Politics, the Police, and Arresting Policies in Salem, Massachusetts since the Civil War

Abstract

This paper attempts to explain the wide-spread declines in arrest-levels reported by police departments in the Northeast after the 1870's, using Dahl's thesis that this was the period when businessmen began to dominate politics in many American cities and Wilson's thesis that intense political conflict tends to draw the police into politics and to undermine their effectiveness. The data of this research were drawn from Salem, Massachusetts, and take two forms: statistical accounts of the structure and activities of the Salem police; and historical accounts of the political organization of the town. The results lend strong support to the conclusion that both Dahl's and Wilson's theses are valid, explanations of the decline of the Salem department after the 1870's.