Why do woke academics in sociology perpetuate this myth? Policing was only fully developed in the 1880's to control immigrant working-class populations in big northern industrial cities. There's no extant historical data to verify a link between modern policing and slave patrols. In empirical reality, it developed to police white bodies (immigrants from Europe) and to stop labor strikes.
Policing did not emerge from slave patrols.
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It developed differently in different states/regions to suit the needs of the propertied class. There is certainly a connection between slave patrols, and those who did the hunting, and police forces in southern US states, just as there is a connection between putting down labor strikes among white ethnics in northern states.
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Policing structures derived from colonial policing. American Indians began to adopt in the early 19th century. And there was definitely policing of Indians long before there are attempts to police the working class. But none of this was slave patrols so agree there.
Why do woke academics in sociology perpetuate this myth? Policing was only fully developed in the 1880's to control immigrant working-class populations in big northern industrial cities. There's no extant historical data to verify a link between modern policing and slave patrols. In empirical reality, it developed to police white bodies (immigrants from Europe) and to stop labor strikes.
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https://www.annualreviews.org/doi/pdf/10.1146/annurev-criminol-060520-033306
Cites other work arguing that slave patrols, among many other things, are tied to our modern institutions of law enforcement and that law enforcement today inherits its past, including in areas where it enforced legalized slavery and the outlawing of abolitionist activities.
If all that is necessary for the argument “policing emerged from slave patrols” to be true is they institutions, broadly defined, can persist, then this argument does indeed become very easy to defend.
That said, one specific article in the typical Annual Review style, citing other work doesn’t really address my concern. I suspect that OP was reading the WSWS critique of the 1619 Project and figured attacking a random thing in the liberal zeitgeist would ire sociologists.
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Do sociologists believe that policing began with capitalism?
No, but in the colonial and latter US context, law enforcement and proto-law enforcement institutions were, among other things, interested in enforcing the desires of empires, property owners, etc. Basic institutional logics show us that these are going to persist. FWIW, to refuse to concede this would make it much more difficult to argue for neoiberal influences in human rights and anti-racism activism.