Brandon Brown

CJUS-P381
8 Dec 2011
WORD COUNT: 1503

Big-City Police. Fogelson, Robert M. Harvard University Press (Cambridge, Mass.)

Much of contemporary literature surrounding the field of criminal justice has been
centered around theories and hypotheses surrounding the nature of criminality. Most early works
describing the history of policing begin with an introduction to the protection of communities in
early English history, with respect to the idea of the sheriff, and move forward to the doctrine of
Sir Robert Peel and the beginnings of the modern police force. Often, the creation of the
institution of policing is explained through the needs of society, but this line of thinking about
the creation of police and the purpose behind this body of protection oft goes without further
consideration by most of society. An interesting analogy to the history of policing and modern
reform could be the early institution of federal law in the United States. The Constitution was
created around ideals that, while historically lasting, drew on the issues of society at the time.
Today, society is faced with numerous problems surrounding the document that our forefathers
created centuries ago. The Constitution has been amended, but the core ideals remain the same.
The same can be said of policing up until the beginning of the 1900s. Fogelson, in his book, BigCity Police, argues that policing has undergone two movements, one at the end of the 19th
century and another in the late 1830s, both sparked by the upper-class. Fogelsons text does an
excellent job of combining the history of social control and issues surrounding the criminal

justice system with modern policing. Fogelson does an excellent job of taking historical accounts
into his perspective, while also drawing on other sources such as movies and television to
articulate the movements in a way that is more relateable to the reader. It should, however be
noted that Fogelson wrote this book in the 1970s and used popular references to those at the
time. One of the main issues I had upon reading Fogelsons work was his lack of prediction or
inferences upon the importance of the policies implemented during these periods of reform. It
seems as though Fogelson purely looks through a historical lens and does not always weigh the
policy reform being written about with much analytical weight.
Fogelson begins his work by describing the creation of modern police departments during
the middle of the 19th century. The historical lens that Fogelson uses throughout his work is
present throughout much of the beginning of the text. Urban communities had begun to grow at
immense rates and with rise in population, there came an increase in the crime rates. At this point
in time, the police were considered mostly associated with military bodies. Instead of staying
true to the community supports system, police acted as a governmental aid .Fogelsons first
argument is that this point in history, the second half of the 19th century, is where America
underwent its first policing reformation. The creation of the police department was an extremely
important undertaking. With this movement, the police as an institution moved from a militarystyle organization to that of a civilian focal point. The first reformation would later reverse this
operational style. No longer were policing bodies the concern of the federal government at this
point either. Fogelson argues that the influence of other large bodies of government is too
distracting for the police, which should be concerned about the protection of the community.
This shift in perspective from general protection to local protection is explained from the rise in
urban population numbers necessitating a body of control that can deal with the local

government and protect its citizens without being dispersed too thinly. Fogelson uses much of
the early sections of his book to describe the old ways of policing to illustrate to the reader
why the need for reform was so great and how it was related to the social and political
movements of the time, including the most important component of the first wave of policing
reform, the Progressive movement. The inclusion of this movement draws the reader to the
notion that this form of social control was explicitly being affected by societal issues of the
period.
As mentioned before, the historical accounts associated with the issues of police reform
were of upmost importance to Fogelson. Fogelsons style is definitely for the average reader. He
deploys a very history-heavy narrative of police reform in the United States. In recounting the
vast history of reform, both here and abroad (most notably in England), Fogelson appears to lose
some touch with the intimate change of policing and the work switches into a historical account.
One of the major issues with this work is that the author focuses on a holistic view of big-city
police. For example, Fogelson tells of social issues surrounding policing such as control over the
populace or disproportionate treatment, but never delves into the daily lives of the police,
themselves. The book tends to give the reader a sense that the policing was more of a
governmental dealing and not a product of every-day life. It would have been immensely helpful
to see the change in work of a police officer from the beginning of policing, with such agents as
the Peelers or sheriffs, all the way to modern cops. This specific criticism of lack of content
should not being taken as a completely negative critique. Without mentioning the minor,
individual details of policing, Fogelson is able to focus on overarching social and historical
issues such as Civil Rights and their effect on policing and corrections, as a whole.

With the introduction of the Progressive era of policing, officers were given an entirely
different direction in which to control and investigate crimes. The introduction of technology
came as a steep change, not only to the system of policing, but also to society. Officers were able
to receive commands from a central police department, while completing random patrols in a
squad car that was fast enough to catch a runaway criminal, if the need arose. As mentioned
before, Fogelson misses this issue completely. He focuses on how policing is affected negatively
instead of mentioning just how important the developments in fields surrounding policing were.
He mentions the popularization of the television as inciting a new generation into a different
frame of view of the criminal justice system. Viewers were being presented images of maverick
cops and vigilante crimefighters. Notable shows, such as Dragnet, provided an individual with
an illustration of the criminal justice as being able to solve every crime and put every criminal
behind bars. The popularity of crime-related shows aiming to put officers in the spotlight had
created overwhelming expectations as heroes. I believe, in this sense, Fogelson tends to give too
much credit to the idea that police were becoming extremely popular and were being seen as
irreplaceable. Society had almost created a difference in the view of what a police officer really
was and how they were portrayed through popular media productions. Police were still not
omnipresent, as they are today, and I believe society was years away from creating a presence in
which police were seen to be the penultimate protectors of society. Fogelson also is unlucky in
that most of the negative issues surrounding police reform happened during and just after his
writings. As the 1970s progressed, the criminal justice system started to erode and with it, the
perception of police started drop quite drastically.
One of the primary positive aspects of Fogelsons work is that he approaches the issue of
policing reform from a multitude of perspectives. Unlike Rothman, Fogelson uses a vast array of

historical accounts to not only retell, but also to add significance as to why each historical event
was important to the development of policing. If ones goal is to inform a reader of a transition in
a structured body that has been around for centuries (in this case, police as a whole), one must
also discuss holistically how current events of the time transformed everyday thinking of the
population, popular legislation, and political reform. Fogelsons interest in the politics behind
reform is extremely interesting and is one of the more appealing aspects of his text. A vast
amount of change was taking place in the political arena around the time this book was being
published, so it is only fitting that the author uses politics as a central point of discussion.
Fogelson also does an excellent job of not letting personal biases come in to any part of the
reading. It was not apparent to the reader at any time which side, if any, Fogelson would have
supported. The lack of bias makes for an objective and accurate account. While Fogelson largely
focuses on social and historical issues of policing, the lack of criminology-related theories
surrounding the nature and function of police makes the text feel incomplete. The role of big-city
police cannot be discussed without first delving into the why of policing.