that were pan of
extensive debates at the School's Executive Session on
Policing.
1nc police chiefs, mayors, scholars, and others invited to the
meetings have focused on the use and,JXomise of such strategies
as community-based and problem-oriented policing. The
testing and adoption of these sttategies by some police agencies
signal important changes in the way American policing now
does business. What these chan.ges mean for the welfare of
citizens and the fulfillment of the police mission in the next
decades has been at the he.an of the Kennedy School meetings
and this series of papers.
We hope that through these publications police officials and
other policymakers who affect the course of policing will debate
and challenge their beliefs just u those of us in the Executive
Session have done.
1nc Executive Session on Polic ing has been dev eloped and
administered by the Kennedy School's Program in Criminal
Justice Policy and Management and fWlded by the National
Institute of Justice and private sources lhat include the Charles
Stewart Mott and Guggenheim Foundations.
James K. Stewart
Director
National Instirute of Justice
U.S. Department of Justice
Mark H. Moore
F-=ulty Chairman
Program in Criminal Justice Policy and Management
John F. Kennedy School of Government
Harvard University
This paper addresses these omissions by adding a .. minority
pcrspcctive ... Ours represents a .. minority perspective .. in two
different senses. First, our understanding of what factors have
shaped the evolution of policing was shared by only a minority
of those participating in the discussions of the Harvard
Executive Session on Community Policing. Whereas Kelling
and Moore (and many others) a11empted to explain the
evolution of policing in terms of strategic choices made by
police executives who were de veloping a professional ideology,
we sec policing as powetfully conditioned by broad social
forces and attitudes-including a long history of racism . They
sec police departments as largely autonomous; we sec them as
barometers of the society in which they operate.
' ' .. . the legal order not only countenanced
but sustained slavery, segregation, and
discrimination . .. and . . . the police were
bound to uphold that order ''
Second, our view is particularly attuned to how institutions,
nonns, and attitudes have dealt with racial minorities and how
those dealings affected the role of police during each of the eras
described by Kelling and Moore. More optimistically, we
believe that improvements have occurred in the last several
years and that furtha improvements are possible, although not
assured, in the future. We arc particularly aware of the
implications for African-American minorities, but we believe
that the patterns set in these relations have imponantly affected
relations with other racially distinctive minorities such as
Hispanics, Asians, Native Americans, and other people of color.
In this paper, we contend that the stralegies of police in dealing
with minorities have been diffetent from those in dealing with
others, that the changes in police strategies in minority
communities have been DlQl"C problcmalic , and dw. therefore,
the beneficial consequences of those changes fer minorities
have been less noticeable. Spccifacally, we argue that:
• The fact that the legal order not only countenanced but
sustained slavery, segregation, and discrimination for most of
our Nation 's history-and the fact that the police were bound to
uphold that order-set a pattern for police behavior and
attitudes toward minority communities that has persisted until
the present day. That pattern includes the idea that minorities
have fewer civil rights, that the task of the police is to keep
them under control. and that the police have little responsibility
for proteeting them from aime within their communities.
• The existence of this pauem of police behavior and attitudes
toward minority communities meant that. while imponant
changes were occurring in policing during our Nation 's history,
2
members of minority ~ benefited less than others from
these changcs-<:enainly less than it might have seemed from
the vantage point of the white community and the police
executives who were bringing about those changes.
•The Kelling and Moore discussion of the "political era" of
policing, a period generally defined by them as extending from
after Reconstruction through the fJJ'Sl decade of the twentieth
century, neglects the early role of the first varieties and
functions of police in this country~ well as the legal and
political powerlessness of minority communities in both the
North and the South. This omission means that their anal ysis
fail s to recognize that members of those minority communities
received virtually none of the benefits of policing that were
directed to those with more political clout
• Many of the most notable advances in poli cing broug ht abou t
by the advent of the "reform era" proved to be elusi ve, if not
counterproductive, for mi norities. Several of the hiring and
promotional standards, although implemented as antido tes to
the rampant nepotism and political favoritism that had
characterized policing during the .. political era" proved to be
detrimental to blacks-just at the time when, to a limited
extent. because of their increasing political power, they were
beginning to acquire the credentials that would have allowed
them to qualify by the old standards.
• The potential of "professional policing" during the re form era
was not fully rcaliz.cd--cithcr fer minorities or for
whites--ontil the civil rights revolution of the late 1960's and
the coming to power of progressive mayors, both black and
white, and the police executives appointed by them who were
capable of bringing about changes relevant to blacks and other
minorities. It w~ that movement. led primarily by black
Americans, and that political crnpowcnncnt that finally began
to produce the putative benefits of professional policing: a
fairer disuibution of police services, less use of deadly force ,
greater respect for individual rights, and equal opportuniry for
minorities within the Nation 's police dcpanments. Withou t that
movement. the promise of professional policing would have
remained hollow.
' ' • . • minority communities received
virtually none of the benefits of policing .. .
directed to those wilh more political clout . ' '
• The minority community also played a key role in initiating
the era of community policing. It was the riots of the late
1960's-and the election of many black and white progressive
mayors. who appointed lilcemindcd police chiefs-that
stimulated broad social invesunents in police agencies,
therefore putting the issue of police-community relations
inescapably on the minds of police executives and the mayors
who appointed them. The fact that police actions triggered
many of the riots and then could not control them revealed to
everyone the price of having a police deparunent backed only
by the power of the law, but not by the consent. much less
active suppon., of those being policed.
'' ... the riots of the late 1960's • . •
stimulated broad social investments in
police agencies . • . ' '
• The era of community policing holds poiential benefits and
hazards for the quality of American policing. The polential
benefits lie in the fundamental ienet of community policing: the
empowerment of communities to participaie in problem solving
and decisions about delivery of services based on the needs of
individual neighborhoods. The hazards lie in the possibility of
excluding those cotnmunities that have been the lemit powerful
and least well organized and th~ repeating the historical
patterns of race relations in the United States. If, however, the
more recent trends towards inclusion of African-Americans and
other minorities in policing and in the broader society are
continued, then community policing might finally realize a
vision of police departments as organizations that proteet the
lives, property, and rights of all citizens in a fair and effective
way.
The political era: Policing the powerl~
Kelling and Moore argue that during the political era, from the
introduction of the "new police" in the 1840's until the early
1900's, American police derived both their authority and
resources from local political leaders. We maintain that their
account is based largely on an analysis of policing in the cities
of the northeastern United States, mostly following the Civil
War and Reconstruction, and omitting the importance of racial
and social conflicts in the origination of American police
departments. As such, their analysis omits several crucial parts
of the story of policing in America: the role of "slave pauols"
and other police insauments of racial oppression; the role of the
police in imposing racially biased laws; and the importance of
racial and social turmoil in the creation of the first versions of
America's "new police."
Most analyses of early American history reflect an
understandable, white, twentieth-century bias toward northern,
urban, white conditions. While the literalW'C is replete with
studies of the growth of law enforcement in northern urban
areas in generat3 and northern cities such as BOSU>n,4 Chicago,5
Detroit, 6 and New York City,7 in particular, little aa.ention has
3
been paid to police development outside the urban North.
Kelling and Moore reflect a similar bias. Since the vast majority
of blaclc:s in the early years of America lived in the South, and
about 80 percent of those lived outside of cities, this perspective
creates a significant distortion.
