A feeling of safety is essential to human well-being. Whether it’s feeling safe in one’s own skin, in a community or in the world, people need to know that they can count on police to protect them. This is why a majority of Americans believe that the police should be more effective in preventing crime and protecting citizens from harm. Unfortunately, in practice, policing has become more about control than protection, resulting in high levels of animosity between law enforcement and the public.
A central feature of policing is its ability to enforce laws by the use of coercion, a power that allows for quick, nonnegotiated resolutions of problematic situations (e.g., keeping people away from a burning building to let firemen do their work). This is why many scholars have argued that police should be defined not only by their ends—that is, maintaining order and upholding the law—but also by the means they use to achieve those ends.
The development of modern police forces worldwide was contemporaneous with the emergence of statehood and, later, the modern capitalist system—which sociologist Max Weber characterized as establishing “a monopoly on legitimate violence.” As populations expanded and informal institutions of socialization and social control diminished, policing evolved into its current form around the world. Although there are a wide variety of police force structures and functions, they all share in their fundamental goal to preserve peace and order and prevent or mitigate calamities.