Political impact on the technology from 1840 to 1920 in the USA. Essay

During the political era, which was documented from being from 1840 to 1920, policing in the United States were mainly taken from the way the laws were put into effect over in England. The only difference was that the American police departments lacked authority from Royalty, instead, they had gotten their authorizations and resources from political leaders. The relationship that had emerged from this was reciprocated because the politicians were the ones who actually decided, recruited, and maintained the police in office. In turn, those same police would know how to utilize what power they had by encouraging and discouraging the citizens to vote and not vote for certain candidates, and they also assisted in rigging some of the elections if the count wasn't as expected. The two forms of technology that the police of this era used as protection were a gun and a nightstick. As time went on some advances were made with the technology that made it easier for everyone including the police. The police departments of the political era were known to be decentralized because of how the cities were divided into precincts, along with being primitive with communications and transportation. In 1870, there was the telephone and telegraph, and the installing of call boxes, where the officers could get in contact with central command. During this time the police were also more connected not only with the citizens but politically because the neighborhoods they patrolled, they also lived in and they were of the same ethnic group as the politicians. In 1880s, the Bertillon system of criminal identification and the development of the fingerprinting systems that would assist in investigations came about. Which would help aid with knowing previous criminals and trying to find the recent ones.
In the Professional Model era, which was from 1920 to 1970, reformers were all about turning the police departments into a state of professionalism and to get anyone or anything affiliated with the government and its officials out. Ridding all of the police departments from the government's undesirable political influence was thought to help make enforcing the law equal and to centralize decision making. At the same time, J. Edgar Hoover wanted to transform the once known dishonest and disproved Bureau of Investigation into an honest and reputable Federal Bureau of Investigation. What Hoover wanted was for this agency to represent a new force for law and order to take a stand against lawlessness, immorality and crime (Kelling & Moore, 1988). Sometime around 1932, the FBI had started its own laboratory up which was recognized as the most comprehensive and technologically advanced lab in the world. There was also a widespread of police officials using cars and the introduction of two-way radios. The only reason why Hoover struggled as hard as he did to keep the reputation of the FBI as professional as he could was because any kind of political influences on the police department was seen as not only a failure, but also as corruption in policing.