Origins of police forces as Slave Patrols...this mentality still infects law enforcement agencies and must be addressed. >>> “Slave patrols had three primary functions: (1) to chase down, apprehend, and return to their owners, runaway slaves; (2) to provide a form of organized terror to deter slave revolts; and, (3) to maintain a form of discipline for slave-workers who were subject to summary justice, outside of the law, if they violated any plantation rules. Following the Civil War, these vigilante-style organizations evolved in modern Southern police departments primarily as a means of controlling freed slaves who were now laborers working in an agricultural caste system, and enforcing Jim Crow segregation laws, designed to deny freed slaves equal rights and access to the political system.”
Posted on: Thu, 27 Nov 2014 22:47:43 +0000