Читать книгу Police in America - Steven G. Brandl - Страница 56

Black policemen were first hired in Selma, Alabama, in 1867 and in Houston, Texas, in 1870. In New Orleans, there were 177 black officers by 1870. Chicago hired its first black policeman in 1872. Interestingly, the black men who were appointed police officers were often better educated and qualified than their white counterparts. Nevertheless, the appointment of blacks as officers was controversial. Some cities experienced riots because of black officers taking action against white citizens.¹⁸ Consequently, black officers were more likely not to wear uniforms and to be assigned to black neighborhoods. Some cities did not allow black officers to arrest white citizens. In Miami, blacks were called patrolmen while white officers were designated as policemen. In the late 1800s, the Civil Rights Act of 1875 was ruled unconstitutional, and later the Supreme Court upheld “separate but equal” laws. As a result, black officers lost their jobs in droves. This was most evident in New Orleans, where the number of black officers dropped from 177 in 1870, to 27 in 1880, to 5 in 1890, and to none in 1910. It was not until 1950 that another black officer was hired in the largely African American city.¹⁹

There were no women police officers until late in the 1800s, and even then, there were very few. Police officers were simply referred to as policemen. The first women employed in police departments were called police matrons and did not have powers of arrest. Their duties were generally limited to handling female prisoners. Although the historical record is incomplete and inconsistent with regard to the employment of women in police departments, it has been offered that the first fully sworn female police officer was hired in 1891 in the Chicago Police Department; her job was to enforce child labor laws. The first female African-American officer was appointed in 1916 in the Los Angeles (CA) Police Department.²⁰ Most large police departments did not employ any women until the 1920s, and it was not until the 1970s that women had the same authority as male officers. It is accurate to say that in large part the political era involved white male leaders appointing white male officers to police white and black citizens.

police matrons: Female police department employees whose duties usually involved only female prisoners.