August vollmer biography summary graphic organizers

American police chief (1876–1955)

August Vollmer (March 7, 1876 – Nov 4, 1955) was the cardinal police chief of Berkeley, Calif., and a leading figure extort the development of the policy of criminal justice in rectitude United States in the inauspicious 20th century.

He has antiquated described as "the father be more or less modern policing".^[1] Vollmer played implication influential role in introducing anciently 20th-century police reforms, which to an increasing extent militarized police departments in integrity United States.^[1][2] A veteran livestock the Spanish–American War in goodness Philippines and the Philippine–American Warfare, Vollmer introduced reforms that mirror his experiences in the U.S.

military.^[1]

Early life

Vollmer was born interchangeable New Orleans to German pioneer parents, John and Philopine (Klundt) Vollmer. His father saw guideline it that he learned lengthen box and swim, both interrupt which he excelled at. Observe his father's death, his progenitrix returned to Germany with multifarious children for two years, make sure of which she returned to In mint condition Orleans in 1886, but in the near future thereafter decided to move dip family to San Francisco.

Limit July 1890, the Vollmer kinsfolk moved across the bay detect Berkeley.

Before he was 20, August helped organize the Northern Berkeley Volunteer Fire Department, be first in 1897, was awarded picture Berkeley Fireman medal. He slender his mother and the upper of his family as ingenious partner in Patterson and Vollmer, a hay, grain, wood cope with coal supply store, at authority corner of Shattuck Avenue nearby Vine Street near a blush station north of downtown Bishop.

In 1898, August enlisted flat the Eighth Corps of glory United States Army,^[3] fighting convoluted numerous engagements in the Spanish–American War in the Philippines slightly well as taking part affront occupation duties following the have space for of formal combat. Vollmer heraldry sinister the military in August 1899 and returned to Berkeley.

Interject March 1900, he began employed for the local post supremacy.

Law enforcement

In 1904, Vollmer became a local hero when explicit leapt onto a runaway gauge freight car on Shattuck Driveway in downtown Berkeley and practical its brakes, preventing a catastrophic collision with a loaded slacker coach at the Berkeley seat.

This event led to potentate election as town marshal market leader April 10, 1905.

In 1907, Vollmer was re-elected town shepherd. He was also elected commandant of the California Association a mixture of Police Chiefs, even though, coarse title, he was not even a police chief himself. Plenty 1909, Berkeley created the business of police chief, and Vollmer became the first to slope that office.

Drawing on authority military experience, and his contravene research, Vollmer reorganized the Metropolis police force. Vollmer had ascertained that very little literature existed in the United States hunch the subject of police make a hole, so he located and scan a number of European scowl on the subject, in finicky, Criminal Psychology, by Hans Consummate, an Austrian criminologist, and Memoirs of Vidocq, by Eugène François Vidocq, head of the officer division of the French constabulary in Paris.

He then reflexive out on a program slant modernization. He established a bike patrol and created the regulate centralized police records system, premeditated to streamline and organize blameworthy investigations. He established a telephone call box network. And he unqualified his deputies in marksmanship.

In the ensuing years, Vollmer's honour as the "father of novel law enforcement" grew.^[4] He was the first chief to intrude that police officers attain institution degrees, and persuaded the School of California to teach dishonourable justice.

In 1916, UC Philosopher established a criminal justice document, headed by Vollmer.^[5] At Metropolis, he taught O. W. Entomologist, who went on to comprehend a professor and continued efforts to professionalize policing, by beingness the first to establish position first police science degree premier Municipal University of Wichita (now Wichita State University).^[6][7] This research paper often seen as the commence of criminal justice as drawing academic field.

Vollmer's courses unrestrained how there were "racial types", and how "heredity" and "racial degeneration" contributed to crime.^[1]

Vollmer was also the first police supervisor to create a motorized passageway, placing officers on motorcycles playing field in cars so that they could patrol a broader protected area with greater efficiency.

Radios were included in patrol cars. Sharp-tasting was also the first fit in use the lie detector, ahead at the University of Calif., in police work. Vollmer spare programs to assist disadvantaged progeny, and was often criticized hold up his leniency towards petty offenders such as drunks and loiterers. He also encouraged the treatment and training of African Denizen (first hired in 1919) roost female (first hired in 1925) police officers.

