Police, A&E, 1997

With over more than two hundred years of nation-building, explore how our contemporary form of local and national law enforcement came into being.

Bill Kurtis and his team tell a story that, incredibly, hasn't ever been told: how, over more than two hundred years of nation-building, our contemporary form of local and national law enforcement came into being.

This two-hour documentary special starts from colonial militias and ends up in modern cities across the country chronicling the full evolution of American policing.

Along the way we come to understand the historical challenges and regional pressures which for years have left their marks on law enforcement, the racial and ecomonic conflicts that sometimes turned cops into soldiers instead of peace officers.

Most importantly, we'll meet the men and women who are using new ideas - and some old ones - to forge a policing force for the 21st century that seeks to bind the police to the community they serve.

To understand the present and future of policing in America, the program looks to the past. There was almost a medieval policing system in colonial New York and Boston beginning in the 17th century. Constables by day, the Nightwatch after dark.

The first modern era of policing started with the creation of the New York Police Department (NYPD) in 1845. It was molded in the image of the London metropolitan police, created by Prime Minister Robert Peel in 1829.

Within a decade every major American city had a similar police force, that was central to the community, where police precincts were the hub of social services and the cops actually collected the garbage. Originally these forces were designed strictly to maintain order, for the benefit of the genteel classes.

At the same time, however, the almost lawless Western Frontier of the 19th century led to the invention of two important competing "policing forces" that are still with us today. The private police like the Pinkertons ("The Eye that Never Sleeps") and the vigilante posse.

Now, a return to the original idea of police as community keepers of order without the corruption is spreading throughout the country and has brought the system and the program full circle.

100 minutes, fully narrated, DVD ONLY, DP5720 / $29.95

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