Police in Urban America, 1860-1920

by Eric H. Monkkonen

Overview

Recent years have witnessed a growing interest in the social history of crime an-long a variety of disciplines. This book examines the rapid spread of uniformed police forces throughout late nineteenth-century urban America. It suggests that, initially, the new kind of police in industrial cities served primarily as agents of class control, dispensing and administering welfare services as an unintentioned consequence of their uniformed presence on the streets. This narrowed role hampered their ability to control crime, and, as modern social services developed and the police came increasingly to concentrate on crime control, they acquired a functional speciality at which they had never been particularly successful.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780521531252
Publisher:	Cambridge University Press
Publication date:	06/07/2004
Series:	Interdisciplinary Perspectives on Modern History
Edition description:	New Edition
Pages:	240
Sales rank:	916,502
Product dimensions:	5.98(w) x 9.02(h) x 0.55(d)

Table of Contents

List of tables and figures; Preface; Introduction; 1. The historical development of the police; 2. Arrest trends, 1860–1920; 3. Tramps and children: the decline of police welfare; 4. A narrowing of function; Conclusion; Appendixes; Notes; Index.