The Problem With Claiming That Policing Evolved From Slave Patrols

History is complicated.

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“Policing itself started out as slave patrols. We know that,” Rep. James Clyburn declared in an interview with Fox News’s Bret Baier. Clyburn, the House majority whip, is the third highest ranking Democrat in Congress. He’s widely respected. And he’s wrong. Or, to be more generous, he’s being irresponsibly sloppy in making a point he’s right about.

But he’s not alone.

 A story in Yahoo News makes a similar claim. Discussing police abuses, reporter Marquise Francis writes, “The injustice harkens back to the very origins of policing in the U.S., in volunteer patrols charged with keeping African-Americans in their place and hunting runaway slaves.”

A USA Today article headlined, “Law enforcement’s history of racism; First police departments date back to slave patrols”: “Across the U.S., black Americans lived in fear of law enforcement officials armed with weapons who monitored their every behavior, attacked them on the street and in their homes, and killed them for the slightest alleged provocation.”

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  1. John Matthew IV

    From Wikipedia: Augustus was born on September 23, 63 BC. He became emperor on January 16, 27 BC.

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    Pastorfbt

    A single sample illustrates how this pernicious story can take hold: this morning the local CBS newsradio outlet in Boston solemnly reported on demonstrations featuring speakers asserting this simplistic false history (sound bites included). For the average listener unarmed with the truth, the damage is done.

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  3. H.Allen.Irish

    This is a bad take by Jonah in that he implicitly accepts most of the premises of 1619 project propaganda with a couple of caveats. It's true that modern police forces are a relatively recent thing, dating back to London in the early 19th century. What all this overlooks is that law enforcement was traditionally the responsibility not of police departments but of the sheriffs and constables who were the appointed law enforcers at the county/shire level in colonial times.

    For example, in 1634, Captain Robert Hutchins was appointed the sheriff of James City Shire, one of 8 original Virginia “Shires.” Until 1776 all Sheriffs were appointed by the British Crown. From 1776 to 1851, the Sheriff was appointed from a list of local magistrates. In 1851 the Office of the Sheriff became an elected position in Virginia. In Plymouth Colony, the first formal law enforcement agency, the Office of Constable, was created in 1633 and was in charge of maintaining peace and holding people charged with crimes (the office of High Sheriff was established in 1692.)

    There were indeed informal volunteer groups of patrols, some standing, some organized by sheriffs who had the power of posse comitatus, whereby sheriffs had the authority to summons or compel citizens to aid in law enforcement. These groups, which did encompass so-called slave patrols, were not a very reliable form of law enforcement.

    What the pseudo-historians who claim that those forms of law enforcement were the progenitors of modern police forces are ignoring is that modern police forces sprung up and were organized in direct opposition to that form of law enforcement. In other words, modern police didn't evolve from slave patrols and other such citizen posses, they were formed in direct opposition to them. It's as if these people were claiming that modern trials with rules and evidence were a direct outgrowth of trial by ordeal or trial by combat. It's utter nonsense and deeply illogical.

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      Victor Clairmont

      We do need trial by combat to return. Post haste.

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  4. NateQueso

    I’d recommend watching ‘The 13th’ on Netflix for a valuable perspective on slavery, policing and mass incarceration. It’s probably not the conservative perspective some are looking for but I personally find it valuable as it outlines the perspectives of the individuals most prominently impacted by slavery, policing and mass incarceration. It’s worth a listen.

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    Scarlette Tarte

    Uh, Jonah, police everywhere, since the beginning of police forces have been meant one thing...enforcing the law as laid down by the wealthy and powerful, mostly to protect their interests.

    Today, we pay lip service that those police are there to protect and serve all of us, however, not really. They are still there primarily to protect the wealthy and their interests...property interests especially.

    If you want to see this in action, please note that no knock warrants are rarely executed in wealthy neighborhoods, although the wealthy are very much using illicit drugs at the same rates as poor people, and often, have made that money being involved in or adjacent to, the drug trade. No, the police may come to the door and ask politely if the homeowner would like to come with them to the police station, no cuffs, for an interview. Many times, they don't even send street cops; suited detectives will come over to 'ask a few questions" or the wealthy suspect will be asked to come to the station.

    Please. We ALL pretty much now see just how truly awful many police are, AND how truly awful they treat the poor and people of color. Perhaps because so many now have had their lives totally ruined by the very stupid "war on drugs", many many white people are now waking up to the fact that our entire justice system is one that is rigged to protect the wealthy only.

    Yes, police forces DID originate to control and recapture runaway slaves...and the American South, (and hint, hint) this entire country DID make it kind of a "thing" that they fashioned themselves after the Roman Senate and the Roman Republic. The founders seemed to take great pride in emulating Rome. Well, guess what else they brought with them from the old Roman Republic?

    Policing. Slave patrols. Some kind of FORCE to impose order, to protect the wealth these people had generated. That is the entire idea behind "policing".

