Historical Roots of Police Behavior: Chicago, 1890-1925

In order to understand patterns of police behavior in American cities at the turn of the century, it is important to grasp a crucial fact: the police, although they were formally engaged in law enforcement, were little oriented toward legal norms. As late as 1900, when Chicago's police department numbered 3,225 men, there was no organized training. New policemen heard a brief speech from a high-ranking officer, received a hickory club, a whistle, and a key to the call box, and were sent out on the street to work with an experienced officer. Not only were policemen untrained in law, but they operated within a criminal justice system that generally placed little emphasis upon legal procedure. Most of those arrested by the police were tried before local police justices, who rarely had legal training. Those arrested seldom had attorneys, so that no legal defense was made. Thus, there were few mechanisms for introducing legal norms into the street experiences and crime control activities of policemen.