Private_Police

Back in the 1800’s private and public security were something of a topic of conversation of people. Whether it be protecting the only bank in town, or the railroads that were coming through town .Even in those early days there was corruption, bribery and people weren’t always given the rights they deserved. However, no matter what everyone does within private and public security, there still is a chance that we have an officer who takes his job seriously and is not corrupted and truly does care about making his community safe. Throughout his time Pinkerton worked on different projects, and in different areas but the main concept of security and making it better was what his overall goal was. In 1855 Pinkerton was asked by some men to establish a railroad police agency that would overall protect the incoming railroads. This agency was known as the North west police agency. When Pinkerton was asked to run this agency he was also under a contract with the federal government. They had him in contract because he was investigating counterfeiting that was happening, and also protecting the local post offices from robbery. Two places that were protected by security in his time were the railroads and post offices. They required watchmen because of the often robberies that were happening. In 1858 Pinkerton established the Pinkerton Detective (protective) Patrol. This group had a few jobs that they were informed to do, and these including protecting the railroads and post offices as well. Along with that these men were uniformed night watchmen at the time. This agency was even sometimes contracted outside from businessmen for their protection. In the first year of running this business Pinkerton ran into many problems that he wanted to be separated from. There were 454 cases of improper employee conduct and these were uncovered by Pinkerton’s men inside. Pinkerton had a way of running business and running security and at that time even the mayor of Chicago used Pinkerton’s patrol instead of public police efforts. In Pinkerton’s time there were many private police that were doing work that was taken under consideration of be suspect behavior. Pinkerton’s agency was being sued at one point and the tough times he was going through was eventually even made into a movie. In 1867 Pinkerton wrote a handbook called General Principles of Pinkerton’s National Police Agency. In this book he wrote about honorable work that his detectives do and talked about rules and responsibilities that his employes were to uphold. Overall Pinkerton was known for the work he did for security in the railroads and his was known as the best job done. However not all of his work was considered great. There was the time that he was being sued for intimidating a wife of a mail robber when he didn’t have the authority to do so. No industry is to go without it’s problems, Pinkerton knew how to run his agency properly, but there were times that his style was called a style of a “tyrant” and he didn’t always follow the procedure he was supposed to, because to him it was all about getting the “bad guy”. One of the major events that happened in the agency during Pinkerton’s life time was the thought that he had foiled an attempt on President Lincoln’s life. After that Pinkerton was then hired for personal security to the president during the Civil War. At one point in time there were more agents in his staff than the standing Army of the United States of America. Because of this the State of Ohio outlawed agency’s that could be hired privately, they were afraid that they could be hired as private army or militia. During the time of his life this agency also did other things such as infiltrate unions as guards to keep from strikes, and did the same during the Great Railroad Strike of 1877. Pinkerton’s agency and the way the ran it is a good example of how we got where we are today with private security. He performed tasks that normal public security could do, but maybe weren’t fit, or were too corrupt to care about getting the job done. Pinkerton’s agency was run under rules and regulations that kept employee’s happy and Pinkerton’s agency successful. Pinkerton’s agency started what we have today with private security for they are the same. Some changes have obviously been made with the times growing, but Pinkerton was a start to the private security we have today.