Editing Police (section)

===Early modern===
The first example of a statutory police force in the world was probably the [[High Constables of Edinburgh]], formed in 1611 to police the streets of [[Edinburgh]], then part of the [[Kingdom of Scotland]]. The constables, of whom half were merchants and half were craftsmen, were charged with enforcing 16 regulations relating to curfews, weapons, and theft.<ref>{{Cite web|url=https://www.edinburghhighconstables.org.uk/history.html|title=Edinburgh High Constables – History|website=www.edinburghhighconstables.org.uk}}</ref> At that time, maintenance of public order in Scotland was mainly done by clan chiefs and feudal lords. The first centrally organised and uniformed police force was created by the government of [[King Louis&nbsp;XIV]] in 1667 to police the city of [[Paris]], then the largest city in Europe. The royal edict, registered by the {{lang|fr|[[Parlement]]}} of Paris on March 15, 1667, created the office of {{lang|fr|[[lieutenant général de police]]}} ("lieutenant general of police"), who was to be the head of the new Paris police force, and defined the task of the police as "ensuring the peace and quiet of the public and of private individuals, purging the city of what may cause disturbances, procuring abundance, and having each and everyone live according to their station and their duties".

[[File:Gabriel-Nicolas de la Reynie.jpg|thumb|right|[[Gabriel Nicolas de la Reynie]], founder of the [[Prefecture of Police]], the first uniformed police force in the world]]
This office was first held by [[Gabriel Nicolas de la Reynie]], who had 44 {{lang|fr|commissaires de police}} ('police commissioners') under his authority. In 1709, these commissioners were assisted by {{lang|fr|inspecteurs de police}} ('police inspectors'). The city of Paris was divided into 16 districts policed by the {{lang|fr|commissaires}}, each assigned to a particular district and assisted by a growing bureaucracy. The scheme of the Paris police force was extended to the rest of France by a royal edict of October 1699, resulting in the creation of lieutenants general of police in all large French cities and towns.

After the [[French Revolution]], [[Napoléon I]] reorganized the police in Paris and other cities with more than 5,000 inhabitants on February 17, 1800, as the [[Prefecture of Police]]. On March 12, 1829, a government decree created the first uniformed police in [[France]], known as {{lang|fr|sergents de ville}} ('city sergeants'), which the Paris Prefecture of Police's website claims were the first uniformed policemen in the world.<ref>{{cite web|url=http://www.prefecture-police-paris.interieur.gouv.fr/documentation/bicentenaire/theme_expo4.htm |title=Bicentenaire: theme expo4 |publisher=prefecture-police-paris.interieur.gouv.fr |access-date=2009-06-21 |archive-url = https://web.archive.org/web/20080506215949/http://www.prefecture-police-paris.interieur.gouv.fr/documentation/bicentenaire/theme_expo4.htm |archive-date = May 6, 2008}}</ref>