Prominent police historian Samuel Walker has noted the
difficulty of establishing dates marking the origins of American
modem-style policing, that is, a system of law enforcement
involving a permanent agency employing full-time officers who
engage in continuous patrol of fixed beats to prevent crime. The
traditional analyses. based on wban evidence, have suggested
that such policing evolved from older systems of militias,
sheriffs, constables, and night watches, and cUlminated in the
"new police" of Boston in 1838, New York City in 1845,
Chicago in 1851, New Orleans and Cincinnati in 1852,
Philadelphia in 1854, St Louis in 1855, Newark and Baltimore
in 1857, and Detroit in 1865.8
As Richardson points out, however, these analyses neglect that:
[mmy other cities with] elaborate police arrangements were those
with large slave populatiom where white masters lived in dread of
possible black uprisings. Charleston, Savannah. and Richmond
provided for combined foot md mounted patrols to prevent slaves
from congregating and to repress any attacks upon the racial and
social stalus quo. In Charleston. for example, police costs
consticuted the lcgest item in the municipal budget.9
Indeed, as both WalkerlO and Reichelll contend, there is a
strong argument to be made that the first American modem­Style
policing occurred in the "slave patrols," developed by the
white slave owners as a means of dealing with runaways.
Believing that their militia was not capable of dealing with the
perceived threat, the colonial State governments of the South
enacted slave patrol legislation during the 1740's, e.g .• in South
Carolina:
Foreasmuch [sic) as many late horrible and barbarous massacres
have been accually commiued md many more designed. on the
white inhabilallts of this Province, by negro slaves, who are
generally prone to such cruel pr1etices, which makes it highly
necessary that con.stan1 patrols should be established.12
Neighboring Georgians were also concerned with maintaining
order among their slaves. The preamble to their 1757 law
establishing and regulating slave patrols contends:
.. . it is lbsolutely necessary for the Security of his Majesty's
Subjects in this Province.. that Pattols should be established under
propel' Regulations in the settled parts thereof, for the better
keeping of Negroes and other Slaves in Order 111d prevention of
any Cabals, Insurrections or other Irregularities amongst lhem.13
Such statutes were eventually enacted in all southern States.
Although specific provisions differed from State to State,14
most of these laws responded to complaints that militia duty
was being shirked and demands that a more regular system of
surveillance be established .
'' h . l . . h ... t eir ana rysis omits .•. t e
importance of racial and social turmoil in
the creation of the first versions of
America's 'new police.' ''
In Georgia, all urban white men aged sixteen to sixty, with the
exception of ministers of religion, were to conduct such patrol
"on every night throughout the year." In the countryside, such
pauols were to "visit every Plantation within their respective
Districts once in every Month" and whenever they thought it
necessary, " to search and examine all Negro-Houses for
offensive weapons and Amrmmition ." They were also
authorized to enter any "disorderly tipling-House, or other
Houses suspected of harbouring, ttafficking or dealing with
Negroes" and could inflict corporal punishment on any slave
found to have left his owner's property without pennission . IS
Foner points out that "slave patrols" had full power and
authority to enter any plantation and break open Negro houses
or other places when slaves were suspected of keeping anns; to
punish runaways or slaves found outside their plantations
without a pass; to whip any slave who should affront or abuse
them in the execution of their duties; and to apprehend and take
any slave suspected of stealing or other criminal offense, and
bring him to the nearest magisttate. 16 Understandably, the
actions of such patrols established an indelible impression on
both the whites who implemented this system and the blacks
who were the brunt of it
Reflecting the northern, urban perspective, Kelling and Moore
begin their consideration of American policing only after the
earliest "new police" were established in the 1840's and 18SO's.
·Even so, their analysis neglects to point out the imponance of
the role played by social discord in general, and the minority
community in particular, in the creation of these departments.
Phenomenal ~ in immigration, rapid population growth,
and major changes in industrialization led to more and more
people, many of whom were from an impoverished, rural
background, settling in an alien urban environment Conflicts
between black freedmen and members of the white urban
working class significantly contributed to social unrest
In 1830 Alexis de Tocqueville toured the United States to study
prison refonn. Unfamiliar with American nonns, be was
surprised to discover that there was more overt hostility and
halted toward blacks in the North , where slavery did not exist,
than in the South, where it did. Those who challenged the swus
4
. \
quo by demanding the abolition of slavery suffered verbal and
physical abuse in northern cities. 17 This tension was reflected
in a number of race riots in the mid-1830's in America's major
cities. New York City had so many racial disorders in 1834 that
it was long remembered as the "year of the riots." Boston
suffered three major riots in the years 1834 to 1837, all of
which focused on the issues of anti-abolitionism or anti­Catholicism.
Philadelphia. the "City of Brotherly Love,"
experienced severe anti-Negro riots in 1838 and 1842; overall,
the city had eleven major riots between 1834 and 1849.
Baltimore experienced a total of nine riots , largely race-related ,
between 1834 and the creation of its new police in 1857. ln a
desperate attempt to cope with the social disorder brought about
by this conflict, America's major cities resoned to the creation
of police deparunents. Clearly, this was a case of the political
sy stem responding to incendiary conflict within the society at
large by demanding that the police be reorganized to deal with
those conflicts .
In their discussion of the political era. Kelling and Moore
observe that the police found their legitimacy either in politics
or in law. For blacks, both before and several generations afrer
the Civil War, neither of these bases of legitimacy provided
much, if any, opportunity to shape policing to their benefit As
the authors point out, local political machines often recruited
and maintained police in their positions, from foot officer to
police chief. In relUm, the police encouraged voters to support
certain candidates and provided services designed to enhance
that suppcn DepaJUnents were organized in a decentralized
manner, giving officers a great deal of discretion in carrying out
their responsibilities. Police officers were closely linked to the
neighborhoods in which they pattolled, often living there and
usually of the same ethnic stock as the residents.
For those with political influence, this era provided close
proximity to power. Good jobs could be had. Special favors
could be obtained. The police could be expected to be
exuemely sensitive to community concems--0r lose their jobs
if they were not.
' ' ••• the first American modern-style
policing occu"ed in the 'slave patrols' . . . ''
For those with no access to political power, however, the
situation was very different Before slavery was abolished, the
issue of black political power in the South was moot The
Constiwtion itself provides a sardonic reflection on the s we of
political power assigned to slaves. The group of white delegaies
assembled in Philadelphia never even considered slave
representation, slave votes, or slave power. The only issue was
whethec a slave owner would enjoy a three-fifths increment of
representation for every slave he owned.
During the debate, William Paterson stated bluntly that slaves
were .. no free agents, have no personal liberty, no faculty of
acquiring property, but on the contrary, arc themselves
property" and hence like other property "entirely at the will of
the master." To make certain there was no mistake, the
Constitution explicitly prohibited Congress from abolishing the
international slave trade to the United States before 1808 .
'' •.• de Tocqueville •.. was surprised to
discover that there was more overt hostility
and hatred toward blacks in the North ... ''
Early American law enforcement officials in slave States were
empowered-and expec~ enforce starutes carrying out
the most extreme forms of racism, not restricted solely to
enforcing slavery:· In 1822, for example, Charles~~. South
Carolina. experienced a slave insurrection panic, caused by a
supposed plot of slaves and free blacks to seize the city. In
response, the Stale legislature passed the Negro Seamen's Act.,
requiring free black seamen to remain on board their vessels
while in Carolina harbors. H they dared to leave their ships, the
police were instructed to arrest them and sell them into slavery
unless they were redeemed by the ship's master. The other
coastal slave States soon enacted similar legislation.
Berlin presents this brief synopsis of Southern justice:
Southern law presumed all Negroes io be slaves, and whites
systanatically bamd free Negroes from any of the righis and
symbola they ~uated with freedom. Whiies legally prohibited
Negro freemen from movi113 freely, participating in politics,
testifyini aglll'5t whites, keeping guns. or lifting a h.md io strike a
white person .. . In addition they burdened free Negroes with
special imposts, bamd them from certain trades, and often tried
-~punished them like slaves. To enforce their proscriptive codes
and constantly remind free Negroes of their lowly status, almost
every State forced free Negroes to register and carry freedom
papen, which h.S to be renewed periodically and might be
inspected by any suspicious white.18
Police supervision further sttengthencd the registration system.
