ABSTRACT
Influences on policing in the United States are as diverse1 as the pattern of policing within the country. It was perhaps inevitable that given the influence of Britain on the early development of the United States there would be adoption of established criminal justice practices from Britain, especially those from England and the Common Law. Consequently the English criminal justice lexicon; sheriff, constable, “Hue and Cry,” magistrates, justices of the peace, circuit judges, and a concept of what it means to “police” are all largely, but not exclusively, informed by England. However, a closer inspection of the informing factors reveal that much of what occurred in policing in England throughout the Middle Ages and into the eighteenth century was not exclusively a domestic creation. Subsequently what transferred to the United States as an English system was in fact a concomitant of AngloSaxon2 and Nordic customs with influence from France in the eleventh century and then again, significantly, the eighteenth century.
