ABSTRACT
Police surveillance of homosexuals-attested apparently for the first time in 18th-century France (see III.G)— has served to fuel animosity between police and gay people, aggravated in some instances by bigoted attitudes on the part of officers who believed that they had a moral oblig ation to punish "deviates" because society was failing to penalize them. Particular problems have been the aggres sive activities of vice squads, and, especially in North America, police harassment of bars, ostensibly to enforce liquor laws (see XIV.D). Under these circumstances cor ruption was rife. In recent decades this confrontational relationship has begun to change thanks to better edu cated, more tolerant officers, the gradual dismantling of legal sanctions, and the admission of openly gay and les bian officers to the force.
