The purpose of this chapter is to provide the reader with comprehensive background material that will help him better understand and appreciate the rest of this diary. Six sections of the chapter deal with an area relevant to my study of the Tucson Police Department. In the first section, I have discussed the history of law enforcement which stresses the progress of criminal justice from ancient times to the present; the emphasis is on English precedents. Next, a brief discussion of Tucson will give the reader a geographic, economic, sociological, and historical framework within which the Tucson Police Department functions. Third, historical foundations of the Tucson Police Department covering the period from 1871 to the present are discussed. Most of the material concerning the Department's colorful history was obtained at the Arizona Pioneers' Historical Society. Newspaper articles about Department activities from Tucson's "olden days" are used to give the reader a "feeling" for the past. Fourth, we find an explanation of Tucson's city government organization and responsibilities with specific references to a council-manager form of government and a discussion of its chief features. I have also included extracts from the Tucson Code, which contains the City Charter and General Ordinances that relate to the city government and its primary officers, and specifically to the police department and chief of police. Next, the police purpose is described to show not only the wide variety of police involvement, but also to emphasize that the modern municipal police department is more than a law-enforcing agency. Today, it has a much broader social responsibility. The final section gives an insight into the local crime problem with references to the general crime rate, the juvenile crime rate, organized crime, and finally the newly established Metropolitan Crime Commission.
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:arizona.edu/oai:arizona.openrepository.com:10150/611487 |
| Date | January 1969 |
| Creators | Scoopmire, Douglas H. |
| Contributors | Mulligan, Raymond A. |
| Publisher | The University of Arizona. |
| Source Sets | University of Arizona |
| Language | en_US |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | text, Thesis-Reproduction (electronic) |
| Rights | Copyright © is held by the author. Digital access to this material is made possible by the University Libraries, University of Arizona. Further transmission, reproduction or presentation (such as public display or performance) of protected items is prohibited except with permission of the author. |
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