Mathieu Deflem
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and
Stephen Chicoine
This is a copy of a paper in Encyclopedia of Criminology and Criminal Justice, edited by Gerben Bruinsma and David Weisburd, 2014. Also available as PDF file.
Please cite as: Deflem, Mathieu and Stephen Chicoine. 2014. “History of Technology in Policing." Pp. 2269-2277 in Encyclopedia of Criminology and Criminal Justice, edited by Gerben Bruinsma and David Weisburd. Berlin: Springer.
Overview
Technology has fundamentally
changed the face of society, and the effects that technological advances have
had on the form and function of policing is no exception. In response to the
changing conditions of society brought about by new developments in technology,
law enforcement agencies have in turn adopted new technological advances in
order to fulfill their function in the areas of crime control and order
maintenance. This has in turn lead to the historical development of the
bureaucratization of law enforcement, which has transformed the police from a
political enforcement apparatus to an autonomous professional institution.
Technology has not only facilitated this transformation of police within their
respective nations, but has also facilitated international police cooperation.
The institutional autonomy and the technological advances in communications and
transportation enabled international cooperation between police organizations
which addressed, ironically, the new forms of crime that were enabled by those
very same technological advances. Harnessing new forms of technology would
become a constant theme in the efforts of international police cooperation,
with new initiatives and meetings calling for the advancement of the means for
law enforcement agencies of different nations to exchange information on
criminals, suspects, and new means of policing.
Technological changes have
occurred for the better part of a century, tracing back to, at least, the early
19th century, when police were highly connected with the political
sphere and walked their beats with whistles and batons, up until the beginning
of the modern era shortly after World War Two. By this time, the police had
become recognizably modern, despite all the advancements that still had yet to
occur in more recent decades. The changes in the institution of policing have
not been limited to the means by which police pursue their goals, but has also altered
the organization and goals of policing from political concerns to criminal
objectives.
Fundamental Policing Technologies: Weapons and Communications
Early forms of policing bear
only partial likeness to modern-day law enforcement. In terms of technology, police
agents were traditionally outfitted only with a truncheon or baton and a rattle
for raising the alarm (Johnson 1981; Manwaring-White 1983). These early police
were largely on their own upon leaving the police station since the
technologies of the time did not allow for communication between officers
patrolling their beats and their command structure. As a result, officers in the
police station were rarely aware of criminal situations on the streets unless a
citizen lived close enough to walk to the station or until an officer returned
from patrol (Johnson 1981). Due to the lack of communication technology at the
time, there was also little ability to coordinate officers on patrol or to keep
account of the officers' actions while on the streets. While the means of
physical repression of the police have remained largely unchanged since the
institutions' early inception, the means of communication and transportation
have transformed the form and function of policing in rather considerable ways.
Historically police agents were
armed only with a nightstick in the United States or a baton or truncheon in
Europe. The adoption of firearms by police was once a contentious issue in
terms of the power of the state to arm against its people, and first occurred
in the United States, arguably as a result of the embedded nature of firearms
in American culture (Johnson 1981). The initial standing orders given to
officers prohibited the carrying of firearms while on patrol, and the public
was largely opposed to arming the police (Johnson 1981). At this time during
the formation of the United States, many within the US carried firearms, and
conflicts amongst citizens sometimes escalated to the point that shots were regularly
exchanged. The police of the time were charged with resolving such conflicts,
but officers would often be shot while on duty. After several shootings of
police officers had taken place, it became an informal practice amongst the
police to carry a firearm despite the orders against this, and this informal
practice eventually came to be institutionalized (Johnson 1981). In the US, the
first agency to adopt the multi-shot pistol officially was the Texas Rangers in
the 1850s, and other agencies across the nation adopted firearms shortly after
(NCJ 1998). In England the firearm was adopted considerably later on, and the
police there were not visibly armed until a shoot-out took place involving two
anarchists in 1911 (Manwaring-White 1983).
Major advances in the history of
policing and technology have taken place with respect to communications technology.
