The State Police Movement in the South

Abstract

Assumption by the state of active responsibility for its long dormant powers in the police field has been one of the outstanding developments of recent years in American police administration. The formation of police agencies under state auspices has resulted in great variations in type, although a trend can be noted toward the creation of police forces possessing general police powers.! The present status of the state police movement is strikingly illustrated by the existence of police agencies with statewide law enforcement powers in forty-six states, of which nineteen are state police and twenty-seven are highway police.2 South Dakota has a number of officers assigned to the Attorney-General's office, leaving Wisconsin as the only state possessing neither a state nor a highway police. The rapidity with which the movement has spread is seen from the fact that as late as 1933 only thirty-five states possessed police agencies. Although the first state police was created in Texas at an early time,' the state police movement tbok its modern form in 1905 in Pennsylvania. In turn, other states in the East, including New York, Connecticut, New Jersey, Rhode Island, and West Virginia, created forces following in general the Pennsylvania pattern. Michigan and Oregon also established police forces, but, in the main, state police were confined to the East until a