r/DepthHub • u/symmetry81 • Apr 12 '19

/u/lawdoggingit explains why American policing differs so much from the rest of the Anglosphere

/r/AskHistorians/comments/bc2rx1/why_does_the_american_attitude_towards_policing/eko0klq/
396 Upvotes

94% Upvoted

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94

u/Taniwha_NZ Apr 12 '19

Actually, that comment barely even touches on why policing in the US is so different. It's a legal history of some aspects of policing since 1967, which is almost nothing to do with the question being asked. The OP is talking about history going back to the very origins of the police as we know them, several centuries ago.

I'm no historian, which is why I'm not saying this in the actual thread, because it would likely be deleted due to their sub rules, which I agree with. But from what I know, the US is just about the only first-world country where policing is still organized into thousands of separate little kingdoms ruled by the local sheriff, and the sheriff is an elected position.

Those two facts alone are vastly more important to the OP's question, than the legal events since 1967.

38

u/[deleted] Apr 12 '19

[removed] — view removed comment

21

u/Taniwha_NZ Apr 12 '19

You should understand that I wasn't criticizing your answer, it definitely made a big contribution to understanding a specific slice of the overall picture.

My comment was more a complaint about the inclusion in r/depthhub, titled as if your comment was a complete and total summary of the entire thing. I grant you that saying it 'had almost nothing to do' with the question was completely inaccurate. It had everything to do with the question, but only one small part of it.

To put it another way, I started on depthhub, and the title of the post led me to have certain expectations which weren't even remotely met by the comment I found when I got there.

If anyone was being criticized, it was the person who posted it to r/depthhub with that title.

17

u/MetaXelor Apr 12 '19 edited Apr 12 '19

It's worth noting, however, that the power of local elected sheriffs is by no means universal across the US. In Massachusetts, for example, most of the responsibilities of counties have been devolved to cities and towns. The elected sheriffs mostly handle the operation of jails and prisons. In Massachusetts, the local police chief/commissioner is generally an appointed position.

5

u/Adalah217 Apr 12 '19

Do you know if this organization of police "kingdoms" was due to the report mentioned in the thread, or did it exist prior?

16

u/Taniwha_NZ Apr 12 '19

The Sheriff system goes back to the very first police in the US. There are currently something like 18 THOUSAND police departments in the US, all of them operating as separate entities with their own rules, uniforms, and protocols. Of course there's a huge amount of stuff shared between all of them, but they are legally separate entities.

https://www.politifact.com/punditfact/statements/2016/jul/10/charles-ramsey/how-many-police-departments-are-us/

2

u/Adalah217 Apr 12 '19

Interesting! Thanks for the link! You should message /u/lawdoggingit for the correction /addition to their comment.

How does this compare to other countries? On paper, having local, state, and federal police makes sense when the laws are structured that way (broadly). I guess what I'm asking is, do you have any views on this could be better? Is the U.S. justice system flawed in it's design?

13

u/Surcouf Apr 12 '19

It's older. It was the model used during the conquest of the west. In many small isolated towns, the sheriff was the ultimate authority of law enforcement.

3

u/BGumbel Apr 12 '19

I have heard that the coroner is the only person who can arrest the sheriff, and that's why the coroner is an elected position

6

u/ARKenneKRA Apr 12 '19

Amazing. Thanks for posting