Is It a Good Idea to Centralize the Police?

Most police in this period worked as not even uniformed thugs, just kind of thugs protecting the businesses in streets that paid them. This system provided no real benefit for the average person and only marginal benefit for the capital holding class. The way bounties were structured actually discouraged police from catching criminals. Historian james f. Richardson writes in his story of the new york police, the police reports published in these years are filled with accounts of instances in which the criminal was not brought to justice.