To Protect and to Serve: A History of Police in America

This readable book provides a comprehensive and detailed survey of the development of police organization, theory, and practice and its role in American history. It examines how police have tried to maintain law and order in a democratic society, noting successes, failures, and continuing problems since the colonial period. KEY TOPICS Specific chapter topics cover police in Early America; the development of municipal policing in the Northeast; policing race and violence in the South; policing the American West; urbanization, progressivism, and police; the shift to police as profession; police and technology; leaders in the field, and policing to the 21st century. For police academy training programs and police department libraries, as well as law enforcement agencies and professional organizations.