City officials periodically ordered police to check the papers of
all newly arrived free Negroes or investigate freedmen who
failed to regista or lacked visible means of support. 19
Outside the slave Swes, the rights of blacks were only
somewhat less resuicted. Although Henry David Thoreau and
William Lloyd Garrison exaggerated when they called
5
~husctts a slave State, their harsh denunciation is a
reminder that a black person could be a slave there or in any of
the other "free" States because of the protection afforded by the
Federal and State constitutions for masters' rights in fugitive
and sojourning slaves. It fell to agents of law enforcement.
constables and members of the day and night watches, to carry
out these laws. By 1800, some 36.505 non.hem Negroes still
remained in bondage, most of them in New York and New
Jersey.20
Several northern States enacted gradual emancipation starutes
after the Revolution. Because such statutes freed only children
born after a specified date, how ever, many slaves remained
unaffected, and the freed children were held in apprenticeship
until some time in their adult years . The State of New Jersey
was typical . In 1804, the legislature freed the children born to
slave mothers after July 4 of that year, the child so frud would
be "apprenticed" to its mother 's owner, men until age 25,
women until 21. Only in 1844 did it remove all barriers to the
freeing of slaves. Again, these laws were also enforced by the
local constable.
Even after the northern States took action to free
slaves-ranging from constitutional provisions in Vennont in
1777 to gradual-abolition acts in New Jersey in 1804 and New
York in 1817, the legal and political rights of blacks were quite
circumscribed. Every new State admitted to the Union after
1819 restricted voting to whites . Only five States­~
husctts, Rhode Island, Maine, New Hampshire, and
Vermont-provided equal voting rights for black and white
malcs. lliinois, Ohio, Indiana, Iowa, and California prohibited
black testimony in court if whites were a party to the
proceeding, and Oregon forbade Negroes to hold real estate,
make contracts, or maintain lawsuits. ~huscus banned
intermarriage of whites with blacks and enforced segregation in
hotels, restaurants, theaters, and transportation. Berlin describes
a raid in 1853 in which SL Louis police raided well-known
hangouts of freedmen , whipped those who were unregistered,
and shipped them out of town. Such raids continued for almost
a year.21
Litwack describes the situation of nonhcrn blacks this way :
In virnlally every phase of existence, Negroes found themselves
systematically separated from whites. 1bey were eitha excluded
from railway cars, omnibuses, stagecoeches, md steamboats or
assigned to special "fun Crow .. sections; they sat, when permitted.
in secluded and remote comers of theaters and lecture halls; they
could not enter most hotels, restaurants, and resorts, except as
servants; they prayed in "Negro pews" in the white chun:hes, and if
partaking of the sacrament of the Lord's Supper, they waited until
the whites had been saved the bread and wine. Moreover, they
were often educ:&led in segregaled schools, punished in segregated
prisons, nursed in segregaled hospitals, and buried in segreg&led
cemeteries.22
Indeed. as poinled out by C. Vann Woodward. an eminent
historian of the South, "One of the strangest things about Jim
Crow [the laws and practices separating the races] was that the
system was born in the Nmh and reached an advanced age
before moving South in force."23
'' [lfl free black seamen •.. dared to leave
their ships, the police were instructed to
arrest them and sell them into slavery ..• ' '
With neither political power nor legal SWlding, blacks could
hardly be expecled to share in the spoils of the political era of
policing. There were vinually no black police offK:CrS until well
inio the twentieth century. Thus, police aucntion IO, and
proiection for , areas populaled primarily by racial minorities
was rare during this era.
The reform era: Policing by the l_aw
for those unprotected by it
According to Kelling and Moore's interpretation. the basic
police strategy began to change during the early 1900's. By the
l 930's, they argue, the reform era of policing was in full sway.
Strikingly, their ~~on completely overlooks the
momentous events of the Civil War and Reconstruction, a time
of grr.at change in the legal and political status of minorities.
In the earliest days of the Civil War, President Lincoln and
other northern politicians insisted that the issue of slavery had
little to do with the conflicL In fact, in July 1861, when
Congress Jmembled in special ~ion, one of its first acrs was
to pass, almost unanimously, the Crittenden Resolution,
affuming that the "established institutions" ol the seceding
Swes were not to be a military &argeL To a large extent, this
position was dicwed by political forces--fO keel> lhe border
States in the Union, generate support among the broadest
constiiuency in the Nonh, and weaken the Confederacy by
holding out the pos.gbility that Ibey could return ro lhe Union
with their property, including their slaves, intacL24
Eventually, however, as the Confederacy put slaves to wort as
military laborers and the presence of Union troops precipiwed
large-scaJc descrtioo of plantation slaves, this policy was
overcome by evenrs. On January 1, 1863, Lincoln signed the
Emancipation Proclamation. Bowing to political reality,
however, he excluded from its purview the 450,000 ·slaves in
Delaware, Kentucky, Maryland, and Missouri; 275,<XXJ in
Union-<X:CUpied T~; and tens of thousands in occupied
portions of Virginia and Louisiana.
6
By 1864, the Senaie approved the 13th Amendment, abolishing
slavery duoughout the Union, but it failed IO receive the
necessary two-thirds majority in the House. Eventually, in
January 1865, this amendment narrowly won House approval
and was sent to the Stares for ratification. Although several
Southern legislatures were reluctant to lend their support. this
amendment was ratified by the end of the year. To some, this
not only ended one of America's most shameful institutions but
offeted the hope of the beginning of a Nation where Nonh and
South , black and white, were ruled by one law impartial over
all. As we know with historical hindsight. such an interpretation
was far too optimistic.
Even at the time, questions were raised about the practical
implications of the amendmenL James A. Garfield asked,
''What is freedom? Is it the bare privilege of not being
chained? •.• If this is all, then freedom is a bitter mockery, a
cruel delusion." More IO the point. Frederick Douglass
maintained, "Slavery is not abolished until the black man has
the ballot "2S
In fact, a political vacuum developed between 1865 and 1867 in
which the opponents of the extension of full citizenship to
blacks were able to exercise great influence. President Andrew
Johnson, with hopes of receiving the support of his fellow
Southerners in the election in 1868, left the definition of black
rights to the individual States. They accepted the opponunity
with a vengeance. In addition to prohibiting black suffrage, the
provisional legislatures passed the Black Codes, a series of
Swe laws intended to define the freedmen's new rights and
responsibilities.
. ..
'' In the earliest days of the Civil War,
President Lincoln ••• insisted that the issue
of slavery had little to do with the conflict. ' '
Mis.Vs.Vppi and South Carolina enacted the first and most
severe Black Codes lOWatd the end of 1865. Missmippi
required all blacks to possess, each January, written evidence of
employment f<I the coming year. Laborers leaving their jobs
before the contract expired would forfeit wages already earned
and, as under slavery, be subject to arrest by any whire citizen.
