During The Political Era

During the political era, which was documented from being from 1840 to 1920, policing in the United States were mainly taken from the way the laws were put into effect over in England. The only difference was that the American police departments lacked authority from Royalty, instead, they had gotten their authorizations and resources from political leaders. The relationship that had emerged from this was reciprocated because the politicians were the ones who actually decided, recruited, and maintained the police in office. In turn, those same police would know how to utilize what power they had by encouraging and discouraging the citizens to vote and not vote for certain candidates, and they also assisted in rigging some of the elections if the count wasn’t as expected. The two forms of technology that the police of this era used as protection were a gun and a
As time went on some advances were made with the technology that made it easier for everyone including the police. The police departments of the political era were known to be decentralized because of how the cities were divided into precincts, along with being primitive with communications and transportation. In 1870, there was the telephone and telegraph, and the installing of call boxes, where the officers could get in contact with central command. During this time the police were also more connected not only with the citizens but politically because the neighborhoods they patrolled, they also lived in and they were of the same ethnic group as the politicians. In 1880s, the Bertillon system of criminal identification and the development of the fingerprinting systems that would assist in investigations came about. Which would help aid with knowing previous criminals and trying to find the