ABSTRACT
In England, prior to 1829, law enforcement slowly evolved from the basic concept of preserving the “King’s Peace” by mutual responsibility ( Anglo-Saxon era, 550 to 1066) to the use of various constables and the keeping of a “watch and ward.” The King’s Peace refers to the general protection of persons and property secured in medieval times to large areas and later to the entire royal domain by the law administered by authority of the British monarch. In the ninth century, during the reign of King Alfred the Great, the office of “shire-reeve” was developed to maintain law and order within a shire (equivalent to a modern-day county).1