A person offering work to a laborer already under contract
risked imprisorunent or a fine. Blacks were forbidden to rent
land in urban areas. Vagrants-under whose definition fell the
idle, disorderly, and those who "~nd what they
cam" -could be punished by fines or involunwy plantation
labor. other aimina1 offenses included "insulting" gestures or
language, " malicious mischief," and preaching the Gospel
without a license. In ~ anything had been overlooked, the
; .
legislature declared all existing penal codes defining crimes by
slaves and free blacks "in full force" unless specifically altered
by law. South Carolina's Code barred blacks from any
occupation other than fanner or servant except by paying an
annual iax ranging from $10 to $100.26
''[The 13th Amendment] offered the hope
of the beginning of a Nation where North
and South, black and while, were ruled by
one law impartial over all ' '
Virtually all of the former Confederate States enacted such
laws. Blacks protested most bitterly, however, against
apprenticeship laws, which seized upon the consequences of
slavery-the separation of families and the freedmen's
poverty-to provide planters with the unpaid labor of black
minors. Generally, these laws allowed judges to bind to white
employers black orphans and those whose parents. were deemed
unable to support them. The former slave owner usually had
first preference, the consent of the parents was not required, and
the law permitted "moderate corporal chastisement "27
This entire complex of Black Codes was enforced:
... by a police apparatus and judicial system in which blacks
enjoyed virtually no voice whatever. Whites staffed urban police
forces as well IS State militias, intended, as a Mississippi white put
it in 1865, to "keep good order and discipline amongst the negro
population. ''28
Sheriff's, justices of the peace, and other local officials proved
extremely reluctant to prosecute whir.es accused of aimes
against blacks. In those rare cases in which they did prosecute,
convictions were infrequent and sentences were far mcn
lenient than blacks received for the same crimes. For example,
Texas coons indicted some 500 white men for the murder of
blacks in 1865 and 1866, but not one was convicted.29
Largely in response to the Black Codes, Congress passed, over
President Johnsoo 's veto, the Civil Rights Act of 18()6. This act
defined all persons born in the United States (except Indians) as
national citizens and spelled out rights they were to enjoy
equally without regard to race-maJcing contracts, bringing
lawsuits, and enjoying " full and equal benefit of all laws and
proceedings for the security of person and propeny." No State
law or custom could deprive any citizen of these rights.
Furthermore, Federal officials were authorized to bring suit
against violations and made all persons, including local
officials. who deprived a citizen of a civil right liable to fine or
imprisonment
7
To institutionalize the legal implications of the Civil War
beyond the reach of shifting political majorities and presidential
vetoes, Congress, after a long struggle, passed the 14th
Amendment, providing, among other things, that equal
protection under the law be afforded to every citizen. Although
it implicitly aclcnowledged the right of States to limit voting
because of race, they could do so only at the expense of losing a
significant portion of their congressional representation.
The 1866 congressional election essentially became a
referendum on the 14th Amendment-Republicans in favor,
President Johnson and the Democrats opposed. The
Republicans won an overwhelming victory, large enough to
give them well over the two-thirds majority required to override
a veto. In contrast. all Southern legislatures except TeMessee
repudiated the amendment by enonnous majorities.
Frustrated, and sensing its political strength, the Congress
passed, again over Johnson's veto, the Reconstruction Act of
1867. This act divided the eleven Confederate States, excei>t
Tennessee, into five military districts and stipulaled the process
by which new State governments could be created and
recognized. This process required the ratification of the 14th
Amendment, writing of new constitutions providing for
manhood suffrage, and approval of these constitutions by a
majority of registered voters.
After two years of .. Presidential Reconstruction," characterized
by a lack of commitment to the extension of full rights to
blacks, the era of ''Radical Reconstruction" began. Given the
right to vote, many blacks participated in-and wo~lection
to the new State legislatures. To allay any concerns that the
issue had not been addressed completely, Congress passed the
15th Amendment, providing the right to vote to all persons,
regardless of"race, color, or previous state of sezvitude," and
prohibited the abridgement of that right by Federal and State
governments. The Civil Rights Act of 1875 outlawed the
exclusion of blacks from hotels, theaters, railroads, and other
public accommodations.
The results of black suffrage on policing were not long in
coming. Blacks appeared in several southern police
departments soon after Radical Reconstruction began,
especially where Republicans were in office and where blacks
constituted a large percentage of the population. Black police
appeared in Selma, Alabama, in 1867; Houston, Texas, in 1870:
and Jackson, Mississippi, in 1871.30 In New Orleans, a
majority of whose population was black, a police board
composed of three black members out of five appointed a
police force that included 177 blacks by 1870.31
Such change was not always easy, however. In July 1868, in
Raleigh, Nonh Carolina, wider the headline "The Mongrel
Regime!! Negro Police!!" the Conservative Daily Sentinel
announced the appointment of four black police officers and
concluded that "this is the beginning of the end."32 Race riots
occurred in Jackson and Meridian, ~issippi, because black
police attempted to use their police authority over whites.33
' ' .•• apprenticeship laws ... seized
upon the consequences of slavery ••. to
provide planters with the unpaid labor of
black minors. ' '
In 1872, a Republican mayor in Chicago appointed the first
black policeman in the North, where black: suffrage w~ not
required by Congress. Three years later, a mayor belonging to
the People's Pany replaced that officer with another black. In
1880, the Republicans won the mayor's office again, resulting
in the appoinunent of four more black policemen. These
officers all worked in plain clothes-in pan not to off end the
sensibilities of racist whites-and were assigned to blaclc
neighborhoods, practices adopted in most departments that
hired blacks at th8t time. By 1894 there were 23 black
policemen in Chicago.3• Blacks were appointed in other cities
in the North soon after those in Chicago: in Washington, D.C .,
in 1874; in Indianapolis in 1876; in Oeveland in 1881 ; in
Boston in 1885.35
Lane provides one of the most thaough and fascinating
analyses of the political complexities involved in appointing the
first black: police officers.36 The approxinwely 7 ,000 blacks in
Philadelphia's Seventh Ward had become a consistent
Republican constilUency, accounting for more than 10 percent
of the pe.rty's vote. During the 1880 mayoral campaign,
however, the black vote became a target of both parties'
attention. Although the Seventh Ward voted overwhelmingly
for the Republican candidate, the winner was Samuel King, a
refonn DemocraL Mayor King then appointed Alexander Davis
and th.JU other black men to the police department.
The selection aiteria applied in appointing these Philadelphia
officers reflect a common pauem in the choice of the earliest
black officers. As Lane points ow:
In m era before my sort of civil service, when many ofracers wae
scmilitera1e at best, the four blacks chosen, although c:unently
trapped in unskilled jobs, were chancteristicaly overqualified. 37
Davis, although born a slave, had graduated from Lincoln
University, worked as a schoolteacher, and founded a
newspaper. Only one of the other blacks appointed at that time
had no experience beyond "laboring work."
Despite their qualifications, the appoinunent of the first black
police officers in Philadelphia produced the same responses as
8
were seen in many other cities. Several officers quit the force in
protest. The new men were assigned to bea1s in or near black
neighborhoods and immcdialely aaracted crowds of spcctatoo ,
saying such things ~ "Ain't he sweet?" or "Is the thing alive ?"
As in Philadelphia, most deparunents, to appease the racial
attitudes of whites, did not allow black: officers to arrest whites
or to work with white officers. Even~ late~ 1961, a study
reponed by the President's Commission on Law Enfcrcement
and Adm inistralion of Justice found that 31 percent of the
departments surveyed restricted the right of blacks to make
felony arrests; the power of black officers to make
misdemeanor arrests was even more limited.38
Miami established a different designation for the two races :
blacks were " patrolmen" and whites were "policemen." In
Chicago, blacks were largely confined to the Southside
districts; in SL Louis, the "black beals" ranged from the central
downtown area to the Northside. Los Angeles established a
special "black watch" for the predominantly black Newton
Station districL
Afaet the initial dramatic changes brought about by the effects
of Radie.al Rcconstruction, the situation for black:s-and
policing-began to revert to the staJu.s quo ante. As early~
1867, black suffrage went down to defeat in referendums in
Minnesota, Ohio, and Kansas. Moderates within the Republican
party began to back away from "extreme radical measures"
such as egalitarianism. The Ku Klux Klan, founded in 1866 in
Tennessee as a social club, launched a reign of lem>r against
Republican leaders, black and white. In some parts of the
South, anned whites blocked blacks from voting. Violence
spread, especially in Georgia and Louisiana where, unable to
hold meetings, Republicans abandoned their presidential
campaign. By 1868, Republicans, the stalwan supporters of
black rights, began to lose some of their strength in the South .39
'' Texas courts indicted some 500 white
men for the murder of blacks in 1865 and
1866, but not one was convicted. ' '
By 1872. the presidential election focused on southern policy,
the Democrats emphasizing the evils oC Rc:consuuction and the
need to restore local self-government. Although the
Republicans won, a significant number of fonncr Rad.icals
supported the Democratic ticket, indicating that their campaign
themes were more powerful than the tetums would indicate.