    In this country, we are supposed to be able to "govern ourselves". Well the fact that we developed police forces and constabularies so soon after the founding is a dead giveaway that the "powers that be" never really believed that people could "police themselves", now innit?

    The whole justice system needs reform, top to bottom. And policing needs to be reduced to a true service. Cops on the street that really do aid people. Not that go around fishing and pulling people over just to check and harass them, looking for drugs, on random traffic stops, etc. We are OVERPOLICED today.

    Cities and towns rely on police to do all of this stuff they never should have been doing to begin with, like going out on mental health calls, because (especially in Republican areas) the Mayors and other powers that be don't want to raise the taxes necessary to have in place a task force that would handle things like a schizophrenic walking down the middle of the interstate, or someone suicidal threatening to jump off a bridge.

    Here in East Texas there was an incident a year or two ago, where a mentally distraught woman walked into a police station (small station, empty lobby) and brandished a knife. No one was in danger. All the cops had to do was lock the front door from the outside and let her calm down, maybe even go to sleep, and they could have taken her into custody. Instead, they shot and killed her. She had a long history of mental health issues and episodes.

    There was the incident where a mentally ill black woman was beaten by a California highway patrol officer because she walking in and out of traffic and was incoherent and unable to properly respond to the officer. She won a 1.5 million dollar settlement. Remember that? She has bipolar disorder. No police needed to be involved in that episode either.

    Drug addiction is a health issue, and we don't need police response to that either.

    I could go on and on, but the fact is, we are all waking up to the fact that we are overpoliced and by a very militarized police force at that. It is time to change it. And it is actually very good that we are starting to acknowledge just why and how police forces came into being in the first place.

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    Murrayprof

    One legacy of slave patrols Jonah hasn't/won't address is the idea that they imbued whites with a sense that they have a collective right to "police"- for lack of a better word- the comings and goings of black folks. Otherwise there would not be so many "Karens" out there calling the cops at the drop of a hat. Seems pretty obvious to me.

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    Show Jay Janney the 🚪!

    Ummmm, Jonah? Caesar had slaves, and he probably even used them to patrol for escapees (as well as for hot dates on Saturday night at the vomitorium).

    Unless you are subscribing to the "Tim Kaine hot tub time machine theory", where Kaine goes back in time to Rome, and kidnaps Caesar. Caesar comes to modern times, learns about slavery and slavery patrols, and exports the idea back to ancient Rome. The logistics problems are of course, quite substantial.

    And if the Dems did have a hot tub time machine, why aren't they going back in time to kidnap a younger Joe Biden, pre dementia, until after the election?

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    George.Skinner

    One of the problems with politically-charged moments like this (and 9/11, and the economic crash in 2008, or after a natural disaster) is that popular sentiment swings far enough that all sorts of extreme positions aren't challenged, or are even embraced. It's usually a temporary effect while passions are high, and cooler minds eventually prevail. Unfortunately, it can lead to some incredibly dumb policy in the moment. Trying to make people see everything through a lens of racism is one of those things. The United States isn't the only country to ever create a police force. The London Metropolitan Police was created in 1829, for example. This was 25 years after the British Empire abolished the slave trade, and just a few years before it was abolished throughout the empire. Hard to see how that police force would've originated in slave patrols, and it also influenced the formation of police departments in other major cities throughout the world. Of course, the usual left wing critique would simply move on from this point to a broader claim that police are meant to protect the wealthy from the masses. The racist angle is probably cited because it's more poignant given the current political climate.

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    1. David Mancke

      I disagree. I think racism has an impact on judicial outcomes that is significant and we should not squander this moment out of a discomfort with confronting racism.

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        George.Skinner

        There's definitely a case to be made for disparate outcomes correlated with race in the justice system. The problem with making overly broad claims is that they tend to be incorrect in a lot of particulars, which is sufficient to allow people to make an overly broad refutation based on those inaccuracies. Remember: if you're looking at facts that align with what you're predisposed to believe, the question is "Can I believe this?" If the facts are contrary to your predisposition, the question becomes "Must I believe this?"

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        1. David Mancke

          I think that 'overly broad' idea is a misappropriation of the issue. This is a significant harm, and there's no vice (read: problem) in calling attention to it. In fact we have a lot to gain.

          I'd also say that this benefit outweighs any disadvantage of the few who would wield history to simply paint cops with a broad brush.

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  9. David Mancke

    Reminds me a bit if Buckley in 1962

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    Ray Salemi

    It seems to me that Val Demings has become a shoe-in. She has a perfect background for our times.

    And, of course, I'm recommending THE GIVEN DAY by Denis Lehane a novel of America's first police force, its first police union, and the strike in 1919 that almost destroyed Boston.

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    1. Scroop Moth

      Timely recommendation, with the additional setting in Tulsa.

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