The Origin and Evolution of the Police Function In Society: Notes Toward a Theory

Abstract

Our theory states that the police function, in its modern form, is linked to economic specialization and differential access to resources that occur in the transition from a kinship- to a class-dominated society. This theory shows the incremental steps by which this transition may come about, both historically and cross-culturally. In addition, we examine the implications of these steps for modern police-community relations.Our theory is constructed from both anthropological and historical materials. It consists of four interdependent propositions: (1) The origin of a specialized police function depends upon the division of society into dominant and subordinate classes with antagonistic interests; (2) specialized police agencies are generally characteristic only of societies politically organized as states; (3) in a period of transition, the crucial factor in delineating the modern specialized police function is an ongoing attempt at conversion of the social control (policing) mechanism from an integral part of the community structure to an agent of an emerging dominant class; and (4) the police institution is created by the emerging dominant class as an instrument for the preservation of its control over restricted access to basic resources, over the political apparatus governing this access, and over the labor force necessary to provide the surplus upon which the dominant class lives.We argue that the police institution has a double and contradictory origin and function, for at the same time and in the same society it may be both the agent of the people it polices and of the dominant class controlling these same people. An analysis linking the origin of the modern police function to social change in classless societies has important implications for an understanding of contemporary problems in police-community relations. It allows the dynamics of the social control function of police in small, homogeneous social units to be integrated with a consideration of its role in a complex society. Such an analysis also illuminates how an understanding of this specialized role may be obscured by the more general social control function of police displayed in simple social units, resulting in differential and conflicting expectations about the role and functions of police in the modern world.