While political suppon for Radical Reconstruction waned,
debate about whether the 14th Amendment applied only to
Swes raged throughout the Nation-and has continued ro do so
even in the last decade. Presidents Grant and Hayes retreated
. '
1 . .
from slrict enforcement of the so-called "Reconstruction
amendments." The Supreme Court began to shift away from the
broad interpretation of the 13th Amendment to the narrower
14th and 15th. This shift, in tum, encouraged legislators to
narrow their concerns as well.
'' Given the right to vote, many blacks
participated in-and won-election to the
new state legislatures. ''
In 1874, a long-awaited compilation of the United States laws,
known as the Revised StalMtes, was produced. This document
rearranged the Nation's laws into supposedly relevant, logical
categories. Inexplicably, however, this rearrangement failed to
list the Civil Rights Act of 1866 either in the published text or
in the "historical" documentation. Instead, various pans of the
1866 law were scattered throughout the document, under
various chapter headings. Civil rights as an independent subject
wonhy of the attention of lawyers, judges, law pra{tssors, and
an entire generation of law students was neither easily
researched nor, by implication, important One by one, case by
case, the legal rights of blacks were ruled away.
Against this already ominous backdrop came the Compromise
of 1877, by which the Federal Govenunent agreed to end
Reconstruction. withdraw military forces from the South, and
cease enforcing civil rights laws. In exchange, the election of
the Republican candidate for president, Rutherford B. Hayes,
was assured. The dike that had laboriously been constructed
against racist retaliation was suddenly broken. The stage was
set for a massive reversal of the gains made in lhe previous 20
years.
In 1883, the Supreme Court, in deciding five litigations joined
as the Civil Righls Cases, declared the Civil Rights Act of 1875
unconstiiutional. Reflecting the earlier debates over the
Reconstruction amendments, lhe ruling was based on the
premise that those amendments prohibited only States, not
individuals, from infringing on lhe equal protection and due
process guaranteed to individuals by the Constitution.
Moreover, in 1896, the Supreme Court, in the landmark
decision of Plessy v. Ferguson, found State laws lhat required
segregation of the races in public accommodations to be
constitutional, thereby endorsing lhe proposition that public
facilities could be .. separate but equal." This decision virtually
completed the quaner-untury-long process of standing lhe law
established by the Reconsauction amendments on its head. The
effects were quickly seen in police departments. In department
after department, blacks lost their jobs, either by dismissal or by
being forced to ~gn. The disappearance of blacks from the
New Orleans police department serves as the most dramatic
9
example of this trend. From a high of 177 black officers in
1870, the number dropped to 27 in 1880. By 1900, only five
black officers remained; by 1910 there were none. The city did
not appoint another black to the police force until 1950.
It is in this context that the Kelling and Moore discussion of the
refonn era must be interpreted. They argue that police
refonners, led by August Vollmer and O.W. Wilson, changed
the basic orientation of American policing in response to the
excesses of the political era. The paradigm lhus adopted, lhey
contend, rejected politics as the source of authority for the
police, replacing it with law and professionalism.
In an effort to curtail the close relationship between local
political leaders and police, civil service replaced patronage and
influence in the selection, assignmenL, and retention of police
officers. Individual police officers were expected to avoid
becoming closely associated with, and therefore contaminated
by, the areas in which they patrolled. In some cases. they were
prohibited from living in lheir beats. To further eliminate local
political influence, functional control was centralized. By the
time lhis era had reached its peak, during the 1950's and 1960's,
police departments had become largely autonomous agencies,
led by professionals guided by law, immune from political
influence.
As dramatic as this change must have appeared to the white
middle-class inhabitants of America's major cities, the
transition to lhe refonn era was barely noticeable to blacks and
other minorities. Relying on law, ralher than politics, as the
source of police authority had many desirable aspects for those
provided full protection by the law. Once again, however, for
those who lacked both political power and equal protection
under the law, such a ttansformation could have little
significance.
' ' ••. black policemen .•. all worked in
plain clothes •.• and were assigned to black
neighborhoods • . . ' '
Even the particular mechanisms implemented to bring about
reform proved to be of little avail to blacks and olher
minorities. Civil service examinations, for example, designed to
avoid the influence of patronage and nepotism, provided slight
consolation for lhose who had been denied access to quality
education. These examinations, which according to some
experts, reveal less about the qualifications of the applicants
lhan about the cultural biases of the examiners, winnowed out a
far higher proportion of blacks than whites. In Boston, for
example, the examiners failed 75 pe~t of the blacks as
opposed to 35 percent of the whites in 1970. In Atlanta, in the
same year, 72 percent of the blacks and only 24 percent of the
whites failed. In New York. in 1968, 65 percent of the blacks as
opposed to 31 percent of the whites failed. Mexicans and Puerto
Ricans fared even worse, perhaps because the tests were given
in English .'40
'' Miami established a different designation
for the two races: blacks were 'patrolmen '
and whiles were 'policemen.' ''
Background investigations, which blacks and other minorities
are more likely to fail than whites, also served as a barrier to
inclusion. Fogelson reports evidence indicating lhat
investigators rejected 41 percent of black applicants as opposed
to 29 percent of whites in St Louis in 1966; 68 percent of the
blacks, as opposed to 56 percent of the whites, were rejected in
Cleveland in 1966; and 58 percent of the blacks, as opposed to
32 per cent of the whites, in Philadelphia in 1968.41 He
concludes lhat these disparities were a function of two things,
notwithstanding r8cial prejudice. First, many depaftments were
unwilling to accept any applicant who had been arrested or
convicted for any criminal offense, no matter how trivial--Ole
President's Crime Commission showed that blacks were more
likely to have a criminal record than whites.42 Second, most
departments were reluctant to hire anyone who was cruant from
school, changed jobs too often, a.uocia1ed with known
criminals, or had broken miliwy regulations, all of which are
men prevalent among blacks and other minorities than among
whites .43 Regardless of the merits of these criteria, their effect
was the same-the exclusion of minorities.
Centtalization of control also provided little help for minorities,
inasmuch as it meant that already strained relations with the
police officer on the beal translalcd into even more strained
relations with ·a distant government downtown. Reduced
contacts with local officers meant that limited opportunities to
bridge the racial baaier became even more limi&ed.
'' Individual police officers were expected
to avoid becoming closely associated with,
and therefore contaminated by, the areas in
which they patrolh'd. ' '
In their effcxts to attract qualified recruits. the ref armers not
only raised salaries, increased benefits, and improved working
conditions, they also extended their rtCruiancnt effons. One
method of expanding the pool of applicants was to abolish
residency requirements. This reform, although defended by
10
reformers on professional grounds, handicapped the blacks,
Hispanics, and other minorities by slowing down the ethnic
turnover in police departments. Without such a change, as
whites fled from the inner cities, the increasing percentage of
minorities remaining could have been expected to have been
more readily reflected in the ranks of the police. Furthermore,
despite heavy immigration of minmties to the Nation's urban
centers, the competitive edge th.al had been experienced earlier
by the Irish and other white ethnic minorities no longer held
sway.
Despite its limitations, the reform era provided, for members of
the majority, a nwted improvement in the delivery of
professional police services. For members of minority groups,
however, the change from the political era, in which they lacked
political power, to the reform era, in which they lacked the
support of the law, meant, for the most pan, more of the same.
In only 7 of the 26 cities for which the Kerner Commission·
collected data was the percentage of nonwhite police officers
equal to as much as one-third of the percentage of nonwhites in
the city.44
The community era: Policing
disintegrating communities
By the la1e 1970's and early 1980's, according to Kelling and
Moore, we had entered the era of community policing.
