ABSTRACT
Modern police institutions have historically developed from government agencies involved with the suppression of political dissent (against the state) towards the development of independent expert institutions involved with the control of crime (in society) (Deflem 2002, 2009). This historical development towards an increasing bureaucratic autonomy of policing also has an important comparative dimension, for police institutions only reach a high degree of autonomy when a society is relatively peaceful and the polity is democratized. In autocratic regimes, conversely, police power remains closely tied to a government’s quest to maintain power and secure order. This typically occurs through violent means and in close conjunction with military forces that are not so sharply differentiated from police as is the case in democratic societies. As police institutions under autocratic polities tend to be closely associated with the military, civilian police duties (of crime control) are typically subsumed under a broader security regime (or order). In democratic regimes, by contrast, police and military are not closely intertwined except in exceptional circumstances, such as a period of warfare.
