Opinion ID: 1215390
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: historical background of local police organizations

Text: Police organizations as we know them today did not exist in 1791 or 1859. Early on, between the 10th and 18th centuries, the principal responsibility of sheriffs and constables was to protect the king's interests. The sheriff's original and primary function was to act as the agent in managing the estates of which the king was landlord. Cross, Eighteenth Century Documents Relating to the Royal Forests, The Sheriffs and Smuggling 15 (1928). The sheriff also had some judicial responsibilities. Cross states that [i]n Edward's Laws c. 920, [the sheriff] appears as a `primary' judge in all criminal matters in the local courts. Cross, supra at 16 (footnote omitted). Even then, however, the sheriff had further duties, including the duty of keeping the peace. In some respects the sheriff remained the caretaker of the county. Not only was he to protect the public peace, but he was required to take charge of all escheats, wrecks and estrays and the like. Harlow, Sheriffs Constables 2, § 2 (3d ed 1907). One writer described the duty of the sheriff as follows: The sheriff, coroners and wreck masters of every county in which any wrecked property shall be found, when no owner, or other person entitled to possession of such property, shall appear, shall severally have power, and it shall be their duty to pursue all necessary measures for saving and securing such property; to take possession thereof, in whose hands soever the same may be, in the name of the people of this state; to cause the value thereof to be appraised by indifferent persons; and to keep the same in some safe place to answer to the claims of such persons as may thereafter appear entitled thereto. Crocker, Sheriffs, Coroners and Constables 292, § 723 (1855) (footnote omitted). Similarly if property was alleged to be stolen and came into the sheriff's custody, the sheriff was to hold the same, subject to the order of the officers authorized to direct the disposing of it. Crocker, supra at 45, § 81. One precursor of the present-day police department was the London town watchman. The watch, which was eventually replaced by the London Metropolitan Police, was organized around parishes or neighborhoods and is remembered now as a poorly paid group frequently made up of the aged and infirm, or persons moonlighting from their regular employment who did little to get in the way of criminals. See, e.g., Reppetto, The Blue Parade 3 (1978). Even so, one might argue that the watchmen, one of the first police in an urban setting, were the first in England to have community caretaker duties. Under Charles II, the `Charlies' were    required to perform    duties of municipal housekeeping such as lighting lamps, calling the time, and reporting unsanitary conditions. Id. Modern police forces as we know them today began to develop in the nineteenth century, both in Europe and in the United States. The early London Metropolitan Police may be credited with the community service model of controlling crime and disorder. Reppetto, supra at 301. This model, also known as the beat system, is as follows: In the community service model    the essential idea is to assign a team of patrolmen and supervisors to a small area    to learn about the neighborhood. This approach is based on the assumption that if officers are encouraged to become familiar with the neighborhoods in which they work and to take larger responsibilities for following through on citizens' requests for assistance as well as on complaints of crime, they will win the confidence of those whom they are to protect and thereby elicit more cooperative assistance from the public and better intelligence about criminal activities   . Wilson, Thinking about Crime 90-91 (1967) quoted in Reppetto, supra at 301-02. The first London Metropolitan Police Officers, not unlike their later counterparts in Oregon, were not viewed as individuals invested with power beyond that of the ordinary citizen, that is, as stated by nineteenth century English jurist Sir James Fitzjames Stephen, [a] policeman has no other right as to asking questions or compelling the attendance of witnesses than a private person has; in a word, with a few exceptions, he may be described as a person paid to perform as a matter of duty acts, which if he so minded, he might have done voluntarily. Quoted in Melville-Lee, A History of Police in England and Wales 333 (1901) and Reppetto, supra at 18. Like England, in the United States the creation of public police resulted from safety concerns. Early on, the New England states had watches (supplemented by officers supported largely by fees for enforcement services); Boston created a watch in 1631 and New Amsterdam (New York) in 1643. Bayley, Police History in 3 Encyclopedia of Crime and Justice 1120, 1124 (1983). As was the case in England, various types of law enforcement officials were created by local governments including marshalls, sheriffs and constables, all assisted by the posse comitatus. And