Unit 3 Assignment 2:Written Assignment: The History of Technology in Policing This week you will describe how technology has affected policing methods in patrol. Write a 750–1000 word essay...

Patrol Policing History and Technology
Policing in America has seen a long history, with several eras bringing about a myriad of changes with them. Police have been responsible for maintaining law and order in the land and in doing so have relied much on technology. This is because the job of policing has a lot of responsibilities and to effectively fulfil those responsibilities in a rapidly advancing world, it is important to use whatever means available to assist them. As a result, police have often relied on technology to enhance their work efficiency. Starting from advances like fingerprinting and setup of crime laboratories to radio systems and automobiles all increased police efficiency by far. Patrol policing, however, has seen mixed results of these technological advances.
The policing history has been divided by scholars into roughly three eras namely, the Political Era, the Professional era and the community era. Each era saw different technological advancement and every advancement had different impact on policing and patrol policing.
The political era spanned from 1840 to nearly 1920. The political era is named so because in those times, policing was heavily influenced by politicians. Technologically, at that time, the police were provided with two equipment. These were- the gun and the nightstick. Even though we have come quite far in our technology, these two basic tools, with some modernizing, are still in use even today.
Later during the 1870s other technological advances came about. There was the introduction of telegraph, telephone, and police callboxes. In the 1880s Bertillon system of criminal identification was adopted along with the fingerprinting system (SEASKATE Inc.,1998).
While these advances helped the police in general, they were of particular importance to the patrol who came in contact with the general public and possible criminals. The...