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Police

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POLICE: HISTORY

Throughout the history of civilization, societies have sought protection for their members and possessions. In early civilizations, members of one 's family provided this protection. Richard Lundman has suggested that the development of formal policing resulted from a process of three developmental stages. The first stage involves informal policing, where all members of a society share equally in the responsibility for providing protection and keeping order. The second stage, transitional policing, occurs when police functions are informally assigned to particular members of the society. This stage serves as a transition into formal policing, where specific members of the community assume formal responsibility for …show more content…

Under this system, citizens were appointed with the responsibility of maintaining order and controlling crime. Men were formed into groups of ten, called a tything. Ten tythings were grouped into a hundred and were supervised by a constable. Groups of ten hundreds created a shire, controlled by reeves. The word shire-reeve is the derivative of our current term sheriff (Uchida). In 1215, King John was forced to sign the Magna Carta, a document that guaranteed basic civil rights to citizens. The rights guaranteed under the Magna Carta limited the power of the throne and their appointees, and greatly contributed to many of the liberties citizens of England and America enjoy today.

During the 1500s, England increased its participation in world trade and through the 1700s more citizens moved into the cities and crime began to rise. Although England had one of the harshest criminal justice systems of its time, including death sentences for minor crimes, crime and disorder continued to rise. Many began to hire their own private police, and the king began a system of night watch for the large cities. In 1737, the first formal taxation system for the purpose of law enforcement was introduced. City councils were allowed to levy taxes to pay for a night watch system (Gaines et al.). Despite these efforts, crime continued to rise and the need for a different system of policing

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