Settling institutional uncertainty: Policing Chicago and New York, 1877–1923
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Published:2023-05-25
Issue:3
Volume:61
Page:518-545
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ISSN:0011-1384
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Container-title:Criminology
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language:en
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Short-container-title:Criminology
Author:
Koehler Johann1ORCID,
Cheng Tony2ORCID
Affiliation:
1. Department of Social Policy, London School of Economics and Political Science
2. Department of Sociology Duke University
Abstract
AbstractWe show how both the Chicago Police Department and the New York Police Department sought to settle uncertainty about their propriety and purpose during a period when abrupt transformations destabilized urban order and called the police mandate into question. By comparing annual reports that the Chicago Police Department and the New York Police Department published from 1877 to 1923, we observe two techniques in how the police enacted that settlement: identification of the problems that the police believed themselves uniquely well equipped to manage and authorization of the powers necessary to do so. Comparison of identification and authorization yields insights into the role that these police departments played in convergent and divergent constructions of disorder and, in turn, into Progressivism's varying effects in early urban policing.
Subject
Law,Pathology and Forensic Medicine
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