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> Prior to uniformed police, we had town watch/night watch/shire reeves . So what is the difference between them beyond the uniform and the name? Law enforceme

> Prior to uniformed police, we had town watch/night watch/shire reeves . So what is the difference between them beyond the uniform and the name? Law enforcement is law enforcement no matter how you call it. > The results of this research saying, "wealth and race seem to be where police are deployed" is a fascinating rhyme to the origins of police. I don’t think it is appropriate to compare protection of people in destitute areas to slave patrols. You are stigmatising helping poor people.

danaris 3y ago
> So what is the difference between them beyond the uniform and the name? The goals and incentives.
- LudwigNagasena 3y ago
  They got paid to enforce the law.
  - danaris 3y ago
    Which (even to the extent it was true—it wasn't, always) doesn't change the fact that their goals and incentives weren't the same as those of modern professional law enforcement.
  - policepost 3y ago
    I'm saying the opposite. Originally, enforcement was communal - it was a periodic expectation, something you did but didn't get paid for. Then the wealthy started paying people to take the unpleasant shift, but even then the pay wasn't to enforce the law, it was pay to take over for some rich guy who didn't want to be up all night. People whose career is law enforcement is newer and the compensation and expectations are different.
    - LudwigNagasena 3y ago
      You are saying that for thousands of years of civilization nobody got paid for law enforcement before capitalism? Yeah, that doesn't sound very plausible.
      - raincom 3y ago
        It was not so much law enforcement, but protection of property. Especially during harvest seasons in old days, farmers pay a share of harvest to protectors. Some kind of such protection has had existed, for sure, without formal laws or without formal law enforcements. It was more of customs, traditions, with some sense of reasonableness.
      - policepost 3y ago
        I don't know what to tell you. People were paid to protect someone's stuff, those people were called guards, but they weren't enforcing law. Some people were given ownership of a place and the people in that place, they were called lords or knights, but they weren't enforcing laws, they were enforcing their will. Some communities had expectations and rules, and the community was self policing - if you did theft, the mob would come punish you. They weren't enforcing laws and certainly weren't paid. Their justice was uneven and often brutal. Sometimes soldiers would be pressed into enforcing laws, but they were being paid to be soldiers. Eventually we got to some folks who were paid to enforce laws. Some of the earliest were "Shire Reeves" (from which we derive the word sheriff). A shire reeve was a single man who was charged with keeping order in a shire. That's not exactly enforcing laws, but it's close enough in spirit. A reeve would hire temporary folks in a posse if needed to achieve a temporary goal, but did not have a police department. Temporary posses were not uniformed, and were typically paid for short term labor - arrest this guy or get that property back. A reeve may have guards for his safety or to intimidate local folks, but those guards weren't really law enforcement. Around the fourteenth century, governments started relying on formal roles known as justices of peace, or conservators of peace, who were explicitly charged with binding people to laws and enforcing laws. They were relatively large in number and the practice continued through to the industrial revolution. Except JPs weren't paid, they were typically gentry who enjoyed the social status it granted them. The history of US police is really fascinating, and not something most people really every dive into. They believe it was always this way, but it very much wasn't. Police as a concept like we know them is very, very modern.
Volundr 3y ago
> You are stigmatising helping poor people. I suspect there is a wide variety of opinions on if increased police presence is "helping".
policepost 3y ago
I didn't compare protection of people in low income areas. I compared policing of people in low income areas. Policing and protection are not synonyms. Ideally they overlap, in practice they may or may not overlap.

danaris 3y ago

> So what is the difference between them beyond the uniform and the name? The goals and incentives.

LudwigNagasena 3y ago
They got paid to enforce the law.
- danaris 3y ago
  Which (even to the extent it was true—it wasn't, always) doesn't change the fact that their goals and incentives weren't the same as those of modern professional law enforcement.
- policepost 3y ago
  I'm saying the opposite. Originally, enforcement was communal - it was a periodic expectation, something you did but didn't get paid for. Then the wealthy started paying people to take the unpleasant shift, but even then the pay wasn't to enforce the law, it was pay to take over for some rich guy who didn't want to be up all night. People whose career is law enforcement is newer and the compensation and expectations are different.
  - LudwigNagasena 3y ago
    You are saying that for thousands of years of civilization nobody got paid for law enforcement before capitalism? Yeah, that doesn't sound very plausible.
    - raincom 3y ago
      It was not so much law enforcement, but protection of property. Especially during harvest seasons in old days, farmers pay a share of harvest to protectors. Some kind of such protection has had existed, for sure, without formal laws or without formal law enforcements. It was more of customs, traditions, with some sense of reasonableness.
    - policepost 3y ago
      I don't know what to tell you. People were paid to protect someone's stuff, those people were called guards, but they weren't enforcing law. Some people were given ownership of a place and the people in that place, they were called lords or knights, but they weren't enforcing laws, they were enforcing their will. Some communities had expectations and rules, and the community was self policing - if you did theft, the mob would come punish you. They weren't enforcing laws and certainly weren't paid. Their justice was uneven and often brutal. Sometimes soldiers would be pressed into enforcing laws, but they were being paid to be soldiers. Eventually we got to some folks who were paid to enforce laws. Some of the earliest were "Shire Reeves" (from which we derive the word sheriff). A shire reeve was a single man who was charged with keeping order in a shire. That's not exactly enforcing laws, but it's close enough in spirit. A reeve would hire temporary folks in a posse if needed to achieve a temporary goal, but did not have a police department. Temporary posses were not uniformed, and were typically paid for short term labor - arrest this guy or get that property back. A reeve may have guards for his safety or to intimidate local folks, but those guards weren't really law enforcement. Around the fourteenth century, governments started relying on formal roles known as justices of peace, or conservators of peace, who were explicitly charged with binding people to laws and enforcing laws. They were relatively large in number and the practice continued through to the industrial revolution. Except JPs weren't paid, they were typically gentry who enjoyed the social status it granted them. The history of US police is really fascinating, and not something most people really every dive into. They believe it was always this way, but it very much wasn't. Police as a concept like we know them is very, very modern.

Volundr 3y ago

> You are stigmatising helping poor people. I suspect there is a wide variety of opinions on if increased police presence is "helping".

policepost 3y ago

I didn't compare protection of people in low income areas. I compared policing of people in low income areas. Policing and protection are not synonyms. Ideally they overlap, in practice they may or may not overlap.