Conclusion

From the start, the dichotomy between Pinkerton’s methodical techniques, code of conduct and high standard of hiring only “well qualified, educated, and intelligent” agents,¹ differed considerably from Chicago’s early constabulary system, which until the end of the nineteenth century was considered a disorganized, corrupt, and ragtag police force.

Compared with its contemporaries, the Pinkertons were sophisticated, dedicated and ruthless, capable of assembling a vast network of operatives and informers, and the foresight to create an impressive rogues gallery of mugshots and criminal descriptions, that was used to exchange information with detectives from all over the world–most notably Scotland Yard.

The sixty years from 1870 to 1930 encompassed an era of industrialization, which lead to vast economic growth and social and political change. As an institution, the Chicago Police Force changed dramatically at the turn of the century. The general trend between the mid-1890’s and 1930 was towards increased professionalism and respectability of the police.²

From outward appearances, the adoption of uniforms and use of special equipment during the mid-nineteenth Century–modeled after private industry, was helpful in establishing the credibility of the Department as a unified force. Beginning in the early twentieth century additional reforms and adoption of stricter hiring standards, increased pay scales, education and military style training of officers led to a more organized and professional force into the twentieth century.³ Academically, the model established by the private police was the driving factor behind some of the organizational reforms institute by the public police, but these factors have been largely overlooked by police scholars and historians and others who study police history. Indeed, for the most part, the positive change in the public police from a ragtag band of volunteer misfits to a more organized and professional law enforcement agency, is accredited to reforms led by citizens public outcry to institute legislation to strengthen the rules and restructure the police force to prevent corruption.  Corruption, without doubt, plagued the Chicago police department during this period, as it did other police departments nationwide.⁴ Over time, the City’s as well as the General Assembly’s efforts to institute changes to make the department a more professional and efficient police force have been successful,⁵ however, their efforts to route out corruption and make the force less controversial have largely failed.  One only has to pick up a newspaper to see that corruption and controversy still plague the Chicago Police Department as it exists today. 

Indeed, there is much evidence to show there were well known alliances between police officers and underworld gangsters who were involved in graft taking, gambling, liquor running and prostitution. All of which interfere with they respectful operations of any police force. It was risky–and in some cases lethal, for police officials who were willing to do the right thing, to exercise any initiative over on his own or in his district over corrupt city officials, without specific orders from headquarters.⁶. Any reform is useless as long as police officers and administrators are not free from the dominating influence of those who corrupt. But, the stereotype of Chicago in the early twentieth century, particularly during the Prohibition era of the 1920’s, as a city run amuck, and dominated by organized crime and corrupt political aldermen, is not entirely warranted. Corruption in the city long predated Prohibition⁷ as did criminal enterprises, such as prostitution, gambling, graft and bribery of police and city officials. Corruption and criminal enterprise has always existed, and will always exist as long as there are people on earth and huge sums of money to be made through them. But there are other factors that contributed to the ineffectiveness of the Chicago’s police to curb crime, for instance, population growth versus police manpower.

Between 1840 and 1930 Chicago’s population grew by almost 1,000 times. Naturally, population increases, especially during the period of the 1920’s to 1930’s, came with larger increases in crime, particularly in the number of homicides, per capita. But, in my review of the data provided for homicides that occurred between 1870 and 1930 contained in the Chicago Homicide Database,⁸ I found no evidence that suggests the increase in the number of homicides was a new phenomenon caused by corruption, as opposed to a continuation of trends consistent with demographic changes and growth in population.⁹ Indeed, it goes without saying the increase in population naturally means an increase in crime, which in turn leads to an increase in demands on police.

Figure 1: The chart illustrates that Chicago’s population (the blue line) grew from 4,470 persons in 1840 to 3,376,438 by 1930. As the population grew so did police manpower, but manpower barely registers as a blip (the purple line) compared to population growth. For example, in 1840 the ratio of police manpower to population was 1 police officer for every 1,000 persons (4 officers for a population of 4,470). The ratio between population to manpower slightly from 1855 to 1886 to 1 officer for every 1,250 individuals and it remained that way until 1897 when the ratio of population to manpower decreased to 1 police officer for every 475 individuals, (3,551 police officers for a population of 1,698,000). By 1930 the ratio of population to police manpower was on the rise again to 1 police officer per every 500 individuals (6,719 police officers for a population of 3,376,438).¹⁰

Figure 2: Shows that police manpower was less than one tenth of one percent of the population.

