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  3. It would be easy to think that the police officer is a figure who has existed since the beginning of civilization. That’s the id

It would be easy to think that the police officer is a figure who has existed since the beginning of civilization. That’s the id

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问题     It would be easy to think that the police officer is a figure who has existed since the beginning of civilization. That’s the idea on display in the proclamation from President John F. Kennedy, who noted that law-enforcement officers had been protecting Americans since the nation’s birth. In fact, the U. S. police force is a relatively modern invention, sparked by changing notions of public order, driven in turn by economics and politics, according to Gary Potter, a crime historian.
    Policing in Colonial America had been very informal, based on a for-profit, privately funded system that employed people part-time. Towns also commonly relied on a "night watch" in which volunteers signed up for a certain day and time, mostly to look out for fellow colonists engaging in prostitution or gambling. But that system wasn’t very efficient because the watchmen often slept and drank while on duty, and there were people who were put on watch duty as a form of punishment. Night-watch wasn’t exactly a highly sought-after job, either. Early policemen " didn’t want to wear badges because these guys had bad reputations to begin with, and they didn’t want to be identified as people that other people didn’t like, " says Potter. When localities tried compulsory service, " if you were rich enough, you paid someone to do it for you—ironically, a criminal or a community thug. "
    In cities, increasing urbanization rendered the night-watch system completely useless as communities got too big. The first publicly funded, organized police force with officers on duty full-time was created in Boston in 1838. Boston was a large shipping commercial center, and businesses had been hiring people to protect their property and safeguard the transport of goods from the port of Boston to other places, says Potter. These merchants came up with a way to save money by transferring to the cost of maintaining a police force to citizens by arguing that it was for the "collective good. "
    In the South, however, the economics that drove the creation of police forces were centered not on the protection of shipping interests but on the preservation of the slavery system. Some of the primary policing institutions there were the slave patrols tasked with chasing down runaways and preventing slave revolts, Potter says; the first formal slave patrol had been created in the Carolina colonies in 1704. During the Civil War, the military became the primary form of law enforcement in the South, but during Reconstruction, many local sheriffs functioned in a way analogous to the earlier slave patrols, enforcing segregation and the disenfranchisement of freed slaves.
    The late 19th century was the era of political machines, so police captains and sergeants for each precinct were often picked by the local political party ward leader, who often owned taverns or ran street gangs that intimidated voters. They then were able to use police to harass opponents of that particular political party, or provide payoffs for officers to turn a blind eye to allow illegal drinking, gambling and prostitution.
What can we learn from Paragraph 1?
选项 A、President John F. Kennedy set up the modern law-enforcement agency.
B、The US police system was not founded with the nation’s birth.
C、The aim of the US police force was to uphold public order.
D、The US law-enforcement officers were not respected by the public.
答案B
解析 细节题。第一段主要讲到了人们对警察制度的误解，认为警察是自人类文明开始就存在的，约翰.菲茨和杰尔德.肯尼迪总统也犯了这个错误，而事实是美国警察力量是一个相对现代的发明，是由公共秩序观念的改变所引发的，而且是由经济和政治所推动的，因此答案选[B]。[A]不符合文意；[C][D]在第一段没有提到。
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