Consequences of Compliance and Deterrence Models of Law Enforcement for the Exercise of Police Discretion

The modern police originally coalesced diverse law enforcement functions into a single organization. In the United States of the 1830's these functions included the major crime control functions of the watch, including maintaining the Sabbath; of the market police whose goals were to detect and apprehend persons in the act of breaking the law; and of the inspectorates who secured compliance with the law by regulating a host of environmental and social situations and exchanges. Bacon calls our attention to the diversity of the inspectors' functions.' There were, for instance, inspectors of chimneys who had the right to enter any domicile to determine whether a chimney was made of wood, inspectors to check for the presence of pigs in the street, and inspectors to oversee the compliance of market commodities, weights, and measures with applicable standards. Among the powers held by inspectors in general were those to license, exact compliance, apprehend, enter private places without prior notice, and serve public notices. It was not uncommon to have several dozen such inspectors in small communities, and over a hundred in larger cities, such as Boston or Philadelphia. Many inspectors, of course, were appointed on a part-time or fee-system basis. Inspectorial, watch, and constabulary functions were merged to form police departments in the nineteenth century in America. Over time, however, municipal governments separated these functions, with the watch and constabulary functions becoming the task of police patrol and the inspectorial functions transferred to separate departments or agencies of government.2