Although law remained a source of authority, the police began
once again to recognize that, ultimately, they are dependent on
neighborhood. or community, support to achieve their goals .
Turning to the ci~ they serve for consultation, the police
realized that more was expected of them than simply enforcing
the law. Looking at people as clients of their services, the police
found that they were also being judged on their ability to
maintain order, resolve conflict, protect rights, and provide
other services. In order to be able to remain responsive ro
community concerns, organizational decentralization was
necessary. To remain even more flexible, officers were given
authority and discretion to develop responses appropriate IO
local needs.
To organized, empowered communities, this strategy of
policing offered exttaordinary opportunities to participate in
structuring the nature of police services delivered. As a result of
community dellWKls, for example, programs such as foot patrol
were revived, long before they were found to be effective in
reducing fear and. in some cases. crime. Despite the popularity
of such initiatives, a closer examination of the areas in which
such foot beats were crea!Cd reveals one of the serious
problems with this approach. In the Swe of New Jersey, for
example, ~ foot pattol was funded by the Safe and Clean
Neighborhoods Program. most foot beats were instituted in
areas with strong community or~ organizations-or
both-with strong support from and ace~ to political leaders .
..
Those without such resources-and those most in need of police
services-often found themselves in a long queue.
Although the 1954 Supreme Court decision in Brown v. Board of
EdJAcalion of Tope/ca began to provide blacks and other
minorities with their just share of legal rights and remedies, that
provision came only with "all deliberate speed." As this glacially
slow process continued, something more virulent occurred in
minority communities, especially in the innei- cities. Those who
could afford to do so moved into less crowded, m<l'C
comfonable, neighborhoods, leaving behind vacant houses-and
those who could not afford an alternative. Businesses closed. Tax
bases eroded. Among those who remained, unemployment,
especially among minority youths, grew markedly higher than
among whites. The incomes of employed minorities was
significantly lower than that of whites. The quality of education
deteriorated. School dropout rates rose precipitously. Infant
mortality rates reached alarming levels. Decent, affordable
housing became scarce. More and more children were born to
unwed mothers. Drug and alcohol use became endemic. Crime
and the fear of crime soared out of control.
1, ""
The convergence of these factors produced a vicious circle. The
police, regardless of the era or the strategic paradigm. must.
along with families and other community institutions, concern
themselves with crime and the fear of crime. The inner cities,
where families, schools, jobs, and other community institutions
were disintegrating at a rapid pace, presented the police with the
most serious crime problems of all. But the police, because of a
gross underrepresentation of minorities among their ranks, a lack
of sensitivity and undcrsWlding of minority concerns and
culture , and, therefore, a lack of community SUppM. were least
able to deal effectively in the innei- cities-precisely where they
were needed most.
'' Centralization of control • .• meant that
already-strained relations with the police
efficer on the beat translated into e11en more
strained relations with a distant go11ernment
downtown. ' '
Frustrated and angry, many blacks came to see the police as
symbolizing the entire "system" -dlose instiwtions and
resources that had been so unresponsive to their neech . Tensions
rose, culminating in the series of riots in America's inner cities
during the middle and lale 1%0's. Many Americans bad their
first glimpse of ghettos as they burned through the nighL
Reflecting the nalUrC and extent of the underlying problems,
Senator Robert Kennedy observed. after visiting the scene of the
Watts riot, "There is no point in telling Negroes to observe the
law .. . It has almost always been wed against them ."
Despite the tragic destructiveness of those riots, they did
concentrate the minm of the Nation' s leaders wonderfully. In
1967, President Johnson appointed the National Advisory
Commission on Civil Disorders (the Kerner Commission) to
investigale the causes of the disorder and to recommend
solutions. In a trenchant analysis, the commission report
concluded that .. Our Nation is moving toward two societies, one
black, one whitc-separalC and unequal. "4S Essentially, they
said, wtw lay behind the riots was a long historical pattern of
racism on the part of whites in America. In one of the most
forceful pwages of their report. the commissioners observed:
What white Americms have never fully understood-but what a
Negro cm nevrr forget-ts that white society is deeply implicated in
the gheuo. White institutions created it. white institutions maintain it.
and white society condones iL 46
' ' ••. the police began once again to
recognize that, ultimately, they are
dependent on neighborhood, or community,
support to achie11e their goals. ''
11
Specifically, the Kerner Commission found tha1 many of the riots
had been precipitated by police actions, often cases of
insensitivity, sometimes incidents of outright brutality. They saw
an atmosphere of hostility and cynicism reinforced by a
widespread belief among many blaclcs in a .. double standard" of
justice and proccction. MCl'C generally, they concluded thac
In mlllY ways the policamn only symbolizes much deeper poblem.s.
The policanan in the gheuo is a symbol not only of law, but of the
entire system of law enforcement and criminal justice.47
The report off e.rcd five basic suggestions to address this situation:
• Change operalions in the inner city to ensure proper officer
conduct and to eliminate abrasive practices.
• Provide adequate police protection to inner city residents to
eliminate the high level of fear and crime.
• Create mechanisms through which citU.ens can obtain
effective responses to their grievances.
• Produce policy guidelines to assist police in avoiding
behaviors tha1 would creaie tension with inner city
residents.
• Develop community support for law enforcemenL
Fearful that new conflagratioos would occur otherwise, and
responding in many cases to newly elected black and progressive
- ;;;hire mayors, many deparunents followed the commission's
recommendations. As a result. a number of improvements have
occurred that have reduced the barriers between the police and
the inner city. Many more blacks and other minorities are now
patrolling our streets. Strict rules against the wmecessary use of
weapons, brutality, harassment, verbal abuse, and discourtesy
have been promulgated and enforced. The use of ~ive
pauol techniques has been curtailed, restricted to those situations
in which it is justified. Steps have been taken to ensure adequar.e
patrol coverage and rapid response to calls for service from inner
city are&. Open, impartial, and prompt grievance mechanisms
have been established. Policy guidelines have been implemented
to direct officers' discretion in potentially tense situations. New
approaches-storefront offices, adopting (or even organizing)
neighborhood groups, addressing the causes of fear-have been
put into effect to improve relations with the community.
' ' ... the police •.• were least able to deal
effectively in' the inner cities-precisely
where they were needed most. ''
Because of these changes, the relationship between the police
and citi:zens has improved considerably in the last several
years-lo a large extent in white middle-<:lass neighborhoods, to
a lesser extent in the inner city. Any transition to an era of
community policing will be both a cause and an effect of these
improvements. But such a transition is far from complete in the
inner city. A recent assessment by the Commission on the Cities
found that. despite a brief period of improvement, the conditions
that produced the dissolution of ghetto communities arc actually
getting worse. "Quiet riots," the report concludes, arc occurring
in America's centtal cities: unemployment. povcny, social
disorganization, segregation, housing and school deterioration,
and aime arc worse now than ever before.48 lbese "quiet riots,"
although not as alanning or as noticeable to outsiders as those of
the l 960's, arc even more destructive of human life. Under such
conditions, it is unreasonable to expect that the residents of the
inner city will have the characteristics-whether social,
economic, or political-dial are required ro sustain the
partnership required of the community policing approach.
Furthermore, although the police arc better prepared to deal with
residents of the inner city than they were 20 years ago, they arc
far from having toeally bridged the chasm that has separated them
from minorities-especially blacks-for over 200 years. There
are still too few black officers, al all levels. Racism still persists
within contemporary police departments. Regardless of rules and
guidelines, inappropriale behavior on the slreets still occurs.
Complaints about differential treatment, pauol coverage, and
..
response time persisL And empirical studies have shown that
community-oriented approaches that are effective in most
neighborhoods work less well, or not at all, in are& inhabited by
low-income blacks and other minority groups.
