The institution of the Police is fairly recent. In England, the “bobby” came about in the 1830s. In India, the Police Act is dated 1861: incidentally, the same year that Rabindranath Tagore was born. Tagore dreamt of a land “where the mind is without fear and the head is held high.” The Indian police inspire fear. They are an instrument of political control. As far as the citizenry is concerned, they are useless.
Things were much better in ancient times, when there was no police. Among the Anglo-Saxon tribes, for example, there was no “criminal law.” All crimes were torts: that is, they were all crimes against the individual; there were no crimes against The State. (There was no The State.) Thus, if you caused injury to any person or his property, you had to pay damages. Restitution, not retribution. The victim got Justice.
The Norman kings changed all this. In order to collect fines to augment their treasuries, these kings listed out more and more crimes as crimes against the king. This caused the natural order to collapse. Before this, the Anglo-Saxons policed themselves. There was an incentive to catch a tortfeasor. But after the Normans took over, the people told the king to catch the criminal himself, if he wanted to collect the fine. Gradually, criminal law expanded its scope. Finally, there was a Police.
In the old days, prosecution was the individual’s prerogative. He collected the evidence himself and argued his own case. But with more and more crimes listed as crimes against The State, the government took over the task of prosecution too. In time, The People became dependent on The State for investigation, prosecution as well as punishment. All this punishment was at the cost of the taxpayer – including the punishment in a government jail: retribution, not restitution. The victims got nothing. Justice, as originally conceived, went out of the window. So did Liberty – as more and more consensual acts were labeled as “crimes against The State.”
Yet, it is worth asking The State as to what precise injury is caused to it when I smoke a joint or gamble or visit a brothel. Indeed, The State is not injured in any way by any of these acts. In fact, the minions of The State profit from these acts being labeled criminal. The Police runs the black markets. And there is no Justice. And there is no Liberty.
Recommended reading: Bruce Benson’s “The Enterprise of Law: Justice Without The State.”
Ban The Police!
Beg to differ on some facts. Police or police-like institutions were indeed present in ancient times. The centralised autocratic Maurya administration comes to mind. Kautilya's Arthashastra gives descriptions of detailed punishments for a comprehensive list of crimes. Medieval India had the Kotwals in the cities. They even actually had state controlled moral police that checked citizen culture/behaviour.
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