The Army Military Police: A Neglected Policing Model

Abstract

Despite the research bias toward the big-city police department, other identifiable police entities clearly exist and are based on policing models that predate the metropolitan police department. Through a historical analysis of the emergence of the U.S. Army Military Police Corps (MPC), it is posited that the MPC represents a distinctive modal form of policing that has borrowed heavily, albeit selectively, from preexisting models, especially the office of the county sheriff. Like the sheriff's office, the MPC is a multitasked police agency that is less law-enforcement oriented than its urban police counterpart and, accordingly, holds less status in the police community. However, given recent attempts at shifting the police paradigm toward community-oriented policing, the MPC serves as a model for selective adoption.