' ' ••• many of the riots had been precipitated
by police actions, often .•. insensitivity,
sometimes ... outright brutality. ' '
We welcome the prospect of entering the community era of
policing. In a dramatic way, this represents a return ro the fust
principles of policing as established in London in 1829. As
Critchley so aptly put it. "From the start, the police was to be ...
in tune with the people, understanding the people, belonging to
the people, and drawing its strength from the people."49 Onr.:.
community policing becomes a pervasive reality, we wiiJ have.
finally approximated the attainment of that goal. We have begun
ro bring such fundamental changes about in many of our Nation's
police departments. But because of the devastation afflicting our
iMer cities and the inability of our police to relate to those
neighborhoods, the are& that most require a transition to the
community era will unfortunately be the last ro experience such a
change.
Summary
Kelling and Moore have contributed a valuable addition to our
reperroire of conceptS for understanding the sttar.egic hisrory of
American policing. Their interpretation of the shifts in policing
from a political to a refonn to a community era provides useful
insights. It is our conr.ention, however, that the applicability of
this interpretation is confined largely to the whir.e majority
communities of our Nation. For blacks, and to a lesser extent
other minority groups, the utility of this analysis is quite limited.
' ' ••• the community era requires an
empowered, cohesive community to be able
to deal with a sensitive, responsive police
12
agency ••• ''
During the political era. for example, blacks were completely
powerless, leaving them unable to exC'lt the influence necessary
to affect police sttategy. Accmling to the paradigm Kelling and
Moore posit ro have prevailed in the reform era, police strategy
was detennined largely on the basis of law, which left blacks
almost completely unprotected. Finally, the community era
•
requires an empowered, cohesive community to be able to deal
with a sensitive, responsive police agency; neither precondition
prevails in many contemporary minority neighborhoods .
Significant progress has been made, however. Large numbers of
blacks and other minorities have joined-and in many cases
have become leaders of-our major deparunents. The use of
violence by police against minorities has declined dramatically
in the last decade. Special efforts have been made to provide
training to make our police officers sensitive to the needs and
concerns of minority communities. Enlightened. better educated
police leadership has opened the profession to new approaches
and ideas. The rising popularity of community-oriented
policing will undoubtedly further improve the relationship
between the police and minorities.
' ' . .• many of the most articulate
proponents of community policing are
themselves African-American police
executives. ~ '' ..
We think it is a particularly hopeful sign in this regard that
many of the most articulate proponents of community policing
are themselves African-American police executives. Their
un swerving emphasis, in their statements of values, on the
protection of constitutional rights and the protection of all
citizens, gives us reason to be optimistic about the future of
policing.
Nevertheless, the history of American police strategics cannot
be separated from the hi story of the Nation as a whole.
Unfortunately, our police, and all of our other institutions, must
contend with many bitter legacies from that larger history. No
paradigm-and no society-can be judged satisfactory until
those legacies have been confronted directly.
Notes
l. Howard Zinn, Tht Politics of Hi story. Boston. Beacon Press,
1970: 102.
2. George L . Kelling and Mark H. Moore, "The Evolving
Strategy of Policing," Pers~ctives on Policing, No. 4.
Washington, D.C., National Institute of Justice and Harvard
University, November 1988.
3. Robert M. Fogelson, Big City Police. Cambridge, Harvard
University Press, 1977. J.F. Richardson, Urban Police in tht
United Stales. Port Washington, New York, National University
Publications, 1974.
4. Roger Lane, Policing tht City: Boston, 1822-188.5.
13
Cambridge, Harvard University Press, 1967. E.A . Savage, A
Chronological History of tht Boston Walch and Police.from
1631-1865. Available on Library of American Civilization
fiche 13523, 1865.
5. J. Flinn, History of tht Chicago Police from the Settlement of
the Community to tht Present Time. Montclair, New Jersey,
Patterson Smith, 1975.
6. 1. Schneider, Detroit and the Problem of Order, 1830-1880 :
A Geography of Crime , Riot , and Policing . Lincoln, University
of Nebraska, 1980.
7. J.F. Richardson, The New York Police: Colonial Times to
1901. New York, Oxford University Press, 1970.
8. Samuel Walker, A Critical History of Police Reform : The
Emergence of Professi.onalism. Lexington, Massachusetts,
Lexington Books, 1977: ~.
9. Richardson, Urban Police , n. 3 above: 19.
10. Walker, A Critical History, n. 8 above.
11. P. L. Reichel, "Southern slave patrols as a uansitional police
type," AmericanloiunoJ of Policing, VII, 2: 51-77.
12. T. Cooper, ed., Stalutes at Large of South Carolina, v. 3,
part 2, Columbia, South Carolina, A.S . Johnston, 1838: 568.
13. A. Candler, ed., The Colonial Records of tht State of
Georgia, v. 18, Atlanta, Chas. P. Byrd, State Printer, 1910: 225.
14. Alabama: W. L. Rose, ed., A Documentary History of
Slavery in North America, New York, Oxford University Press,
1976. Arkansas: 0. W. Taylor, Negro Slavery in Arkansas,
Durham, North Carolina. Duke University, 1958. Georgia: R. B.
Flanders, Planlalion Slavery in Georgia, Cos Cob, Connecticut,
John E. Edwards, 1967; B. Wood, Slavery in Colonial Georgia,
Athens, University of Georgia Press, 1984. Kentucky: J . W.
Coleman, Jr., Slavery Tunes in Kentucky, New York. Johnson
Reprint Company, 1940; I.E. McDougle, Slavery in Kentucky
1792-1865, Westport, Connecticut. Negro Universities Press,
1970. Louisiana: S. Bacon, The Early Development of
AmericOll Mwaicipal Police: A Study of tht EvolUli.on of
Formal Controls in a Changing Society, unpublished
dissertation, Yale University, University Microfilms No.
66-06844, 1939; J. G. Taylor, Negro Slavery in Louisiana, New
York. Negro Universities Press, 1963; E. R. Williams, Jr.,
"Slave patrol ordinances of St Tammany Parish, Louisiana,
1835-1838," Louisiana History, v. 13 (1972}: 399-411.
Mississippi: C. S. Sydnor, Slavery in Mississippi, New York.
Appleton CenllD'y Co., 1933. Missouri: H. A. Trexler, "Slavery
in Missouri: 1804-1865," in H. Trexler, Slavery in tht Stales :
Selected Essays, New York, Negro Universities Press, 1969.
North Carolina: G. G. Johnson, Ante-btllum North Carolina: A
Social History, Oiapel Hill, University of North Carolina,
1937. Tennessee: C. P. Pauason, The Negro in Tennessee,
1790-1865, New York. Negro Universities Press, 1968; C. C.
Mooney, Slavery in Tennessee, Westpart. Connecticut, Negro
Universities Press, 1971. Vuginia: J. Ballagh, Jr., A History of
Slavery in Virginia, New York, Johnson Reprint Co., 1968; A.
Stewart, .. Colonel Alexander's slaves resist the patrol," in WL.
Rose, ed., A Docu.menlary History of Slavery in North America,
New York. Oxford Univemty Press, 1976.
15. B. Wood, Slavtry in Colonial Georgia, n. 14 above: 123-4.
16. P.S. Foner, History of Black Americans: From Africa to the
Emergence of the Cotton Kingdom, Westport. Connecticut.
Greenwood, 1975: 206.
17. Richardson, Urban Police, n. 3 above: 21.
18. I. Berlin, Slaws W11ho"1 Masters: The Frtt Negro in the
An1tbtllwn So"1h, New York, Pantheon Books, 1974: 31~17 .
19.Berlin,above:319. ..
20. L.F. Litwack, North of Slavery: TM Negro in the Frt!t
Statts, 1790-1860. Chicago, Chicago Press. 1961: 3.