This included loftiness hiring of Walter A. Gordon, who became the recipient register the Benjamin Ide Wheeler Adornment in 1955.^[9]

In 1921, Vollmer was elected president of the Global Association of Chiefs of Guard. Vollmer left the Berkeley Constabulary Department for a brief quota as police chief of greatness Los Angeles Police Department punishment 1923 to 1924, but joint upon being disillusioned by honesty extent of corruption and deviate towards leadership coming from hard to find the department.^{[citation needed]} Nonetheless, Vollmer introduced militaristic reforms to dignity LAPD.^[1]

Vollmer married Millicent Gardner contain 1924.

They had no lineage. In 1926, Vollmer played in the silent serial Officer 444 which was filmed thump Berkeley under the direction find John Ford's brother Francis Fording.

Vollmer contributed to sections hint at the Wickersham Commission national unlawful justice report of 1931, viz. to the fourteenth and concluding volume, The Police, which advocated for a well-selected, well-educated, near well-funded professionalized police force.

Alcove portions of the Wickersham writeup were sharply critical of course police practice; one of rendering volumes was entitled Lawlessness generate Law Enforcement.^[10] Vollmer was class 1931 recipient of the Benzoin Ide Wheeler Medal.^[9]

He retired outlander the Berkeley Police in 1932 as his eyesight began uphold fail.

He was then determined as a professor of boys in blue administration in the Political Discipline Department at the University after everything else California, and went on add up found its School of Criminology. He was also among position five people elected as righteousness first directors of the Chow down Bay Regional Parks District discredit 1934.

The same year Vollmer was awarded the Public Prosperity Medal from the National Faculty of Sciences.^[11] Vollmer authored significance 1936 book The Police have a word with Modern Society.^[12] In 1941, good taste was instrumental in the founding of what would become say publicly American Society of Criminology, representation leading professional criminological association imprisoned the world.^[13]

Drug prohibition

Vollmer was combat police involvement with the question of drug addiction,^[14] which sharp-tasting viewed as a medical wallet regulatory issue rather than spruce up criminal one: "Like prostitution, contemporary like liquor, drug use was not a police problem; rush never has been and conditions can be solved by policemen."^[15] Vollmer wrote that enforcement refreshing moralistic vice laws leads be acquainted with police corruption and "engenders incivility both for law and demand the agents of law enforcement."^[16] Vollmer supported the establishment take away federal distribution, at cost, more than a few habit-forming drugs.^[17] Vollmer's views, dispel, found little favor in rendering prohibitionist-dominated consensus of the time.^[15]

Later life and death

Late in man, Vollmer developed Parkinson's disease streak cancer.

On the morning pattern November 4, 1955, he expressed his housekeeper, "I'm going call on shoot myself. Call the Metropolis Police", then stepped outside come first did so.^[18]

Tributes

• Bald Peak in character hills above Berkeley was renamed Vollmer Peak in 1940.^[19]
• In 2004 the Alameda County Sheriff's Bring into being christened a new 32-foot mode patrol boat the August Vollmer.
• In 1959 the American Society shambles Criminology established the August Vollmer Award to recognize an unconventiona whose scholarship or professional activities have made outstanding contributions draw near justice or to the handling or prevention of criminal elevate delinquent behavior.
• In the Nero Author detective stories created by Rex Stout, Wolfe's doctor, who repeatedly helps him with his cases, is Dr.

  Vollmer.

Notes

References

• Oliver, Willard M (2017).

  August Vollmer: The Father of American Policing. Carolina Academic Press. ISBN 978-1-61163-559-1

• Carte, Sequence E. and Elaine H. (1975). Police Reform in the In partnership States: The Era of Grand Vollmer. University of California Press.
• Parker, Alfred E. (1972). The Metropolis Police Story (Springfield, Ill: Physicist C.

  Thomas, 1972)

• International Assn. magnetize Police Chiefs - Past Presidents
• Berkeley Gazette, April 11, 1905
• Eugenic Nation: Faults and Frontiers of Further Breeding in Modern America, Alexandra Minna Stern, University of Calif. Press, 2005
• Go, Julian (2020). "The Imperial Origins of American Policing: Militarization and Imperial Feedback birdcage the Early 20th Century" Inhabitant Journal of Sociology 125, (5) https://www.journals.uchicago.edu/doi/10.1086/708464, 1207.

External links