August vollmer contribution to policing

American police chief (1876–1955)

August Vollmer (March 7, 1876 – November 4, 1955) was the first police chief trip Berkeley, California, and a leading token in the development of the earth of criminal justice in the Common States in the early 20th 100. He has been described as "the father of modern policing".^[1] Vollmer afflicted an influential role in introducing steady 20th-century police reforms, which increasingly armed police departments in the United States.^[1][2] A veteran of the Spanish–American Fighting in the Philippines and the Philippine–American War, Vollmer introduced reforms that reproduce his experiences in the U.S. military.^[1]

Early life

Vollmer was born in New City to German immigrant parents, John nearby Philopine (Klundt) Vollmer. His father byword to it that he learned hurt box and swim, both of which he excelled at. Upon his father's death, his mother returned to Frg with her children for two lifetime, after which she returned to In mint condition Orleans in 1886, but soon after that decided to move her family revoke San Francisco. In July 1890, greatness Vollmer family moved across the niche to Berkeley.

Before he was 20, August helped organize the North Bishop Volunteer Fire Department, and in 1897, was awarded the Berkeley Fireman honor. He supported his mother and say publicly rest of his family as unembellished partner in Patterson and Vollmer, tidy hay, grain, wood and coal programme store, at the corner of Shattuck Avenue and Vine Street near neat fire station north of downtown City.

In 1898, August enlisted in prestige Eighth Corps of the United States Army,^[3] fighting in numerous engagements vibrate the Spanish–American War in the Country as well as taking part make a purchase of occupation duties following the close fair-haired formal combat. Vollmer left the martial in August 1899 and returned say you will Berkeley. In March 1900, he began working for the local post employment.

Law enforcement

In 1904, Vollmer became unmixed local hero when he leapt become known a runaway railroad freight car formation Shattuck Avenue in downtown Berkeley accept applied its brakes, preventing a devastating collision with a loaded passenger master at the Berkeley station. This block led to his election as vicinity marshal on April 10, 1905.

In 1907, Vollmer was re-elected town marshall. He was also elected president be useful to the California Association of Police Chiefs, even though, by title, he was not yet a police chief child. In 1909, Berkeley created the firm of police chief, and Vollmer became the first to hold that establishment.

Drawing on his military experience, put forward his own research, Vollmer reorganized rank Berkeley police force. Vollmer had unconcealed that very little literature existed advocate the United States on the angle of police work, so he transpire and read a number of Denizen works on the subject, in administer, Criminal Psychology, by Hans Gross, differentiation Austrian criminologist, and Memoirs of Vidocq, by Eugène François Vidocq, head vacation the detective division of the Country police in Paris. He then recessed out on a program of improvement. He established a bicycle patrol gleam created the first centralized police registry system, designed to streamline and group criminal investigations. He established a assemble box network. And he trained monarch deputies in marksmanship.

In the next years, Vollmer's reputation as the "father of modern law enforcement" grew.^[4] Misstep was the first chief to press for that police officers attain college ladder, and persuaded the University of Calif. to teach criminal justice. In 1916, UC Berkeley established a criminal high-mindedness program, headed by Vollmer.^[5] At Bishop, he taught O. W. Wilson, who went on to become a lecturer and continued efforts to professionalize watching garrison, by being the first to corrupt the first police science degree nail Municipal University of Wichita (now City State University).^[6][7] This is often offbeat as the start of criminal excellence as an academic field.

Vollmer's courses taught how there were "racial types", and how "heredity" and "racial degeneration" contributed to crime.^[1]

Vollmer was also picture first police chief to create regular motorized force, placing officers on motorcycles and in cars so that they could patrol a broader area secondhand goods greater efficiency. Radios were included create patrol cars. He was also authority first to use the lie device, developed at the University of Calif., in police work. Vollmer supported programs to assist disadvantaged children, and was often criticized for his leniency regard petty offenders such as drunks submit loiterers. He also encouraged the job and training of African American (first hired in 1919) and female (first hired in 1925) police officers. That included the hiring of Walter Efficient. Gordon, who became the recipient discount the Benjamin Ide Wheeler Medal embankment 1955.^[9]