Police in the 1830s relied on the rattle, whistle, or loud shout in order to
alert other officers in the area to come their assistance (Stewart 1994;
Johnson 1981). These police were essentially isolated while on patrol, and the
police station was unable to communicate with the while they were on patrol. As
a result, the station could not coordinate nor direct its officers on the
streets, the officers could not report on situations on the streets until they
returned, nor ask for assistance. Citizens were likewise limited in their
access to police assistance unless they lived within walking distance to the
station or until they could find an officer along his route. Several
technological advancements were pursued and instituted in the efforts to
facilitate communications between the police, the citizenry and the station.
From the late 19th
century onwards, important advances in communications technology began to be
adopted by the police. The first police telephones were installed in Albany,
New York in 1877 and were used to connect the five districts with the mayor's
office. Similarly, in the United Kingdom telephones were first used to connect
police in 1880, and by 1886 the emergency phone system had connected all of the
police and fire stations in Glasgow in the United Kingdom. While these earlier
advances enhanced the ability of police to communicate with other stations, the
mayor, and other emergency services, the police call box allowed for
communications between police on patrol, citizens, and police stations.
While today the police call box
has been subsumed by the widespread use of the radio and telephone, and is perhaps
more recognizable as the transportation of the time-traveling Doctor in the BBC
series Dr. Who, it was once a major advancement in police communication
(Stewart 1994). In 1884, the first police call boxes were installed in Chicago
and Boston, and in 1891 the call boxes were also adopted by the Glasgow police
(Stuart 1994). Other police agencies began using the call boxes extensively
during the 1890s (Johnson 1981). The call boxes served as a line of
communication between beat patrols and headquarters, as well as a rallying
point where citizens could call the police. Police call boxes were placed at
the intersections of several police officers' patrol routes with a light at the
top. This light would be turned on to alert the officers if the station needed
to contact them, or they could be activated by citizens in need of police
assistance. Officers could therefore be signaled from a distance, via the
signal, that their attention was needed at the call box. Inside the box was a
telephone for communication with the station, creating some degree of
communication between the officers, the station, and the citizenry (Reiss 1992;
Stuart 1994; Johnson 1981). The police call boxes increased the rapid response
rate and efficiency of officers responding to emergencies and added to the
efficiency of the police by reducing the number of patrolling officers needed
and operational costs (Stuart 1994). Despite these advantages, the police call
box would eventually become replaced by the radio, just as the police foot
patrol would eventually give way to the use of the automobile (Reiss 1992).
As early as 1920 it was becoming
apparent that the foot patrol method of policing was handicapped in light of
the growing prevalence of the automobile (Walton 1958). The increasing size of
residential areas in large cities were also beginning to strain police stations
by making the costs of foot patrols prohibitive (Waltman 1958). The foot
patrols of the previous century were therefore ill-suited to the new social
conditions, requiring a new approach to policing. Under these conditions,
police forces developed rapid-response methods with the aid of the telephone,
two-way radio, and automobile. In the United States, these practices began to
develop during the 1930s, with the first radio patrol car used in Detroit as
early as 1929 (NCJ 1998; Reiss 1992; Battles 2010; Johnson 1981). This system
of officers patrolling in automobiles, coordinated through the use of two-way radios
responding to calls made by citizens, created a more efficient, effective, and
responsive police force (Johnson 1981). This development was strongly connected
to the specific conditions of 1930s America. In other national settings, the
radio police car was not used until much later, such as the United Kingdom
which did not widely adopt automobiles in policing until the 1960s (Manwaring-White
1983).
The developments in the history
of police and technology have been largely influenced by the changing conditions
that the new technologies created, as well as the bureaucratic drive of the
police towards adopting standards of efficiency in policing. The advances in
technology facilitated the development of the institutional autonomy of police
institutions from politics, since the development of communications technology
lead to greater reporting to headquarters and thereby created superior professional
officers instead of politically loyal servants (Johnson 1981). Variable social
conditions influenced the adoption of technologies among police across
countries. Firearms were adopted earlier by police in the US, for instance,
because they were also more prevalent amongst the population. The radio patrol
car was also adopted earlier there than in the United Kingdom, which did not
face the same issues in terms of geographic expansion. Finally, offenders themselves
facilitated technological changes of policing by possessing firearms or driving
automobiles. The response of the police has often been to adopt these technologies
in the form of a criminal-law enforcement arms race. This arms race has not
been confined to the character of local or national policing, but has also
influenced the development of criminal identification technologies and their
adoption.
