This collection of essays examines the growth of professionalization in national police forces in England, France, Germany, Ireland, and the Netherlands. The period covered begins at the point where police forces had been established on some sort of a national scale. The essays are concerned with perceptions of both rulers and ruled, and perceptions of the role and function of the police in established industrial and urbanized societies. They also deal with the ways in which different police forces expanded and developed over time, and with the effect of this expansion and development on...