No, Police Did Not Stem From Slave Patrols
By: Timothy Hsiao
March 13, 2023
https://thefederalist.com/2023/03/13/no-...-slave-patrols/

The claim that American policing is a direct descendant of antebellum slave patrols has no basis in actual history.

The controversy over Atlanta’s Public Safety Training Center has resurrected a common claim made by critics of law enforcement, namely that American policing is a direct descendant of antebellum slave patrols. A recent article at CounterPunch magazine claims that American policing “began as ‘slave patrols’ to capture enslaved Black people escaping plantations.” Elsewhere, an open letter from alumni of Spelman College refers to police as an “institution born of slave patrols.”

This is echoed by a recent New York Times editorial asserting that “the origin of law enforcement in this country … is a history rooted in slave patrols and militias designed to protect white people’s lives and livelihoods from rebellion among enslaved Black people.” Even pro-law enforcement organizations such as the National Law Enforcement Officers Memorial Fund have bought into this claim.

However, it has no basis in actual history.
Police and Policing

To disentangle the history of American police, we must begin by distinguishing between police (noun) and policing (verb). The latter refers to any type of activity involving the enforcement of laws. Policing as an activity has roots that are as ancient as civilization itself. Early Babylonian, Chinese, Egyptian, Greek, and Roman societies all possessed entities that enforced their laws. In contrast, police departments refer to specific entities that engage in the activity of policing, an activity that was well-established long before modern police departments themselves were founded.

This point lets us easily dispense with the claim made by some that policing as an activity began with slave patrols. Such a claim is demonstrably false. Policing as an activity is simply the enforcement of laws — something that began to exist with the first civilizations.
A (Very) Brief History of Law Enforcement in the United States

Institutionalized law enforcement in America can be traced as far back as the 1630s with the appointment of sheriffs in counties within the Virginia colony. Colonial sheriffs were modeled after their English equivalents and functioned as the chief law enforcement official in their counties. Around the same time, the cities of Boston and New York appointed constables and watchmen to protect lives and property at night. The duties of these individuals “differed insignificantly from their English counterparts.”

While sheriffs trace their roots to medieval England and were present at the very beginning of colonial America, police departments by contrast are a relatively recent innovation in the history of law enforcement. What distinguished police departments from other forms of early American law enforcement was their professional nature. Police departments as we know them today are highly centralized and are composed of professionals who are paid to perform police duties as a career. They arose because the law enforcement needs of large cities became too great for them to rely on volunteers or individuals with minimal training, low motivation, and lack of oversight. As urbanization in American cities accelerated, so did disorder. The system of night watches that many cities had historically relied on were ill-equipped to deal with these problems.-- excerpt, rest at link above --