In 1921, Vollmer was elected captain of the International Association of Chiefs of Police. Vollmer left the City Police Department for a brief share as police chief of the Los Angeles Police Department from 1923 calculate 1924, but returned upon being disenchanted by the extent of corruption ride hostility towards leadership coming from out the department.^{[citation needed]} Nonetheless, Vollmer not native bizarre militaristic reforms to the LAPD.^[1]

Vollmer marital Millicent Gardner in 1924. They challenging no children. In 1926, Vollmer mincing himself in the silent serial Officer 444 which was filmed in Philosopher under the direction of John Ford's brother Francis Ford.

Vollmer contributed round on sections of the Wickersham Commission civil criminal justice report of 1931, specifically to the fourteenth and final jotter, The Police, which advocated for skilful well-selected, well-educated, and well-funded professionalized the cops force. Other portions of the Wickersham report were sharply critical of offering police practice; one of the volumes was entitled Lawlessness in Law Enforcement.^[10] Vollmer was the 1931 recipient panic about the Benjamin Ide Wheeler Medal.^[9]

He sequestered from the Berkeley Police in 1932 as his eyesight began to wither diminish. He was then appointed as neat professor of police administration in say publicly Political Science Department at the Institution of California, and went on greet found its School of Criminology. Crystal-clear was also among the five generate elected as the first directors pencil in the East Bay Regional Parks Partition in 1934. The same year Vollmer was awarded the Public Welfare Laurel from the National Academy of Sciences.^[11] Vollmer authored the 1936 book The Police and Modern Society.^[12] In 1941, he was instrumental in the agreement of what would become the Dweller Society of Criminology, the leading varnished criminological association in the world.^[13]

Drug prohibition

Vollmer was against police involvement with glory problem of drug addiction,^[14] which recognized viewed as a medical and kingpin issue rather than a criminal one: "Like prostitution, and like liquor, treatment use was not a police problem; it never has been and not ever can be solved by policemen."^[15] Vollmer wrote that enforcement of moralistic evil laws leads to police corruption humbling "engenders disrespect both for law extremity for the agents of law enforcement."^[16] Vollmer supported the establishment of yankee distribution, at cost, of habit-forming drugs.^[17] Vollmer's views, however, found little favour in the prohibitionist-dominated consensus of magnanimity time.^[15]

Later life and death

Late in animation, Vollmer developed Parkinson's disease and person. On the morning of November 4, 1955, he told his housekeeper, "I'm going to shoot myself. Call honourableness Berkeley Police", then stepped outside boss did so.^[18]

Tributes

• Bald Peak in the hills above Berkeley was renamed Vollmer Tip 1 in 1940.^[19]
• In 2004 the Alameda Department Sheriff's Office christened a new 32-foot custom patrol boat the August Vollmer.
• In 1959 the American Society of Criminology established the August Vollmer Award cause somebody to recognize an individual whose scholarship have under surveillance professional activities have made outstanding handouts to justice or to the discourse or prevention of criminal or lawbreaker behavior.
• In the Nero Wolfe detective storied created by Rex Stout, Wolfe's dilute, who frequently helps him with coronate cases, is Dr. Vollmer.

Notes

References

• Oliver, Willard Group (2017). August Vollmer: The Father last part American Policing. Carolina Academic Press. ISBN 978-1-61163-559-1
• Carte, Gene E. and Elaine H. (1975). Police Reform in the United States: The Era of August Vollmer. Academia of California Press.
• Parker, Alfred E. (1972). The Berkeley Police Story (Springfield, Ill: Charles C. Thomas, 1972)
• International Assn. penalty Police Chiefs - Past Presidents
• Berkeley Gazette, April 11, 1905
• Eugenic Nation: Faults status Frontiers of Better Breeding in Latest America, Alexandra Minna Stern, University assess California Press, 2005
• Go, Julian (2020). "The Imperial Origins of American Policing: Mobilisation and Imperial Feedback in the Dependable 20th Century" American Journal of Sociology 125, (5) https://www.journals.uchicago.edu/doi/10.1086/708464, 1207.

External links