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The first modern modern police department was founded in 1838 (Boston, MA)
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New York follws suite and establishes it's own Police Department
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Chicago, Cincinatti and New Orleans followed later in the 1880's
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August Vollmer who was considered the "father of policing" stressed the importance of sociology, social work, psychology, and management in police work. -
FBI was founded in the 1920's. This started the shift from community policing to street patrols -
Police start cracking down on illegal sale and distribution of alcohol.
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Prohibition for policing ended during the 1930's due to lack of enforcement by some states refusing to enforce federal laws.
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African American's began protesting, rioting, and boycotts against the police for racial profiling. This was predominantly in the South. This brought new challenges for policing as crimes were already on the rise. -
After realizing crime rates were still on the rise, and street patrols not working like intended to some departments returned to community policing to combate rising crime rates. -
In 2001 Racial profiling and rascism returns as a national concern. This is still a rising concern here in 2023
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September 11th, 2001 sparked a new era and challenge for police departments nation wide. After the terrorists attacks in NYC, police shifted its movment and crackdown to counter terrorism -
In 2014, Police Brutality became a national outrage with the death of Eric Garner (which was captured on body cameras. Since then, we saw in 2020 the death of George Floyd, and in 2023 the death of Tyre Nichols sparked more outrage. -
The call for change and defunding the police movement began and is still at the forefront in the national spotlight. -
Policing today in America is as challenging as ever. We see the rising concern over police brutality, rising protest countering police bruality, and the defunding of police departments. This has caused for crime rates to rise in most areas, and lack of policing. Today we see police departments all over the country stuggling to find new officers to replace the retiring, firing, or simply walking away due to lack of support from local and national officials, and also the fear of being sued.