Professionalizing Police and Fire Departments

The United States had a large population growth between 1880 and 1920. Urbanization was a large result of this population growth. People moved to cities and new inventions were being created but there were also several side effects to urbanization. Cities that were quickly populated had growing crime rates and the citizens became very concerned. The rates of fires were also increasing in the cities and because of this police and fire departments became professionalized.

            As the city grew in population the number of police officers grew as well and their roles were quickly changing. Up until the early 19^th century police were called on to run soup kitchens, inspect boilers, standardize weights and measures, and recover lost children. Police officers were seen as social workers and the received pay by the number of arrests made. Before official police departments, officers were loosely organized and worked for the courts and made arrests based on the fee reward of the arrests. This way of loosely policing the community changed as urbanization was happening and new inventions were being created.

Police Radio Car

            There were several key factors and changes that helped police officers become more efficient on patrol and allowed the creation of having organized station houses. The first key change was the change to hierarchical organization and communication that closely resembled like the military. This allowed for superiority throughout department. In other words this means that there was a station house that an officer would report to and that the station could communicate to the officer on patrol. Communication was now possible due to the invention of the telegraph and the telephone. Officers were now under the executive branch instead of the judicial branch and were free from civil courts. Police officers were being more proactive on the streets rather than sitting in court for a civil case. The second factor was the creation of uniforms. Policemen were now visible and accessible to all people. This allowed parents to locate and officer from the large crowds on the streets if their child was lost. Lastly was the invention of the automobile. Automobile significantly increased the activity of police officers because there were able to be more mobile and independent. Motorcycles were used to chase traffic violators and officers now obtained radio cars to receive a report on while patrolling the streets for illegal activity. Police departments were only one part of a city’s community service that was professionalized.

Brooklyn Fire Department

            Fire departments played a large role in the period of urbanization. People were quickly moving into the cities and space for housing became limited, the only option was to build up instead of out. So contractors started doing that, buildings were being built taller but there was a lack of cooling and heating so centralized heating units were invented. Imagine you are living in a small little apartment with five people and have a heating unit on. Space is tight and you’re not the only apartment suffering. After the combination of heating units and skyscrapers combined fire rates went up really fast. This caused the creation of professional fire departments.

Steam Fire Engine

            Benjamin Franklin had started fire stations, but they were mainly volunteer stations, and though there still are many professional stations there are still some that are volunteer based. Franklin believed that everyone should carry around a leather bucket so that if the occasion did arise they had the proper materials to put out a fire. This belief led to the creation of volunteer fire station but this idea was not favored as urbanization came along. Just like the police officers there were many key factor that made volunteers undesirable. First was the refusal of internal change. New technology was being developed and new inventions were created for the stations as well, for example like the steam fire engine. The New York City fire station was built a new steam fire engine but they refused to take it because the volunteers that would then be needed were reduced. Secondly the firehouses were seen as meeting places that would corrupt younger kids. Citizens of the city feared this and wanted the have professional fire departments. Third was the amount of rivalries between stations got out of hand and so there needed to be some organization. Each firehouse decided to make a private enterprise but this was impossible because the government had already given volunteers a fixed salary and invested into some fire departments so that they remained stable. By the government investing in some departments it took out the competition of others but there were still some town that were able to keep volunteer departments because the city government did not have enough money to fund them.

New York Police Patrol 1900

            Urbanization had many effects on cities across the United States. The amount of people that were moving into the country during 1880 to 1920 was tremendous and a lot of problems were created. As a result crime rates went up and so did the frequency of fires. Professional police departments were created and fire departments as well. Today some us believe that the way we see policing hasn’t changed a while to be honest it was just about one hundred years ago that the standards were changed. We take for granted police departments, professional fire departments, and volunteer fire departments because we cannot imagine life without all the technology and with it present the world could spin out of control without and public services to ix our dumb mistakes.

Northwestern and Chicago Crime Lab

Sources:

History of Urban Police
I used this source to help me get a better understanding of the history of policing.

Police- Encyclopedia of Chicago
This website was used for me to see an example of how policing was changed in a certain city.

Reform- Professionalism
This reform article helped me specifically see how reform and professionalism was created with police departments.

Development of Fire Departments
I used this article to better inform me of how fire departments were created and how they were changed.

Deployment Changes
The article on deployment changes allowed me to understand the changes of deployment and to see if there were different views of how deployment changed.

History of Policing
I used this link to teach myself the way policing has changed and why. This article made me come up with my own inferences about urbanization.