Advances in Criminal Identification
In pre-modern times there was no
issue in criminal identification since the size of the communities virtually
ensured that everyone knew everyone else (Cole 2001). As societies expanded and
geographic mobility increased due to advances in transportation technology,
such as the train, it became easier for criminals to hide from their previous
history by moving to a different area or even by merely adopting a different
name. Problems with linking criminals to their previous convictions became
particularly problematic when, during the 1850s, a movement towards harsher
punishments for recidivists began (Cole 2001). Two central problems faced the
courts and law enforcement officials attempting to link a suspect with a
criminal past: the ability to access the information stored, and the ability to
positively identify a recidivist or other suspect.
In the beginning of the 19th
century, efforts in criminal identification were limited to descriptions
entered in prison registers which did not contain a uniform language and were
not necessarily specific enough to distinguish an inmate. Further, such records
did not differentiate between individuals with the same name and had no ability
to prevent the use of aliases (Cole 2001). One of the first improvements upon
this system was the introduction of record-keeping technologies developed by
Arnould Bonneville de Marsangy in 1844. Bonneville suggested the use of an
alphabetical system to facilitate the search for inmate record and the use of
index cards which could be added to and expanded without disrupting the order
of the information (Cole 2001). This advance did not alleviate the problems
with identifying recidivists, since criminals needed only to fabricate a false
name in order to fool the system.
Other technological advances
facilitated criminal identification, such as photography, anthropometry, and
fingerprinting. The earliest reports of photography come from British and
French police in the 1840s (Cole 2001). The first picture of a convict was
taken in Brussels in 1843. Police departments began to collect these photos and
in 1874 the Parisian police were the first to set up a picture collection of
criminals in 1874 (Deflem 2002a). By the end of the 19th century,
all major police forces had photographic identification services. The
photographs themselves provided pictures to the names that convicts gave the
police, but in making positive identifications it was the photograph's use in
the anthropometric system that had the largest impact.
Two technologies developed
around the late 19th century which would bring about drastic advances
in the area of criminal identification. The first to be implemented was the
Bertillonage, or anthropometry, system which categorized criminals by the
measurements of their bodies (Cole 2001; Deflem 2002b; Johnson 1981). The
anthropometric system was developed by Alphonse Bertillon in 1870 and was
adopted by the French government in the 1880s. The anthropometric system
involved specific and precise measurements of the criminal body, a written
description, and two photographs, one profile and one full face, which served
as the predecessor to today's mug shots. Bertillon emphasized the consistency
and accuracy of these measurements and descriptions, laying out a precise
process by which to take measurements and developing a specific terminology by
which to describe the criminal (Cole 2001). Bertillon also developed a filing
system which grouped criminals by eleven key measurements grouped into three
general categories: body, head, and appendages (Johnson 1981). Bertillon's
final advancement was the so-called ‘portrait
parlé’ or spoken portrait, which reduced the criminal's description
to a language which could be easily transmitted via telegraph or telephone
(Cole 2001). As a result of the anthropometric system, a criminal's identity
could be confirmed, regardless of the name they presented, by matching their
bodily measurements with those on file. However, this process required a
trained Bertillon operator and took several man hours to make an identification
since measurements often had to be taken twice in order to make a positive
identification (Cole 2001). Furthermore, as the anthropometric system spread
from France and was adopted by other countries, modifications to the process and
instruments led to a loss in the efficacy of the system and problems in
transmitting data of the portrait parlé to
the police of other nations (Cole 2001). The anthropometric system would become
dominant in most nations as it was initially regarded as more scientific than
fingerprinting (Cole 2001).
Fingerprint technologies were
explicitly developed to develop a classification system useful for law
enforcement. In 1877, Sir William J. Herschel proposed using fingerprinting for
criminal identification in India and Dr. Henry Faulds came to a similar
conclusion independently in 1880 (Cole 2001; Johnson 1981). Most importantly,
in 1892 Sir Francis Galton published his findings that fingerprints did not
change over the course of a lifetime and that each individual's fingerprints
were unique (Johnson 1981; Cole 2001). This led to the incorporation of
fingerprints in addition to the anthropometric system in 1894 by Scotland Yard
(Johnson 1981). At the same time, Juan Vucetich in Argentina also adopted
fingerprints for criminal identification (Deflem 2002a). The US was slower to
adopt fingerprints, with St. Louis being the first to use them after a Scotland
Yard official introduced the technique but it was not instituted widely
nationally until the 1930s when J. Edgar Hoover made the FBI available for
identifying fingerprints and training local officers (Johnson 1981). Similar to
the portrait parlé, fingerprints were
described numerically on the basis of certain specified characteristics in
order to facilitate their transmission via telegraph (Deflem 2002b).
