The History Of Law Enforcement

The History of Law Enforcement

Organizational structure of Law Enforcement agencies of any state is being built in accordance with the functions, entrusted to the police. In turn, functions that are performed by the law enforcements in different states largely evolved historically and are usually formed due to the peculiarities of national, social and political development of a particular State, the traditions of its society. I paid my attention to the most interesting, in my opinion, histories of Law Enforcement systems – in America and Europe, in particular, France.

Talking about Europe, the Law Enforcement system intrinsically incorporates the notion of police. The word "police" is Greek and originally meant a state, city (Wakefield, 2009). From the XIV century, its value begins to change, and by the police, over time, people began to see only the activities in the field of public order, which were carried out by state coercion. In the modern form the police unit was formed in Europe around the turn of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. During this period of history was finally completed the process of functionally-organized formation of police systems in most of its countries.

National Gendarmerie of France is one of Europe 's oldest public institutions of this kind. Occupying the state structure of the dual position, for the past several centuries gendarmerie combined the functions of the army to the police as well as within the armed forces, it had a considerable autonomy.

Back in 1337 there was a horse guard - a special military unit, subject of the military adviser to the king. Civil wars of the XVI century weakened the central authority of the king; the country was flooded with gangs of robbers who terrorized the inh...

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...espectable reputation (Wakefield, 2009).

Since 1974 Police began to wear soft body armor in order to protect themselves from gun attacks (Important Dates in Law Enforcement History, 2014). In 2002 the Department of Homeland Security was formed in order to integrate national efforts to protect America.

As we can see, the system of Law Enforcement is formed over many centuries of history, starting as a horse guard and Rangers to modern police departments, agencies and states, performing a variety of functions and meeting the requirements of each time period. Comprehensive study of the evolution of foreign police forces is relevant and has a scientific significance; there may be a promising area of historical and legal research. Analysis of state-legal laws of development of the Law Enforcement system of different countries represent an important step in this direction.