In feudal Japan, [[samurai]] warriors were charged with enforcing the law among commoners. Some Samurai acted as magistrates called {{transliteration|ja|[[Machi-bugyō]]}}, who acted as judges, prosecutors, and as chief of police. Beneath them were other Samurai serving as {{transliteration|ja|yoriki}}, or assistant magistrates, who conducted criminal investigations, and beneath them were Samurai serving as {{transliteration|ja|dōshin}}, who were responsible for patrolling the streets, keeping the peace, and making arrests when necessary. The {{transliteration|ja|yoriki}} were responsible for managing the {{transliteration|ja|dōshin}}. {{transliteration|ja|Yoriki}} and {{transliteration|ja|dōshin}} were typically drawn from low-ranking samurai families. Assisting the {{transliteration|ja|dōshin}} were the {{transliteration|ja|komono}}, non-Samurai {{transliteration|ja|[[chōnin]]}} who went on patrol with them and provided assistance, the {{transliteration|ja|okappiki}}, non-Samurai from the lowest outcast class, often former criminals, who worked for them as informers and spies, and {{transliteration|ja|gōyokiki}} or {{transliteration|ja|meakashi}}, chōnin, often former criminals, who were hired by local residents and merchants to work as police assistants in a particular neighborhood. This system typically did not apply to the Samurai themselves. Samurai clans were expected to resolve disputes among each other through negotiation, or when that failed through duels. Only rarely did Samurai bring their disputes to a magistrate or answer to police.<ref>{{cite web| url = https://crimereads.com/crime-and-punishment-in-shogun-japan/| title = Crime and Punishment in Shogun Japan| date = 13 August 2018}}</ref><ref>Cunningham, Don (2004). Taiho-jutsu: law and order in the age of the samurai. Tuttle Martial Arts, Tuttle Publishing. pp. 93–100. {{ISBN|978-0-8048-3536-7}}, pp. 51–54</ref><ref>Botsman, Dani (2005). ''Punishment and Power in the Making of Modern Japan''. Princeton University Press. {{ISBN|9780691114910}}, p. 94</ref>

In [[Joseon]]-era Korea, the [[Podocheong]] emerged as a police force with the power to arrest and punish criminals. Established in 1469 as a temporary organization, its role solidified into a permanent one.

In [[Sweden]], local governments were responsible for law and order by way of a royal decree issued by [[Magnus III of Sweden|Magnus&nbsp;III]] in the 13th century. The cities financed and organized groups of watchmen who patrolled the streets. In the late 1500s in Stockholm, patrol duties were in large part taken over by a special corps of salaried [[city guard]]s. The city guard was organized, uniformed and armed like a military unit and was responsible for interventions against various crimes and the arrest of suspected criminals. These guards were assisted by the military, fire patrolmen, and a civilian unit that did not wear a uniform, but instead wore a small badge around the neck. The civilian unit monitored compliance with city ordinances relating to e.g. sanitation issues, traffic and taxes. In rural areas, the King's bailiffs were responsible for law and order until the establishment of counties in the 1630s.<ref>Furuhagen, Björn (2009). "Från fjärdingsman till närpolis – en kortfattad svensk polishistoria". Växjö Studies in Policing (in Swedish). Växjö: Växjö Universitet. {{ISSN|1654-6776}}</ref><ref>Bergsten, Magnus; Furuhagen, Björn (2 March 2002). "[https://popularhistoria.se/samhalle/brott-straff/ordning-pa-stan Ordning på stan] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20210714124821/https://popularhistoria.se/samhalle/brott-straff/ordning-pa-stan |date=14 July 2021 }}". sv:Populär Historia (in Swedish). Retrieved 17 August 2015.</ref>

Up to the early 18th century, the level of state involvement in law enforcement in Britain was low. Although some law enforcement officials existed in the form of constables and watchmen, there was no organized police force. A professional police force like the one already present in France would have been ill-suited to Britain, which saw examples such as the French one as a threat to the people's liberty and balanced constitution in favor of an arbitrary and tyrannical government. Law enforcement was mostly up to the private citizens, who had the right and duty to prosecute crimes in which they were involved or in which they were not. At the cry of 'murder!' or 'stop thief!' everyone was entitled and obliged to join the pursuit. Once the criminal had been apprehended, the parish constables and night watchmen, who were the only public figures provided by the state and who were typically part-time and local, would make the arrest.<ref>Tim Hichcock & Robert Shoemaker (2006) ''Tales From the Hanging Court'', Bloomsbury. p. 1 {{ISBN|978-0-340-91375-8}}</ref> As a result, the state set a reward to encourage citizens to arrest and prosecute offenders. The first of such rewards was established in 1692 of the amount of £40 for the conviction of a [[highwayman]] and in the following years it was extended to burglars, coiners and other forms of offense. The reward was to be increased in 1720 when, after the end of the [[War of the Spanish Succession]] and the consequent rise of criminal offenses, the government offered £100 for the conviction of a highwayman. Although the offer of such a reward was conceived as an incentive for the victims of an offense to proceed to the prosecution and to bring criminals to justice, the efforts of the government also increased the number of private thief-takers. Thief-takers became infamously known not so much for what they were supposed to do, catching real criminals and prosecuting them, as for "setting themselves up as intermediaries between victims and their attackers, extracting payments for the return of stolen goods and using the threat of prosecution to keep offenders in thrall". Some of them, such as [[Jonathan Wild]], became infamous at the time for staging robberies in order to receive the reward.<ref>J. M. Beattie (2012) ''The First English Detectives. The Bow Street Runners and the Policing of London'', 1750–1840. Oxford University Press. p. 7 {{ISBN|978-0-19-969516-4}}</ref><ref>[https://www.oldbaileyonline.org/browse.jsp?id=t17250513-55-person321&div=t17250513-55#highlight "Central Criminal Court".] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20210415171118/https://www.oldbaileyonline.org/browse.jsp?id=t17250513-55-person321&div=t17250513-55#highlight |date=15 April 2021 }} Oldbaileyonline.org.</ref>

