Believe it or not, modern policing in America didn’t arise out of a neutral desire to “protect and serve” all citizens equally.
It actually evolved from a system designed to protect wealth and suppress those deemed a threat to it. Perhaps the saddest part, is this is still very much the case today.
To understand how we got here, you’ll have to follow me through a historical run down.
From policing’s humble beginnings across the pond, to slave patrols in the South, to strikebreakers in the North, and anti-immigrant crackdowns in industrial cities, the historical roots of American policing are deeply intertwined with protecting property and power.
And almost always at the expense of poor and marginalized communities.
Victorian England
Modern policing is largely attributed to the London Metropolitan Police and Sir Robert Peel, who in 1829, established the foundation for police forces as we know them now. Peel’s “Bobbies” embedded themselves in poor communities where “troublemakers” and
“ringleaders” would be.
Sound familiar? It should, because cops guilty of overpolicing communities claim they go to poor neighborhoods because that’s “where the crime is.”
Slave Patrols and Strikebreakers
In the antebellum South, early forms of organized policing took the shape of slave patrols, explicitly charged with capturing escaped enslaved people and suppressing rebellion. These patrols were not designed to protect communities; they were instruments of racial capitalism, used to preserve the economic system that benefited wealthy landowners.
That’s right; taxpayer funded union-busting.
Business owners and politicians saw police as a buffer between their property and the rising demands of exploited workers. The idea was clear: law enforcement was there to protect the stability of the elite’s wealth, not to support the basic needs or rights of working people.
It’s a concept that sadly, you still see in not just in rural counties, but bigger cities, too.
A Lasting Legacy
This legacy has left a lasting impact on how poverty is policed. In many cities, being poor is effectively criminalized.
Even in Kalamazoo, Michigan, considered a larger and more progressive city, poor and homeless individuals are over-policed and by a system that would rather harm them than help them.
People are ticketed or arrested for sleeping in public, panhandling, loitering, or missing court dates related to minor infractions. Meanwhile, crimes that disproportionately affect poor people, like wage theft by employers or housing code violations by slumlords, are rarely prioritized.
…But the System is Working as Intended.
The system isn’t broken; it’s working exactly as it was designed to.
When we understand that policing was historically structured to protect wealth and suppress dissent, the demonization of poor people starts to make more sense. It’s not a flaw of the system; it’s the function.
Calls for reform often center on retraining or increased diversity, but deeper transformation requires reckoning with this historical truth. Real safety isn’t more policing; it’s equitable housing, living wages, quality education, and access to healthcare.
Until we shift our focus from protecting property to protecting people, poor communities will continue to bear the brunt of a system never meant to serve them.
Additional Reading:
- Hadden, S. E. (2001). Slave Patrols: Law and Violence in Virginia and the Carolinas. Harvard University
- Press. Vitale, A. (2017). The End of Policing. Verso Books.
- Williams, K. M. (2007). “Our Enemies in Blue: Police and Power in America.” South End Press.
- Mullen, L. (2020). “Policing Was Never Meant to Protect People.” The Atlantic.
- Blackmon, D. A. (2008). Slavery by Another Name. Anchor Books.
