PoliceLink

Law Enforcement is relatively a modern invention. Some experts say that the first modern police force started in the mid 1800's. A modern police force is defined as a group of civilian controlled, non-military professionals being led in enforcement efforts to stop crime and arrest law breakers. Some believe the first modern police force was in 1829 witht he begining of the London Metropolitan Police Force and other believe that France had the first system in 1800 when Napoleon organized a police force in Paris under the name, Prefecture of Police.
Either way, the modern-day LE organization has only been around for about 150 to 200 years and most have been around a lot less. My Department has been around for only 94 years.

I looked around online and found an intresting artical on the LEO community.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Police

RussLescault said:

Even though, most departments have been around for less than a hundred years, traditions within the profession have developed. For example for the most part Police wear Blue uniforms with shield-shaped badges and Sheriff Deputies wear Brown type uniforms for with star-shaped badges. Why? how did this start?

Our patch:

Old Standard patch:

The most popular style of patch:

Another popular style:

As far as the badges....Sheriff's Department back in the 60's wore every kind of badge imaginable, including shields. A lot of the badges from that era would have the officers name on it.

Where I work, Joliet, IL PD, the Department has been around for over 150 years (founded in 1853). JPD has been through numerous changes the years.

In the first half of the 1900's, we wore "pie plate" stars that every Dept. in Illinois wore. The only thing different was the Department name and the center symbol (which usually was a symbol identifying the town they worked for). In our Dept., like many, Officers would change star numbers after the year was over. I found this out doing research on the Officers. Pictures would have them wearing a hat star with a different than what was posted. Permanent numbers were issued in the 60's. In 2003 we were able to purchase and wear replica "pie plates" for the year. Man, they were heavy and big.

Our patch has also changed. We wore the generic "Joliet Police Dept." patch. It changed to the current patch in the mid 80's. We only wear the patch on our left sleeve, a tradition we still do today.

Our Dept. wears light blue shirts, similar to Chicago PD. This was for the same reason why O.W. Wilson (Chicago PD's Police Commisioner from the 60's) had CPD wear them. The lighter color was psycologically soothing to the general public.

A lot of northwestern Illinois PDs imitated CPDs uniforms in the 1900's to the 70's.

It's great working for a Dept. that has such tradition and history. I was able to have an Officer from the past recognized as a fallen hero (Constable Francis DeLong - 1896). Chris Cosgriff helped me with the research on this. Now the fight to get Constable DeLong on the State and National Memorials begins.

I've posted a few examples early police uniforms under my photos. The Peelers light blue coat with white pants would nenver be considered a 'tactical' uniform, but it would help citizens find a cop in a crowd.

jls8901 says ...

good information.  just like in any police work you have to go to the scene of the crime or incident to really know what's going on.  thanks

RussLescault says ...

Over the weekend I found out the following information about LE preference for the color blue, courtesy of Scotland Yard website. According to them the original London organized police force were the Peelers in 1829, nick-named for Sir Robert Peel (see eariler posting on the father of police work). This early day city police force wore a light blue top coast with white pants, to distinquish themselves from the military (i.e. redcoats). The uniform for the London 'Bobby' later (around 1863) changed to a darker blue (present day police blue) trnech coat-tunic style uniform.

Just to point out where some confusion may lie - not with your comments, but in general.... The Met (London Metropolitan Police) are a seperate agency from the City of London Police.  The City of London are more tradition bound due to the history.  They still wear the Peeler or Bobby helmets regularly which are noticably taller with a special helmet device unlike the Met PD helmet.  The term Bobby also comes from Sir ROBERT (Bobby) Peel.  While taking my tours over there, I also learned that the first formally established English police force was not the Met Police or the London City Police, it was actually the Thames River Police (located in London as well), which if I recall was since absorbed by the Met Police.  I am fortunate enough to have a very close friend from the police service over there (Regional Crime Squad and started with Kent Constabulary), anyway he naturally filled me in on the more obscure historical facts of English policing..... 

theshieldman2000 says ...

I know that in the early American Police Depts. (NYPD, CPD) they started wearing copper badges to help distinguish themselves from the crowds of people on the street. Also to help identify themselves as law enforcement officers. Thats where the phrase "COPS" came from. Civilians used to refer to early LEO's as "COPPERS" dew to the copper badges that they wore.

Wow i never knew that. I always wondered were that phrase came from

theshieldman2000 says ...

I know that in the early American Police Depts. (NYPD, CPD) they started wearing copper badges to help distinguish themselves from the crowds of people on the street. Also to help identify themselves as law enforcement officers. Thats where the phrase "COPS" came from. Civilians used to refer to early LEO's as "COPPERS" dew to the copper badges that they wore.

COPPER is still a comon term used in the Chicago area for an LEO

Brian, Google 3-7-77  I just did, and there were too many to post here and from what I read, it seems that nobody knows the real answer.

KSP494 says ...

Of all agencies that still have whistle chains on their uniforms I wonder how many actually have whistles. I have a spare car and handcuff key and ST Michael pendant on mine.

No whistle on mine either - just spare cuff & car key.  The St. Michaels medal is however pinned to the carrier of my vest.

appstate721 says ...

Thought I would share this link. I found it to be very interesting.

http://www.barefootsworld.net/histlaw.html

 

 GREAT site.  thanks