21. Berlin, n. 18 above: 330.
22. Litwack, North of Slavtry, n. 20 above. p. 97.
23. C.V. Woodward, TM Strange Caner of Jim Crow, New
York, Oxford University Press, 1966: 17.
NCJ 121019
Hubert Williams is Prt!silknt of the Police Folllldalion,
Washington, D.C., and former Police Dirtctor of Newark, New
Jtrsey..Patrick V. Murplry is Director of the Police Policy
Board of the U.S. Confertnct of Mayors Olldfonner
.. Commissioner of the New York City Police Dtpartmenl.
Editor of this series is Su.san Michaelson, Assistant Dirtctor of
the Program in Criminal JMStice Policy 01UI Managtmenl, John
F. Kennedy School of Government, Harvard University.
Opinions or points of view uprt!sstd in this documenl art those
of the a"1hors 01UI do not necessarily reflect the official
position or policies of the U.S. Dtp<111'1Mnl of Justice or of
Han>ard University.
TM Assistant Attorney General, Office of Justice Programs,
coordinales the activitiu of the follt1Wing program Offices and
Bun<UU: NOlional /nstilUl.t of Justice,Binau of JMStict
Statistics. Bwtau of Justice Assistance, Office of Jwenile
Justice and Delinquency Prtvention, 01UI Office for Vu:tims of
Crime.
14
24. E.F. Foner, Reconstruction: America's Unfinished
Revolution, 1863-1877. New Yak, Harper and Row, 1988:
4-5.
25. Foner, above: 66-f,7.
26. Foner: 199-200.
27. Foner: 201.
28. Foner: 203.
29. Foner: 204.
30. M. Delaney, .. Colored brigades, 'negro specials' and
colored policemen: A hista:y of blacks in American police
departments," unpublished manuscript, no date: 12.
31. J.W. Blamngame,BlackNew Orltans, 1860-1880.
Chicago, University of Chicago Press, 1973: 244.
32. H.N. Rabinowitz, Race Relations in the Urban So"1h,
1865-1890. Urbana, University of Illinois Press, 1980: 41.
33. V.L. Wharton, The Negro in Mississippi, 1865-1890. New
York, Harper and Row, 1965: 167.
34. Walker, A Critical History, n. 8 above: 10.
35. Delaney, .. Colored mgades," n. 30 above: 20.
36. R. Lane, Roots of Violence in Black. Philadelphia:
1860-1900. Cambridge, Harvard University Press, 1986:
flJ-67.
37.Lane,above:~.
38. President's Commimon on Law Enforcement and
Adminisll'Btion of Justice, Task Foret Report: The Police.
Washington, D.C., U.S. Government Printing Office, 1967:
170.
39. Foner, Reconstruction, n. 24 above: 342.
40. Fogelson, Big City Police, n. 3 above: 250.
41.Fogelson, above:251.
42. President's Commission on Law Enforcement and
Adminisll'Btion of Justice, Task Force Report: Science and
Technology, Washington. D.C., U.S. Government Printing
Office,1967: 21~28.
43. Fogelson, n. 3 above: 251.
44. Report of the National Advisory Commission on Civil
. -..
Disorders, WashingtOn, D.C., U.S. Government Printing Office ,
1968: 321.
45. Reporr. 1.
46. Report: 2
47. Report: 299.
48. F.R. Harris and R. W"tlkins , Qllkt Riots: Race aNl Poverty
in the United Stales , New York , Pantheon Books, 1988.
49 . T.A. Critchley, A History of Police in EnglaNl aNl Wales ,
190Q-1966, London, Constable and Company, Ud., 1967: 46.
15
TilC Executive Session on Policing. like olher Executive
Sessions at Harvard's Kennedy School of Government.
is designed to cnc:ourqe a new form of dialog between high­level
prctitionen and scholars , with a view to redefining md
proposing solutions for substantive policy issues. Prctitioners
rather Ihm .cademic:ims are given majority rep'esc:ntation in
the group. TilC meetings of the Session are conducted u
loosely structured saninms or policy debates.
Since it began in 198S, the Executive Session on Policing lw
met 1evm times. During the 3-day meetings. the 31 members
have enagetically di.sc:uued the facts and values that have
guided, and thole that should guide, policing.
The Executive Session on Policing
convenes the following distinguished panel of leaders in the field of policing:
Allen Andrews
Superintendent of Police
Peoria. Illinois
Camille Cates Barnett. Ph.D .
Director of Finance md Administration
Houston. Texas
Cornelius Behm. Chief
Baltimore County Police Oepctment
Baltimore County, Mayland
Lawrence Binkley, Chief
Long Be.ch Police Oeputment
Long Beach. California
Lee P. Brown. Chief
Houston Police Department
Houston. Texas
Susan R. Esttich, Professor
School of Law
Harvanl University
Cambridge, Mass.chuseas
Duyl F. Gile$, Chief
Los Angeles Police Depanment
Los Angeles, California
Hennan Goldstein. Professor
School of Law
University of Wisconsin
Midi.son. WISCOllSin
Frmcis X. Hanmann. Executive Director
Program in Criminal Justice Policy
and Mmagement
John F. Kennedy School of Government
Harvanl University
Cambridge, Mus.:huseas
Peter Hunt. former Executive Director
Chicago Area Project
Chicago. Illinois
George L. Kelling. Professor
School of Criminal Justice
Nonheastem University
Boston, Massachusetts, md
Research Fellow, Program in Criminal
Justice Policy and Management
John F. Kennedy School of Government
Harvard University
Cambridge, Mus.chuseas
U.S. Department of Justice
Office of J mtice Programs
National lnstilUJe of JllStic~
Washington, D.C. 205321
OfficialB~
Penalty for Private Use $300
Robert R. Kiley, Chairman
Metropolitan Transportation Authority
New York. New York
Robert B. Kliesmet. President
International Union of Police Associations
AFL-CIO
Washington. D.C.
Richcd C . Larson. Professor and
Codirector
Operations Research Center
Mass.chuseas Institute of Technology
Cambridge, Massachusetts
George Latimer, Mayor
St Paul. Minnesota
Edwin Meese ID
Former Aaomey General of the
United States
Washington. D.C.
Marie H . Moore
Daniel and Aorence Guggenheim
L>rofessor of Criminal Justice Policy
and Management
John F. Kennedy School of Government
H1rV1rd University
Cambridge, Massachusetts
Pattick Murphy, Professor of Police Science
John Jay College of Criminal Justice
New York. New York
Sir Kenneth Newman
Former Commissioner
Scotlmd Yard
London. England
Oliver B. Revell
Executive Assistant Director
Federal Bureau of Investigation
U.S. Oepanment of Justice
Washington, D.C.
Francis Ro.che, Commissioner
Boston Police Department
Boston, Massachusetts
Michael E. Smith, Director
Vera Instirute of Justice
New York, New Yorlc
Durel Stephens, Executive Director
Police Executive Resecch Forum
Wash.ington. D.C.
James K. Stewart. Director
National Institute of Justice
U.S. DeparunentofJustice
Wash.ington. D.C .
Robert Trojanowicz, Professor and Director
SchoolofCriminalJustice
Michigan State University
East Lansing, Michigan
Kevin Tuclcer, Commissioner
Philadelphia Police Department
Philadelphia. Permsylvania
Benjamin Wud, Commissioner
New York City Police Department
New York, New York
Robert Wasserman. Research Fellow
Program in Criminal Justice Policy
and Mmagement
John F. Kennedy School of Government
Huvud University
Cambridge, Mass.:huseas
Daniel Whitehurst. President
and CEO
Whitehurst California
Former Mayor of Fresno
Fresno, California
Hubert Williams, President
Police Foundation
Wash.ington, D.C.
James Q. WWon. Collins Professor
of Management
Graduare School of Management
University of California
Los Angeles, California
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