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Abstract
The vast majority of Anglo-American police and policing social studies illustrate, both theoretically and empirically, an a-statist, localist and, to a lesser extent, privatist organization. This article reconsiders this common perspective by exploring the socio-historical monographs of the California Highway Patrol. This inquiry reveals how a state can utilize a new and marginal policing objective—road risk and criminality—to develop a powerful and relatively autonomous police organization, which, despite its name, exists more as a police on the road than a police of the road, and plays a vital role in the Californian police system. Surprisingly, the California Highway Patrol embodies the model of a state institution much more common in “Older Europe” than in America.
Notes
1. In 1972, Walter Pudinski, nominated by Governor Ronald Reagan, became the first CHP officer to lead CHP.
2. In terms of size, the CHP occupies the fifth rank of police agencies in the United States (regardless of the federal level). In California, the fourth largest police force after the LAPD, LASCP and the CHP, is the San Diego Police Department which employs 4,000 agents (sworn and unsworn).
3. As a result, the CHP directly controls half of the California's public road network (105,000 miles), but keeps the right to intervene on the other half if necessary. Although more than two-thirds of the network controlled by the CHP is located in rural areas, the majority of the CHP personnel work in urban areas where most of motor traffic takes place (especially on urban freeways that belong to the state and are exclusively patrolled by the CHP).
4. At an early stage of the CHP history, its generalist trope has been diagnosed and even criticized (cf., e.g., Senate Finance Sub-Committee, Report on California Highway Patrol, 4 March 1953, California State Archives, 69-404). The absorption by the CHP of the 400 agents of the California State Police in 1995 constitutes another indication of the CHP generalist orientation.
5. California Highway Patrol, Office of Research and Planning, 1992 Response to Civil Unrest Sparked by the Rodney King Incident Trial Verdicts, 1993, State California Library, H327 C59. It might be remarked that Rodney King was arrested by the LAPD on 3 March 1991 at the request of the CHP, which had initiating a pursuit of his vehicle on Interstate 210 until he left this highway to enter the LAPD jurisdiction. This fact constitutes another indication of the routine cooperation between the CHP and other Californian police agencies.
6. The measurement of power is always delicate and subject to discussion. We based ours on the simple but very sound “NATO” analytical grid (Hood, Citation1983). “NATO” stands for: Nodality, Authority, Treasure, Organization.
7. H. Kenneth Bechtel (Citation1995) establishes a close link between the creation after the First World War of state police forces in the United States and the progressive movement reminiscence (see also Monkkonen, Citation2002 [1997]: 158–161). It must also be mentioned that in this period the main national figure of police professional reformism was August Vollmer. Chief of the police of the city of Berkeley between 1905 and 1932, he made California a laboratory of police innovation (Douthit, Citation1992 [1975]), partly with the help of his good friend Richardson, state governor between 1922 and 1926.
8. E.g. : “A Chronological Development of the Problem of Traffic Control in the State of California and the Subsequent Development of the Department of CHP, 1911–1959”, 1960, California State Library, Gvt, H325 H5l C3; “The California Highway Patrol: A Review of its Organization, Functions and Operations”, Legislative Analyst of the Joint Legislative Budget Committee of California, 1960, California State Library, GPS, L425 H541; “70 years of the CHP”, The California Highway Patrolman, special issue, August 1999.
9. In fact, as far as our side-researches led us, it seems that the histories of traffic policing in municipalities and counties have taken two different paths. As early as the 1920s, the National Safety Council's urban elite networks encouraged American municipal polices to invest manpower and competence in traffic law enforcement. In the 1930s, following the excellent results of the Evanston's “traffic accident prevention bureau” set up by Franklin Kreml, the National Safety Council (located in Chicago, Illinois) played a key role in the creation of the Northwestern University's Traffic Institute, which designed and implemented intensive training programmes mainly for municipal police officers aimed at creating and managing traffic bureaus in their organizations. In 1936, Franklin Kreml, who headed the Traffic Institute for more than twenty years, became also the chief of International Association of Chiefs of Police's traffic division. He represented and enacted a model of road policing, alternative to that of the CHP, mainly focused on urban areas and certainly more incorporated into the classic American urban police system.
10. Section 3, Ordinance no. 320, passed 26 December 1922 by the San Mateo County Board of Supervisors.
11. Unlike most aspects of road policing, the tensions between road policemen and road users have been well studied by academics: for England, see Emsley (Citation1991); for France, see Pérez-Diaz (Citation1998); for Australia and New Zealand, see Wilson & Chappell (Citation1971).
12. “A Chronological Development of the Problem of Traffic Control in the State of California and the Subsequent Development of the Department of CHP, 1911–1959”, pp. 3-4.
13. E.R. Cato, Chief of the California Highway Patrol, Recommendations for the Future Improvement of the CHP, October 1934, p. 13.
14. It is now explicit CHP policy to encourage captains to develop and maintain a relationship portfolio within their area. For a study of the importance of relationship portfolios in police work, see Thoenig (Citation1994).
15. Interview with three representatives of the CAHP (Sacramento, 5 August 2003).
16. Franklin M. Kreml, Report on the California Highway Patrol to the Senate Interim Committee on Governmental Reorganization, 16 October 1946, p. 15 [California State Library, L500 I6 1946].
17. In the investiture address following his re-election as Governor in January, Earl Warren made “civilizing” the state's roads a vital part of California's development: “Our streets and our roads have become places of frightful danger, and our economic development is being retarded …”.
18. See the cover of the first issue of The California Highway Patrolman (Vol. 1, no. 1, March 1937). Symbolically it shows a review of the troops on the Bay Bridge linking San Francisco to Oakland, complete with revolvers and motorcycles. On the theatrical function, see Peter Manning (Citation1991).
19. Among them were the California Taxpayers’ Association and the District Attorney of Alameda County, Earl Warren, who would become General Attorney in 1939, before being elected Governor in 1943 (and re-elected in 1947 and 1951). As Governor he demanded the total reorganization of the CHP that led to the establishment of an autonomous department in 1947.
20. Of course, this type of paramilitary force differs very much from the “police paramilitary units” (PPUs) or “Special Weapons and Tactics teams” (SWAT), which developed in the large American municipal polices (i.e., the LAPD since the early 1970s) (Wilson, Citation2000; Kraska, Citation2001).
21. The cardinal values of CHP officers are embodied in the acronym “CHP PRIDE”: Courage, Honesty, Professionalism—Principles, Respect, Integrity, Dedication, Esprit de Corps.
22. Regarding the features and causes of the “semi-military” organization of the CHP after 1947, see Philip O. Foss (1960: 5–6), who emphasizes in particular the emergency situations in which CHP officers frequently find themselves involved.
23. On the decisive influence of a “long period of training in a school context” on the development and maintenance of a “specifically military character”, see Hamelin (Citation2003).
24. For an illustration, see Sid Ziff, “Murderous Traffic Thug Shoots Patrol Officer: Perils of Highway Patrolman Again Proved”, Los Angeles Herald Express, 22 September 1937 (reprinted in the California Highway Patrolman).