In 1737, [[George II of Great Britain|George II]] began paying some London and Middlesex watchmen with tax monies, beginning the shift to government control. In 1749, Judge [[Henry Fielding]] began organizing a force of quasi-professional constables known as the [[Bow Street Runners]]. The Bow Street Runners are considered to have been Britain's first dedicated police force. They represented a formalization and regularization of existing policing methods, similar to the unofficial 'thief-takers'. What made them different was their formal attachment to the Bow Street magistrates' office, and payment by the magistrate with funds from the central government. They worked out of Fielding's office and court at No. 4 Bow Street, and did not patrol but served [[writ]]s and arrested offenders on the authority of the magistrates, travelling nationwide to apprehend criminals. Fielding wanted to regulate and legalize law enforcement activities due to the high rate of corruption and mistaken or malicious arrests seen with the system that depended mainly on private citizens and state rewards for law enforcement. Henry Fielding's work was carried on by his brother, Justice [[John Fielding]], who succeeded him as magistrate in the Bow Street office. Under John Fielding, the institution of the Bow Street Runners gained more and more recognition from the government, although the force was only funded intermittently in the years that followed. In 1763, the Bow Street Horse Patrol was established to combat highway robbery, funded by a government grant. The Bow Street Runners served as the guiding principle for the way that policing developed over the next 80 years. Bow Street was a manifestation of the move towards increasing professionalisation and state control of street life, beginning in London.

The [[Macdaniel affair]], a 1754 British political scandal in which a group of thief-takers was found to be falsely prosecuting innocent men in order to collect reward money from [[Bounty (reward)|bounties]],<ref>Delmas-Marty, Mireille; J. R. Spencer (2002) [1995]. "European Criminal Procedures (pdf)" (PDF). Presses Universitaires de France / Cambridge University Press.</ref> added further impetus for a publicly salaried police force that did not depend on rewards. Nonetheless, In 1828, there were [[private police|privately financed police]] units in no fewer than 45 parishes within a 10-mile radius of London.

The word ''police'' was [[Loanword|borrowed]] from French into the English language in the 18th century, but for a long time it applied only to French and continental European police forces. The word, and the concept of police itself, were "disliked as a symbol of foreign oppression".<ref>{{cite EB1911|wstitle= Police |volume= 21 |last= Griffiths |first= Arthur George Frederick| pages = 979&ndash;980; lines three and four |quote=The word was adopted in English in the 18th century and was disliked as a symbol of foreign oppression }}</ref> Before the 19th century, the first use of the word ''police'' recorded in government documents in the United Kingdom was the appointment of Commissioners of Police for Scotland in 1714 and the creation of the [[Marine Police Force|Marine Police]] in 1798.