Corruption
Well into the 1940s and beyond corruption of America’s police departments was common in cities large and small. Some politicians, such as Theodore Roosevelt, made their reputations exposing such corruption. Others profited from it. Police officers accepted pay-offs to allow illegal gambling, the operation of brothels, narcotics, and other vices. Sometimes the corruption was department-wide and sometimes it was merely a compliant officer on the beat.
In machine politics it was often the police officer who rounded up individuals and took them to the voting precinct, stuffing the ballot boxes. Appointment as a police officer was often a reward for political favor. Officers in many departments purchased their promotions, rather than earned them. Training was non-existent, and as a general rule police departments were known for brutal tactics and behavior towards those who crossed their path.
Officers drank while working without fear of reprisal, and during the days of prohibition, they protected the speakeasies and other drinking establishments on their beat. Even when the police raided an illicit drinking den it was usually after a warning had been sent. The state police departments were usually less involved in the political machines, but enough officers had been bought that local departments could be tipped off to state police activity.
The political machines of the big cities were the organized crime that existed in America prior to the onset of Prohibition. Prostitution, drugs, alcohol, gambling, distribution of stolen goods and more were all controlled by elements of the political machines. The police departments were their enforcement wing in nearly all of America’s biggest cities, and even some of its smaller towns. In rural areas, many whole counties were run by a machine.
The police departments were also used by the political machines to dispense public services, such as opening and operating homeless shelters, soup kitchens, and establishing quarantine zones during outbreaks of contagious illnesses. The officers were dispatched by the local ward, and credit for their service was directed to the machine operatives who sent them. When Prohibition began, the level of corruption quickly grew worse.