In 1899, the colonial
legislature passed the Indian Evidence Act, which was the first endorsement of
fingerprints as legal evidence, not only identifying criminals and recidivists,
but also for finding and convicting them (Cole 2001). Originally, fingerprints
were not conceived of as a forensic tool, but merely as a record-keeping system.
The earliest forensic identification occurred in Europe in 1902, when Alphonse
Bertillon, developer of the anthropometric system, matched a bloody fingerprint
at a crime scene with a fingerprint available in a criminal file (Cole 2001).
Scotland Yard began using fingerprints for forensic identification in the
beginning years of the 20th century. At the time, fingerprints in
the courts were faced with the same hesitancy as DNA testing later would be.
The accuracy and precision of the method had to be demonstrated to the courts
in oftentimes theatrical displays until the method eventually had become more
solidified (Cole 2001). By the beginning of World War Two, fingerprint
examiners had transformed fingerprints from a novel technique into the most
credible and unassailable form of criminal identification evidence.
The anthropometric system
developed by Bertillon remained dominant for several years, but eventually
fingerprinting would gradually overtake this system as the primary means for
identifying criminals. Fingerprinting had several advantages to the
anthropometric system in that they were quicker and did not require skilled
labor or specialized instruments (Cole 2001). Fingerprints were advantageous
since they offered industrial-style speed, efficiency, productivity, and
economy over the anthropometric system (Cole 2001). The appeal of the
anthropometric system was one of quality and scientific rigor, but these
arguments faded in part due to the human error involved in the measurement and
description process as well as the growing confidence in fingerprints (Cole
2001). Furthermore, fingerprinting had the additional advantage that it could be used not only for criminal
identification, but for forensic identification as well. Fingerprints could not
only help identify a recidivist, but help convict a criminal suspect as well.
The methods of fingerprinting
and anthropometry both included an organizational classification by which they
could be categorized and retrieved, addressing the early problem of accessing
the information that was stored. The anthropometric system was particularly
time consuming in accessing its records since two measurements had to be taken
in order to effectively find a single file (Cole 2001). As the police
bureaucracies grew, so did their records, and efficiently finding matching
records became a steadily more daunting task. By the 1930s, the FBI had amassed
the largest volume of fingerprints. However, to successfully access them and
compare them required other identification information, and it still required a
great deal of time to go through the records (Cole 2001). As early as the 1920s,
identification bureaus began turning to automated data processing technologies
such as IBM punch card sorters to handle searching the large volume of records.
In the 1930s, the FBI and New York State Division of Criminal Identification
began using such IBM card sorters (Cole 2001). However, these methods remained technically
awkward and still required human examination of the selected cards, though they
did represent an advancement in the technologies of data management which would
develop drastically during the digital age.
Technologies of criminal
identification initially developed as a means to identify recidivists. However,
in the course of their development, one of the most well-known forms of
forensic identification, fingerprinting, also came to be developed. These
technologies had to be revised and expanded in view of the adaptive behavior of
offenders. Attempting to avoid identification because of prior convictions,
offenders would give false names to avoid the harsher penalties that were given
to recidivists. This development in itself was a function of the increasing
size and mobility of society, moving away from the small community wherein
everyone was easily recognizable. This societal mobility, as well as the newly
developed forms of criminal identification, were key elements to the growing
internationalization of policing which developed to confront the growing class
of criminals without borders.
Technologies of International Policing
Many characteristics of society
were fundamentally changed by advances in technology, and as a result, the
practice and organization of policing changed as well. In order to address the
changing times, the police had to adopt new technologies in order to confront
the realities of crime control. Police gained a greater level of technical
superiority in the course of pursuing their organizational goals as the means
of crime control developed in technical respects. This increasing technical
superiority was a key factor in the development of professional police
bureaucracies (Deflem 2002a). As the institution of law enforcement developed
as a bureaucracy, importantly, police institutions gained autonomy from the
political institutions of the state. And this autonomy facilitated the
international cooperation between law enforcement organizations. Autonomy from
the political sphere was a necessary prerequisite for international police
cooperation since otherwise political agendas would disrupt the goal of purely
criminal law enforcement. These changes in the structure of law enforcement
institutions were necessary to enable international cooperation, which
developed directly to address the growing connectedness across societies as a
result of advances in communications and transportation technologies.