like England, [b]y the early nineteenth century, American law enforcement was a hodgepodge of small jurisdictions staffed by various officials with different powers, responsibilities, and legal standing. The modern police force in the United States developed at about the same time as the London Metropolitan Police Force. The movement [toward unified police forces] began in Boston in 1837 and spread to New York in 1844 and to Philadelphia in 1854. By the 1870's almost all major American cities had municipal police forces. Several factors combined to produce this change. As in Great Britain, it had long been recognized that criminal investigation was haphazard, favoring those who could pay. Crime prevention by the police was negligible, carried out by unmotivated, untrained persons who generally could not find other work. The rapid growth of cities produced violence, crime, and vice, reflecting the breakdown of the customary social structures that ensure moral consensus and law-abiding behavior in small communities. However, the crucial impetus was probably the dramatic rise in urban mob violence. Rioting frequently broke out between Catholics and Protestants, immigrants and [N]ative Americans, and abolitionists and pro-slavery groups. Having at their disposal only ill-assorted and unorganized local officers or the state militia, cities could not maintain order. Slowly the realization grew that cities needed a standing force of police, centrally commanded, that would patrol regularly in order to prevent problems from developing, that would be large enough to deter a mob, and that would be expert in investigating criminal offenses. Id. at 1124. Hale, Police and Prison Cyclopedia (1896) contains an extensive discussion of the duties of nineteenth century police officers. Among Hale's description of the duties of the policemen are these: He shall furnish such information and render such aid to all persons, when requested, as is consistent with his duty.         He shall examine in the night-time all doors, gates, and windows of dwellings and stores to see that they are properly secured, and, if not, give notice to the inmates, if any. Where the buildings are unoccupied he must make fast all doors and windows found open and notify the owners in the morning. He must take special notice of all vacant dwelling-houses to prevent depredations; be vigilant to prevent fire or waste of water; call attention of abutters to the state of the sidewalks where by snow, ice, or other cause they are rendered dangerous, or when obstructed by fuel, boxes, or other articles, or with goods or signs extending more than foot over the same; take note of all ashes, garbage, dead animals, or other offense matter thrown into the street, or when the street is used for washing carriages or horses or improperly obstructed thereby. Id. at 36-37. One writer states that the police receive many calls requesting assistance in non-criminal matters. Reiss, The Police and the Public 63-64 (1971). Today, modern police are regularly called upon to resolve domestic disputes, respond to reports of missing family members, answer questions of persons in need of information, aid the ill, take inebriated persons to detoxification centers (rather than to jail), and to work with social service agencies. See id. at 63. See also Goldstein, Police Administration in 3 Encyclopedia of Criminal Justice 1125, 1129 (1983); and State v. Atkinson, 298 Or. 1, 8, 688 P.2d 832 (1984) (For various reasons of public necessity, it is sometimes necessary that automobiles be taken into government custody.); and Nearing v. Weaver, 295 Or. 702, 704, 670 P.2d 137 (1983) (Statute requires police to assist in domestic disturbances.) The original grant of authority to the Oregon State Police provided: The department of state police and each of the members thereof shall be charged with the enforcement of all criminal laws. They shall have the powers now given to peace officers of the state, county and municipalities, and they are hereby authorized and empowered to prevent crime, to pursue and apprehend offenders and to obtain legal evidence necessary to insure the conviction in the courts of such offenders, to institute criminal proceedings, to execute any lawful warrant or order of arrest issued against any person or persons for any violation of the law, to make arrests without warrant for violations of the law committed in their presence, and for felonies committed, the same as are or may be authorized for other peace officers; to give first aid to the injured; to succor the helpless, and to have in general the same powers and authority as those conferred by law upon sheriffs, police officers and constables.    Or Laws 1931, ch 139, § 9 (currently codified at ORS 181.030). The foregoing is not intended to prove that police have greater authority than other citizens to render aid. The point is that their authority is not less than that of other citizens and that law enforcement officers have long been a traditional source of aid for citizens other than in a criminal law enforcement context.