POLICE, THE

British-American new-wave band that blended reggae, jazz, funk, punk, and world music influences into hook-laden pop-rock. Five best-selling albums, a bevy of hits, and aggressive touringincluding stops in countries usually overlooked by Western pop musicianscombined to make the Police the world's most popular band in the early 1980s. The members were Sting (original name Gordon Sumner; b. Oct. 2, 1951, Wallsend, Tyne and Wear, Eng.), Stewart Copeland (b. July 16, 1952, Alexandria, Egypt), and Andy Summers (original name Andrew Somers; b. Dec. 31, 1942, Poulton-le-Fylde, Lancashire, Eng.). Unlike most of their punk contemporaries, the Police were skilled musicians when they came together in London in 1977. Drummer Copeland played with the progressive rock band Curved Air, bassist-vocalist-songwriter Sting performed with jazz combos in his native Newcastle, and Summers (who replaced the group's original guitarist, Henri Padovani) was a veteran of numerous British rhythm-and-blues and rock bands. Having dyed their hair blond to play a punk band in a commercial and thereby established their signature look, the Police charted in both Britain and the United States with the reggae-imbued albums Outlandos d'Amour (released in late 1978 in Britain and in early 1979 in the United States) and Regatta de Blanc (1979). Zenyatta Mondatta (1980) and the synthesizer-rich Ghost in the Machine (1981) saw a marked evolution from the stripped-down arrangements of their early work to a more layered but still tightly focused sound. The group reached its commercial and critical peak with the multiplatinum album Synchronicity (1983). On all their work, Summers's evocative guitar playing and Copeland's polyrhythmic virtuosity provided a solid foundation for Sting's impassioned vocals and sophisticated lyrics (which included references to Vladimir Nabokov and Arthur Koestler). In 1985, at the peak of their popularity, the Police dissolved. Copeland went on to score numerous motion pictures, while Summers recorded adventurous music, including two albums with fellow guitarist Robert Fripp. Sting became an extremely popular soloist, revisiting his jazz roots (accompanied by such accomplished musicians as saxophonist Branford Marsalis and keyboardist Kenny Kirkland) and later incorporating Latin and folk influences. He also continued an uneven acting career, which began with Quadrophenia (1979) and included Dune (1984) and Stormy Monday (1988). The history of policing Forms of policing have existed for several thousand years, with religious, political, or military police wielding power as early as the time of Babylon. Early police were usually either military or semi-military organizations that developed from the personal bodyguards of rulers and warlords or from community organizations in which citizens banded together for mutual protection. The duties of the military type of police usually consisted of keeping the public order and enforcing the religious or political mandates of those in power. Rome, under the emperor Augustus, had one of the earliest forms of organized policing. In 7 BC Augustus divided Rome into 14 regiones (wards), each divided into vici (precincts) overseen by vicomagistri responsible for fire protection, among other administrative and religious duties. In AD 6, after a particularly bad fire, Augustus expanded the city's fire brigade into a corps of vigiles, consisting of seven squads, or cohorts, of 1,000 freedmen each. Each cohort was responsible for fire and, especially at night, police protection in two regiones. To further impose order on the often violent streets of his city of nearly 1,000,000, Augustus created three cohorts of police, part of the army of the state, who were placed under the command of the urban prefect. These cohorts could, in turn, call upon the emperor's own bodyguard (the Praetorian Guard) for assistance. Military and semi-military police forces developed independently in many countries of the world. For example, the shogun, ruler of 17th-century feudal Japan, devised an elaborate police system in which each castle town had a military samurai warrior who served as town magistrate, judge, and chief of police. He appointed other sword-carrying samurai (yoriki and doshin) to serve as a patrolling police force. In the early 1700s the Russian tsars also established a police system to enforce their laws. Tsar Nicholas I later expanded the powers of this police force and turned it into an early form of state political policethe dreaded Okhranka. After the Russian Revolution, this force gave rise to V.I. Lenin's powerful and highly organized Cheka, the political police that served as a model for Mussolini's OVRA and Hitler's Gestapo. The other system of early policing, consisting of citizens banding together for mutual protection, was best evidenced by the frankpledge system of early England. This beginning in communal policing eventually led to the development of the Metropolitan Police Act and a British police system that served as the model for most modern police forces. Anglo-Saxon beginnings As ubiquitous as the contemporary Western police system may seem, it has existed in its present organizational form only for the past 150 years. The earliest policing system in England predates the Norman Conquest. The Saxon frankpledge was a private system of social obligation in which all adult males were responsible for the good conduct of all others. To formalize this social obligation, all males were grouped into tithings headed by a tithingman. Each tithing, in turn, was grouped into a hundred. The hundred was headed by a hundredman, who served as both administrator and judge. When crimes were observed, citizens were expected to raise an alarm, gather their countrymen, and pursue and capture the criminal. All citizens were obliged to pursue wrongdoers, and those who refused were subject to punishment. If a crime was committed with no witnesses, efforts to identify the criminal after the fact were the responsibility of the victim alone: no governmental agency existed for the investigation and solution of crimes. The frankpledge method of policing continued unchanged until the Norman Conquest in 1066, when the Normans added the office of constable to the system. The office of constable was originally a post in the royal court, but by the late 13th century the position had evolved into a local office of individual manors and parishes. In addition to their frankpledge obligations, constables were responsible for overseeing the watch-and-ward system (the nightwatch). The primary responsibility of the watch and ward was to guard the city gates at night. Later, the duties of watchmen were expanded to include lighting lamps, calling time, watching for fires, and reporting other conditions. Despite the addition of constables, however, the investigation and prosecution of crimes remained a private matter to be handled by the victims. The Statute of Winchester of 1285 codified this system of social obligation. It provided that (1) it was everyone's duty to maintain the king's peace, and any citizen could arrest an offender; (2) the unpaid, part-time constable had a special duty to do so, and in towns he would be assisted by his inferior officer, the watchman; (3) if the offender was not caught red-handed, a hue and cry must be raised; (4) everyone was obliged to keep arms and to follow the cry when required; and (5) the constable had a duty to present the offender at court tests. In one form or another, this system remained in place in Anglo-Saxon countries until the 19th century. Essentially, it was an unpoliced system in which police functions were fulfilled by citizens who held rotating local offices. Constables and watchmen were supported by citizens, posses, and, in the case of riots, by the military or the yeomanry (a cavalry force largely composed of landowners). Victims who could not recover their property offered rewards for its return and often resorted to hiring thieftakers. These precursors to modern bounty hunters were private citizens who, for a fee or reward, attempted to identify wrongdoers and return stolen property to its rightful owners.