Crime and Policing Patterns
One key job of historians is to find patterns. Most things in history are circular and come and go throughout time. The majority of what I do with this column is to try to show that current events have happened before and that nothing is new. Knowing this can help us make better decisions in the future. One such circular event is crime and policing.
Crime and policing in some way are as old as time itself, yet there have been periods in American history where crime was more common or at least thought to be. The first period that comes to mind is the so-called “Wild West.” Whether the cow towns were actually violent is debated, but Hollywood has engrained in our collective minds the wildness of towns like Dodge City, Tombstone, and Deadwood. What brought order to these towns were men as tough as iron. These sheriffs were quick with a gun but sometimes were accused of being as violent as the men they arrested. To make the west safe, they had to enforce tough laws with a strong hand. Hollywood has capitalized on men like Wyatt Earp, Bat Masterson, and Bill Hickock.
Another period known for lawlessness was the 1920s. Prohibition was the law of the land but that only opened the door to criminals who saw easy money in bootlegging. Gangsters became household names like Al Capone, “Baby Face” Nelson, and John Dillinger. There were also men like “Lucky” Luciano who helped organize the Five Families in New York. Then there were crimes that are not as famous today but were know at the time like the Osage Murders in Oklahoma. The crimes of the 1920s helped turn the new and undermanned Bureau of Investigation into the modern trained and efficient Federal Bureau of Investigation. The man responsible for the turnaround was the ruthless J. Edgar Hoover. Before the 1920s, the public feared a national police force that could turn into secret police. However, the crime wave in the ‘20s and the inability or unwillingness of the local police to confront it, resulted in a public demand for help, even if some of the police tactics reminded some of a police state.
The Osage murders are a good example. As shown in David Grann’s book Killers of the Flower Moon, which is currently being turned into a movie starring Leonardo DiCaprio, Osage Indians were being murdered ...
