ABSTRACT
This chapter presents the police as central actors in urban welfare states— "agents of civic governance"—who are expected to respond to a range of community problems beyond their coercive role in assuring law and order. It shows how a backlash to the drug war during the 1990s led to the re-emergence of community policing as a way to restore policing legitimacy. Policing in the United States is organized around three primary functions: crimefighting, order maintenance, and community service. The move to professionalize the police had its roots in the Progressive Movement and its focus on a variety of social ills, including the problem of corruption in municipal governments nationwide. Before 1900, local police had little involvement with illicit drug control. The "traditional" style of law enforcement referred to in the Christopher Commission is often referred to as the "professional" policing model.
