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| PORTSMOUTH, NH—Heavily armed members of the United States Coast Guard, unmistakably visible and highly menacing, watch over the shoreline of the harbor entrance. In San Francisco, commuters crossing the Golden Gate Bridge cannot help noticing the National Guard troops at the gateway to San Francisco. At the Miami airport, some passengers boarding planes headed to Washington, D.C., become unnerved as they are scrutinized by armed, tough-looking Dade County officers. At power plants, train terminals, and other vulnerable targets throughout the United States, increased police patrols have become evident. What is this all about? Is all of this increased police presence really necessary? Some observers have suggested that policing has changed dramatically since the catastrophic events of September 11, 2001, while others maintain that only a few departments at a small number of potential terrorist sites have increased their security measures. The most common point of view, furthermore, is that major changes can be seen only at the federal level and that state, county, and municipal policing has not changed much at all. Is this really so? Which police agencies are addressing the realities of homeland security? These questions point to even broader queries about American policing: How did the police emerge, how many kinds of police agencies are there, and what does each do? What are the differences between federal, state, and local police departments? What are the differences between public and private police? The police are the largest and most visible segment of the criminal justice system. As organized agents of law enforcement and peacekeeping, police officers are charged with the prevention and detection of crime, the apprehension of criminal offenders, the defense of constitutional guarantees, the resolution of community conflicts, the protection of society, and the promotion and preservation of civil order. They have often been referred to as a "thin blue line" between order and anarchy. Structurally, policing in the United States is decentralized; that is, there is no national police force per se. Rather, there are thousands of independent police agencies throughout the country that developed separately. In spite of this diversity, though, the organization of these enforcement units is remarkably similar. This chapter presents a detailed analysis of the structure of police institutions in the United States. First, however, it traces the origins of policing, which go back to medieval England. |