4 ms·

Appreciated. Could be a fascinating read, how societies through history have maintained internal order with various approaches to security. Did Rome have police

Appreciated. Could be a fascinating read, how societies through history have maintained internal order with various approaches to security. Did Rome have police? What about the Venetians or 16th-18th century europe? Any reading recommendation? Also, I’m now curious what a the future of homeland security could look like. Is anyone writing rationally about this?

yareal 2y ago
Rome had a few different approaches, the Vigiles mentioned elsewhere in this thread. Several countries had armies enforce legal codes. Some places had night watches run by their local communities. Some had night watches you could pay to avoid participating in. It was considered quite unpleasant and low class to perform a night watch, so the people paid to do it were often those who could not otherwise find work or found it difficult to work elsewhere. In some societies you could seek justice via a duel, essentially calling out the criminal and relying on social pressure to see the duel adhered to. In England there's a system of tithings, shires and shire reeves, individuals who were kept employed and told to keep the peace. The shire reeves could muster people to enforce the law, temporarily. In the 1600s-1800s the monarchs in various countries instituted police forces, but they were typically plainclothes or carried only a symbol of office. (E.g. a badge) These police were closer to what we expect police to be in the modern era, but were not typically or consistently in the same visible, standard uniform. (Though they may have carried, e.g. a sword that might mark them out.) The U.S. also had other police systems, including slave patrols, essentially self formed posses that would ride down escaped slaves. In the 1800s, police forces in England thought, "you know what would deter crime? Visible police!" And they began to standardize uniforms with the intent to prevent crime, rather than react to crime. Prior to this moment, policing was typically reactionary -- an aggrieved party seeking justice. The innovation was that if people saw a neighborhood patrolled by uniformed police, they might believe that area was safer and criminals might go elsewhere. Around the 1860s, this idea really took off, and you see many places copying it. I'm on my phone, I'll dig for sources later.
- thaumasiotes 2y ago
  > Several countries had armies enforce legal codes. We do that now. The division of the army responsible for that is called "the police".
  - gattilorenz 2y ago
    No, you don’t. Police in the US is militarized but still police (which ironically is part of the problem, AFAIK. They would have better training had they been in the army in some cases). Countries like Italy have Army corps (the Carabinieri and Guardia di Finanza) that do police work but are still part of the army, in addition to also having regular Police. I think this is not uncommon in countries where Napoleonic France had a strong influence, but there’s plenty of commenters here with a better knowledge of the domain, so please correct me if I misremember:) But having part of the army do police work doesn’t really fix most problems with the police, of course.
    - int_19h 2y ago
      The problem is that they are equipped like the army in many cases, and certainly seem to have the mentality that they are some kind of counter-insurgency force on occupied hostile territory.
  - yareal 2y ago
    No, the term for that is gendarmerie. If you've read my other posts you've probably been able to infer that I'm not a fan of the police, but I find that being quippy about them undermines actual meaningful conversation about their history and how they could change.
    - thaumasiotes 2y ago
      > No, the term for that is gendarmerie. That doesn't mean anything. If we renamed the police "gendarmes", what would be different?
      - 2y ago

yareal 2y ago

Rome had a few different approaches, the Vigiles mentioned elsewhere in this thread. Several countries had armies enforce legal codes. Some places had night watches run by their local communities. Some had night watches you could pay to avoid participating in. It was considered quite unpleasant and low class to perform a night watch, so the people paid to do it were often those who could not otherwise find work or found it difficult to work elsewhere. In some societies you could seek justice via a duel, essentially calling out the criminal and relying on social pressure to see the duel adhered to. In England there's a system of tithings, shires and shire reeves, individuals who were kept employed and told to keep the peace. The shire reeves could muster people to enforce the law, temporarily. In the 1600s-1800s the monarchs in various countries instituted police forces, but they were typically plainclothes or carried only a symbol of office. (E.g. a badge) These police were closer to what we expect police to be in the modern era, but were not typically or consistently in the same visible, standard uniform. (Though they may have carried, e.g. a sword that might mark them out.) The U.S. also had other police systems, including slave patrols, essentially self formed posses that would ride down escaped slaves. In the 1800s, police forces in England thought, "you know what would deter crime? Visible police!" And they began to standardize uniforms with the intent to prevent crime, rather than react to crime. Prior to this moment, policing was typically reactionary -- an aggrieved party seeking justice. The innovation was that if people saw a neighborhood patrolled by uniformed police, they might believe that area was safer and criminals might go elsewhere. Around the 1860s, this idea really took off, and you see many places copying it. I'm on my phone, I'll dig for sources later.

thaumasiotes 2y ago
> Several countries had armies enforce legal codes. We do that now. The division of the army responsible for that is called "the police".
- gattilorenz 2y ago
  No, you don’t. Police in the US is militarized but still police (which ironically is part of the problem, AFAIK. They would have better training had they been in the army in some cases). Countries like Italy have Army corps (the Carabinieri and Guardia di Finanza) that do police work but are still part of the army, in addition to also having regular Police. I think this is not uncommon in countries where Napoleonic France had a strong influence, but there’s plenty of commenters here with a better knowledge of the domain, so please correct me if I misremember:) But having part of the army do police work doesn’t really fix most problems with the police, of course.
  - int_19h 2y ago
    The problem is that they are equipped like the army in many cases, and certainly seem to have the mentality that they are some kind of counter-insurgency force on occupied hostile territory.
- yareal 2y ago
  No, the term for that is gendarmerie. If you've read my other posts you've probably been able to infer that I'm not a fan of the police, but I find that being quippy about them undermines actual meaningful conversation about their history and how they could change.
  - thaumasiotes 2y ago
    > No, the term for that is gendarmerie. That doesn't mean anything. If we renamed the police "gendarmes", what would be different?
    - 2y ago