Technology was central to the
development of international policing (Deflem 2002b). First, it enabled the
development of autonomous and professional law enforcement agencies by
contributing to the bureaucratization of law enforcement through the necessary
advances in technical superiority that accompanied the adoption of new technologies.
Second, advances in technology created new forms of crime and enabled the
internationalization of crime since advances in transportation and
communications enabled criminals to coordinate internationally as well as
providing a new level of mobility between nations. The internationalization of
crime provided the motivation for law enforcement agencies to collaborate with
foreign counterparts, and the same technologies that enabled international
criminal behavior also enabled the police to communicate and cooperate on a
scale that was never before possible.
The initial efforts for
international police cooperation were motivated by a period of revolutionary
activity during the 1840s throughout Europe. It was widely believed by police
that the internationalization of protest was aided by the technological developments
since the mid-1800s (Deflem 2002b). The press and printed writings could orient
public opinion and could be distributed beyond national borders. As a result,
the means to publish and publications of 'subversive' groups were targeted by
the police of the time. Furthermore, railway lines across Europe grew
exponentially from the mid to late 19th century, thereby drastically
increasing the ability of individuals to move from one nation to the next. This
development was by police seen as presenting greater opportunities for
political dissidents to cooperate across national boundaries in order to
overthrow the state and, later, for offenders to flee from the jurisdictions in
which they had committed a crime (Deflem 2002b). These threats, made possible
through the printed word and railways, motivated law enforcement agencies to
pursue international cooperation.
The earliest technologies to
influence international policing were those that enabled the exchange of
information (Deflem 2002a, 2002b). During the 1840s, Europe experienced a
revolutionary period which led to the adoption of a political objective by the
police who had not yet developed an institutional autonomy from the political
sphere. This led to the creation of the Police Union of German States in April
1851 with the express purpose of sharing information to track down political
radicals. The Police Union focused particularly on developing faster means of
exchanging information. Union members held regular meetings and exchanged printed
magazines with information on political opponents. Police bureaus of Vienna and
Berlin, both members of the Union, would also print bulletins containing
information on wanted suspects and extradited foreigners. In the late 19th
century, these bulletins began to be sent across Europe. The Police Union of
German States would eventually disband due to political conflicts between its member
states, but later efforts to develop international police cooperation would
become more successful, particularly in facilitating the spread of police
technologies and the use of communication technology to exchange information.
The initial forms of information
exchange among the law enforcement agencies of different nations relied on
printed media that contained information and pictures of criminals and wanted
suspects. This method of exchange was particularly developed amongst the
political police in Europe, but it was also used for criminal purposes, and the
distribution of published materials on criminals remained a favored means of
information exchange throughout the 20th century (Deflem 2002b). In
the 1880s, the New York City Police Department would develop a collection of
photographs of international criminals which it shared with European
authorities. The anthropometric, or Bertillon, system and fingerprints were the
most important technological innovations to the internationalization of law
enforcement.
Internationally, the same
technologies of communications and transportation that facilitated
international crime made not only the exchange of information amongst police
possible, but also the diffusion of new means of criminal identification. In
December 1989, Italian authorities coordinated an international police meeting,
the International Conference of Rome for the Social Defense against the
Anarchists, in order to develop a system to combat anarchism (Deflem 2002a).
Although the meeting failed to develop a system to address anarchism, it did
result in enhanced cooperation amongst police on certain practical matters of
police technology. In particular, with the exception of the authorities from
France and Britain, all of the countries agreed to introduce the portrait
parlé system that was developed for the anthropometric system for the
identification of criminals. The system enabled the transmission of information
on criminals among nations since the system reduced the information to a series
of numbers easily transmittable by telegraph or telephone (Deflem 2002b). A
synthesis of technologies therefore began to be used, the method of criminal
identification, its system for communication, and the technologies of
communication, in order to facilitate the exchange of information among the police
departments of different nations. This focus on developing better means of
exchanging information among the police of various nations has remained a
constant theme in the history of international policing until this day.