Public policing in Chicago during 1870 to 1930 was in its infancy. It clearly was struggling to establish the rule of law and order and unify its police force. As with all infants it needed a role model to guide it while it grew in size and gained strength. Private police provided that role model. In particular, Pinkerton provided the organizational role model that public police needed to grow and gain strength.  

 

1. Robert A. Pinkerton testified before Congress during Senate Congressional Hearings related to the Homestead Riots, that he personally interviewed and met every agent he hired and staked his reputation on the fact that he only hired the highest quality men. See  52nd U.S. Congress, 2d Sess., 1893, Senate Report No. 1200, p. 12 and 5.
2. According to Monkkonen,  “As we know and conceive them, police are rather new on the urban scene, appearing in London in 1829 and in the United State two decades later. Before this British and American Cities were policed by a hodgepodge of traditional civil officials and private individuals. By the end of the nineteenth century, police were ubiquitous in U.S. cities, and by the end of World War I they had reached the bureaucrat and behavioral development that we all recognize.”  Monkkonen, Police in Urban America, 1860-1920, at 24.
3. Ernest W. Puttkammer, A Manual of Criminal Law and of Criminal Procedure for Police, The University of Chicago Press (Chicago, IL 1930), available at URL: http://homicide.northwestern.edu/pubs/MCLCPP/.
4. The aldermen and the mayor ruled the city, and the police answered to them. Each neighborhood had its own police station. The neighborhoods, in turn, were aligned with the political wards of the city. Aldermen were elected by wards and answered politically to their constituencies in those wards.
5. See e.g., Senate Report on the Chicago Police system, Committee of Investigation appointed by the 40th General Assembly Special Session 1897-1898. Available at URL: http://homicide.northwestern.edu/pubs/pia/; see also Report of Investigation of the Discipline and Administration of the Police Department of the City of Chicago, by Alex. R. Piper, Captain, U.S. Army, Retired, March 17, 1904, (City Club of Chicago); and City of Chicago. Report of the City Council Committee on Crime of the City of Chicago, March 22, 1915. Available at http://homicide.northwestern.edu/docs_fk/homicide/ccreport/ccreport.toc.pdf.
6. Illinois Crime Survey (1929), published by Illinois Association for Criminal Justice in cooperation with The Chicago Crime Commission. Available at URL: http://homicide.northwestern.edu/pubs/icc/. It was demonstrated in the survey that the office of state’s attorney was being used for political purposes and many habitual and dangerous criminals were being released with little or no punishment, and police officers, even if inclined to do their job, were thwarted by the political and judicial machine and/or faced huge risk in doing so.
7. Volstead Act of 1919, or National Prohibition Act, which took effect in January 1920, provided enforcement for the Eighteenth Amendment, prohibiting the manufacture and sale of alcoholic beverages. The act was vetoed by Pres. Woodrow Wilson, but it became law after Congress voted to override the veto.
8. The Chicago Homicide Database contains data of more than 11,000 homicides from 1870-1930. The information is based upon a set of handwritten records kept without interruption by the Chicago Police Department, consistently, and with the same protocol and indexing system, for a period of over a sixty years. The project was undertaken by Leigh Bienen, a lawyer and Professor at Northwestern Law School. See Leigh Bienen, et al. “The Chicago Homicide Database,” Northwestern Law School, 2012. Available via The Chicago Homicide Project at http://homicide.northwestern.edu.
9. Illinois Crime Survey (1929), published by Illinois Association for Criminal Justice in cooperation with The Chicago Crime Commission. Available at URL: http://homicide.northwestern.edu/pubs/icc/.
10. Illinois Historical Survey, The Chicago Police Department, “Facts” and Historical Data, by Richard J. Daley, Mayor and Timothy J. O’Conner, Commissioner of Police, published by the Chicago Police Department (Chicago, 1955). Available at URL: https://archive.org/stream/factshistoricald00chic/factshistoricald00chic_djvu.txt.; see also Illinois Crime Survey at URL: http://homicide.northwestern.edu/pubs/icc/.