POLICE TECHNOLOGY

the methods and techniques of, and the equipment available to, police agencies. Throughout the 20th century, improvements and innovations have been made in police transportation, communications, weaponry, laboratory facilities, and other areas, but these have scarcely more than kept pace with the pressures generated by denser urban populations, greater sophistication on the part of criminals, social disturbances, and new types of crime made possible by economic and technological developmentse.g., aircraft hijacking and computer fraud. Police technology increasingly involves borrowings from the physical and social sciences, as well as from the fields of jurisprudence and education. Although it was only in the 1960s that police technology became recognized as a distinct academic and scientific discipline, the proliferation of professional publications, educational programs, workshops, and international conferences of police reveals the growing importance attached to the technical aspects of police work. Two influences serve to restrict the application of technology to police work. First, technical problems themselves may arise when the technology of one discipline is transferred to a different application in police science. Second, in the United States and other democracies, constitutional and legal issues may limit or prevent the use of feasible technologies in police work. Many examples of an incipient police technology can be found in the ancient and medieval world. Long before the beginning of the Christian Era, Egyptians used detailed word descriptions of individuals, a concept known in modern times as portrait parle. The Babylonians pressed fingerprints into clay to identify the author of cuneiform writings and to protect against forgery. Fingerprints were also used by the Chinese at an early date for purposes of identification. The concept of comparison and identification of handwriting was established in Roman times, as is evidenced by the Code of Justinian of the Eastern Roman Empire, first enacted in AD 529. Branding and mutilation were used from time immemorial to identify convicted criminals. Trial by ordeal and trial by combat were medieval methods of interrogation of suspects, with the survivors judged innocent. A more humane medieval method, and a step toward modern concepts, was compurgation, in which the friends and families of the disputant took oaths not on the facts but on the disputant's character. An Asian interrogation method involved scientific principles based on the lessening of salivation under nervous tension. The mouths of several suspects were filled with dry rice; the suspect exhibiting the greatest difficulty in spitting out the rice was judged guilty. Another precursor of the modern lie detector was employed in India. Suspects were sent into a dark room where a sacred ass was stabled and directed to pull the animal's tail. They were warned that if the ass brayed it was a sign of guilt. The ass's tail had been dusted with black powder; those with a clear conscience pulled the tail, whereas the guilty person did not, and an examination of the suspects' hands revealed the person with the guilty conscience. Modern police methods were beginning to develop in Europe by the 18th century and in the 19th century were reinforced by a great number of technological advances. When the British Parliament enacted the reforms of Robert Peel in 1829, the importance of keeping comprehensive police records was recognized. In principle, Peel stated that police records were indispensable for the proper distribution of police strength. His reforms laid the foundation for the development of the modern police communications system and provided for a coherent police organization. Until the mid-19th century, however, police signal systems consisted of whistles, raps on the pavement with a nightstick or baton, and flashing of lights. In 1849 the central police station at Scotland Yard and the district police stations of London were connected by a telegraph line. Other cities followed, and telegraph boxes placed at points on patrolmen's beats permitted swift calls to headquarters when assistance was needed. The telephone was first installed in a police station in Washington, D.C., in 1878. Two years later Chicago took the important step of installing telephone boxes on patrolmen's beats. Important advances in identification occurred in the late 19th century. In 1882, Alphonse Bertillon of France introduced a means of identifying suspects by using measurements of the body, head, and limbs. This system was largely supplanted by modern fingerprinting, which dates from about the same period. The Henry system of classifying fingerprints (by patterns and shapes) was adopted by Scotland Yard in 1901, and this system, or variants of it, soon became standard throughout the world. The idea of tracing and identifying an individual typewriter by means of the peculiarities of its type characters probably first appeared in Arthur Conan Doyle's story A Case of Identity, written in 1891, three years before the first mention of the subject in technical literature. The automobile, first used in police work in Akron, Ohio, in 1899, became the basis of police transportation in the 20th century. Closely linked with it was the adoption of radio communication. Other innovations in communications were the teletypewriter and facsimile. The teletypewriter evolved from printing telegraphs and developed rapidly during World War I; by the 1920s it was used in police communications in most countries. Facsimile transmission (telephotography) dates from the early 1900s, and in 1908 a criminal was captured as a result of his photo being transmitted by facsimile from Paris to London. After World War I the use of this technique became widespread. Perhaps the single most important invention in the development of police communications was the transistor, which, in the 1950s, led to the development of small, lightweight, reliable radio transmitter-receivers. In the 1920s the technique of identifying firearms by the striated markings on bullet jackets was introduced. As these and other new techniques became available, the first police crime laboratories were instituted in Europe and the United States. One of the earliest was established in Lyon, Fr. There have been few innovations in weaponry. The nightstick (club) and firearm, invariably adaptations of military weapons, remained virtually unchallenged in the police arsenal until the 1960s, when chemicals, tranquillizing darts, light- and sound-energy techniques, and other devices began appearing. Additional reading See United States. President's Commission on Law Enforcement and Administration of Justice, Task Force Report: Science and Technology (1967), a study of the application of science and technology to control crime and to solve related sociological problems; Paul L. Kirk and Lowell W. Bradford, The Crime Laboratory (1965), a basic guide to establishing a crime laboratory; Edward Clinton Ezell, Small Arms of the World, 12th rev. ed. (1983), a compilation of photographs, technical descriptions, and specifications as well as operational comments; Donald O. Schultz and Loran A. Norton, Police Operational Intelligence (1968), a basic guide for the establishment of police intelligence systems; and George B. Johnson and Hans Bert Lockhoven, International Armament, 2 vol. (1965), a source for information on small arms, their specifications, and manufacture. Edward J. Imwinkelried (ed.), Scientific and Expert Evidence, 2nd ed. (1981), provides a comprehensive review of forensic science and analyzes the utility and the legal issues of physical evidence. Crime and Justice (irregular) is a periodical collection of articles on research and developments in criminal justice. For discussion of the use of computers and automation in police work, see V.A. Leonard, The New Police Technology (1980). The following references are significant and comprehensive texts pertaining to the establishment, management, and operation of a modern forensic laboratory: H.J. Walls, Forensic Science, 2nd ed. (1974); Wilson R. Harrison, Suspect Documents, Their Scientific Examination (1958, reprinted 1981); David A. Crown, The Forensic Examination of Paints and Pigments (1968); James W. Osterburg, The Crime Laboratory, 2nd ed. (1982); Arne Svensson, Otto Wendel, and Barry A.J. Fisher, Techniques of Crime Scene Investigation, trans. from the Swedish, 3rd ed. (1981); Lewis C. Nickolls, The Scientific Investigation of Crime (1956); P.L. Kirk, Crime Investigation, 2nd ed. (1974, reprinted 1985); Charles E. O'Hara and James W. Osterburg, An Introduction to Criminalistics (1949, reissued 1972); Charles E. O'Hara and Gregory L. O'Hara, Fundamentals of Criminal Investigation, 5th ed. (1980); Richard H. Ward, Introduction to Criminal Investigation (1975); and Donald O. Schultz, Criminal Investigation Techniques (1978).