Criminal identification and the
means of information exchange among police agencies would also be the central
theme at the First International Police Congress in Monaco in 1914 (Deflem
2002a). The meeting was ineffective un developing an organization for
international police cooperation, but it did include discussions and
resolutions relevant to the adoption of technology by police agencies across
national boundaries. The Congress discussed ways to enhance the exchange of
information among police agencies of different nations, and a resolution was
passed calling for the nations in attendance to grant free use of postal,
telegraphic, and telephonic means of communication in regards to international
criminals (Deflem 2002b). At the meeting, also, a universal system of identification
including fingerprints and photos was proposed as well as an international
publication containing search warrants.
Technologies of criminal
identification were particularly important for the further development of international
information exchange among police. The anthropometric system developed by Bertillon
had spread to several other nations, but the system was not employed
universally by all agencies. Police agencies in several nations augmented the
system, which produced a problem in the exchange of information since the
measurements and descriptions could not be relied upon to be internationally uniform
(Cole 2001). Fingerprints presented the same problem with respect to the means
by which the characteristics of the print were described and which fingerprints
were taken. To address this problem, a so-called Distant Identification system was
introduced at the Monaco Congress as a means of harmonizing the codes of
different countries (Cole 2001). In 1923, at the International Police Congress in
Vienna, the system was eventually adopted.
The 1923 International Police
Congress in Vienna led to the development of the International Criminal Police
Commission (ICPC), the organization known today as Interpol. There is no better
example of the role of technology in the development of international law
enforcement than the ICPC (Deflem 2002a). The facilities and institutionalized
means of information exchange expanded since the organization's inception, and
by 1934 the ICPC headquarters located in Vienna included specialized divisions
on fingerprints and photographs, the falsification of currencies and other
documents, and various other forms of information on suspects and convicts. The
ICPC also established systems of technologically advanced means for
international communication, including a telegraphic code, a system of radio
communications, and printed publications in addition to meetings. In addition
to a strong focus on the most efficient use of new technologies, the ICPC was
primarily preoccupied with a new growing class of offenders that committed crimes
that were intrinsically made possible by technological advances, such as train
robberies and hotel theft. Other international police initiatives would
similarly focus on the use of new technologies to carry out the function of
crime control, including international conferences as well as international
exchanges of information between law enforcement agencies regarding methods of
policing.
Conclusion
Technology remains a central
focus in the organization and practices of policing. In large part, the
increasing reliance on technology by police is the product of the way society at
large has changed as a result of technological advancements. Modern society has
expanded and become more interconnected, producing a new context within which
law enforcement must operate. In part, these changes in addition to old
challenges have motivated the adoption of new technology by police. These advancements
have also facilitated international cooperation amongst law enforcement, with
technologies enhancing the institutional autonomy needed for police agencies to
cooperate across national borders. These technologies include not only advances
in communication and transportation methods, but also pertain to the means of criminal
identification which evolved into various forms that can be communicated among police
of different jurisdictions. Technological advancements have not only provided police
the tools by which to engage in collaboration, they have also provided an impetus
for police collaboration by influencing the internationalization of crime.
The means of communication among
police regionally and internationally, the means of criminal identification,
and the means of transportation have been central to the transformation of
policing. These advancements began as steps towards addressing the everyday
issues in policing. What was once the lone patrolman armed with a whistle and
baton, walking his beat without oversight or coordination and often strongly
connected with political power, has become a professional police institution that
endeavors to achieve its goal of crime control efficiently. Thus developed a
police that organizes patrol with automobiles and two-way radios, and that
relies on identification methods using photographs and fingerprints and can
share information across jurisdictions with the use of telegraphs, telephones,
and mail. Changes in the means of policing have also directly addressed
technologically-enabled changes in society, specifically the growing societal
mobility which made individuals harder to identify, the larger geographic space
which made beat patrols cost prohibitive and ineffective, and the inability of
the early police to coordinate their actions. Since that time, even more
advancements in technology have further changed the institution of law
enforcement. Undoubtedly, policing will continue to adapt to the changing
circumstances that are brought about by technological advancements.
References
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