Before World War II, the making, implementation, and enforcement of criminal justice policy in the United States were almost exclusively within the jurisdiction of the states or local authorities, not the federal government. Policing in the world did not formally start until 1829; beforehand, all countries dealt with policing in a variety of ways.
The most common means of what could be called “legal policing” throughout the world came in the form of the military. The military was generally the main entity responsible for responding to crimes, investigating them, and bringing them to justice. The text states this was generally a cruel system and often one that did not concern itself with petty crimes among the people, but, rather, only those crimes that were committed against the king or ruling party (Oliver & Hilgenberg, 2018). One early derivative of the military as a form or policing came in 27 B.C. with the creation of Rome’s Praetorian Guard. This was a military unit given the special responsibility of guarding the emperor’s palace in Rome, thus serving as a quasi-private police force. Emperor Augustus developed a policing force known as the Vigiles of Rome. The force grew to over 10,000 Vigiles policing the city of Rome, which had a population of over 750,000 citizens (Oliver & Hilgenberg, 2018).
The move toward formal metropolitan civilian law enforcement was sidetracked by the American Revolution. During that 1776-1781 conflict, military forces assumed public safety duties previously handled by civilians. The army’s chief concern, however, was defense, and petty crimes and vice frequently were ignored. Civilian police control resumed after the war, but the challenged of dealing with an economically battered nation saw crimes against individuals rise dramatically. Toward the end of the eighteenth century, law enforcement was still sporadic (Oliver & Hilgenberg, 2018).
The early colonists were not progressive with th...