Constabulary: The Rise of Police Institutions in Britain, the Commonwealth and the United States

Steven R. Hewitt is an assistant professor of history at the University
of Saskatchewan.

This general study of the development of policing in Britain, the United
States, and in several former members of the British Empire, including
Canada, usefully unites a wide range of police histories in one volume.
Unfortunately, the book is riddled with errors and its interpretive
approach neglects much recent scholarship.

The errors range from misspellings of the names of Thomas D’Arcy
McGee and Bill Haywood to factual mistakes: Francis Dickens was not at
Frog Lake; it was the battle of Cut Knife Hill, not Cut Knife Creek; the
Mounted Police received ridicule, not praise, for their work in the
North-West Rebellion, and it was not their participation in this event
but rather their fighting in the Boer War that led to their designation
as a “Royal” police force.

The more serious problem with Constabulary is its dated perspective.
The book ignores the important work of Clive Emsley and Bernard Porter
on British policing, and Robert Fogelson and Eric Monkkonen on policing
in the United States. Senior’s old-fashioned history results in
statements like “The Indians had continued to kill off the buffalo
without mastering agricultural pursuits”—a view that has been
attacked in recent scholarship. While the author praises J. Edgar Hoover
for having created a “first-class investigation bureau,” current
work has challenged this image of Hoover’s FBI, especially with
respect to its work against organized crime.

This book does not fill the need for a history of policing that is both
accessible and scholarly.