Augustvollmer02vollrich.Pdf

University of California Berkeley of California Regional Oral History Office University The Bancroft Library Berkeley, California August Vollmer Historical Project AUGUST VOLLMER: PIONEER IN POLICE PROFESSIONALISM VOLUME II Austin MacCormick Education for the Profession Donal E. J. MacNamara Contrasting Philosophies John P. Kenney Guidance to an Academic Career V. A. Leonard Vollmer s Unique System of Police Service Charles Gain Bay Area Police Chief Reflects on Vollmer s Influence . Donald C. Stone Reforming the Police and Other Public Services Fred E. Inbau Scientific Crime Detection: Early Efforts in Chicago With an Introduction by Gene Carte Interviews Conducted by Gene Carte, Elaine Carte, and Jane Howard Robinson 1972-1976 Copyright (c\ 1983 by the Regents of the University of California ACKNOWLEDGEMENT This volume has been made possible through a gift of Elaine Carte in memory of her late husband, Gene Carte. AUGUST VOLLMER 1946 This manuscript is made available for research purposes. No part of the manuscript may be quoted for publication without the written permission of the Director of The Bancroft Library of the University of California at Berkeley. Requests for permission to quote for publication should be addressed to the Regional Oral History Office, 486 Library, and should include identification of the specific passages to be quoted, anticipated use of the passages, and identification of the user. It is recommended that this oral history be cited as follows: To cite the volume: "August Vollmer: Pioneer in Police Professionalism, Volume II," an oral history conducted 1972-1976, Regional Oral History Office, The Bancroft Library, University of California, Berkeley, 1983. To cite individual interview: Austin MacCormick, "Education for the Profession," an oral history conducted in 1972 by Gene Carte, in "August Vollmer: Pioneer in Police Professionalism, Volume II," Regional Oral History Office, The Bancroft Library, University of California, Berkeley, 1983. Copy No. PREFACE This volume is a second series of interviews about August Vollmer, who was the police chief of Berkeley, California, from 1905 to 1932. Vollmer had a remarkable influence on the direction of American policing in this century. The Berkeley department originated many technical innovations, such as scientific crime detection, police radio, modern record keeping, and polygraph testing. More important, however, was Vollmer s influence upon a whole generation of police reformers and educators who began their careers under his guidance and encouragement. Volume I of August Vollmer; Pioneer in Police Professionalism focused largely on people who were close to Vollmer during those days in the Berkeley Police Department. This second volume explores the wider perspective of those who were acquainted with Vollmer as a national spokes man for police reform. The goal of both volumes is a record of the Vollmer contribution. The Bancroft Library is the natural center for this effort because its Manuscript Division is the repository for Vollmer s private papers and letters. Further, Bancroft is the site of the Regional Oral History Office, which has estab lished itself as an outstanding gatherer of oral histories, especially about California. While gathering interviews for the first volume, which was published in 1972, the participants became aware of other people who had memories of Vollmer and insights into his contribution. The process of compiling the first volume and of cataloguing Vollmer s private papers had generated enthusiasm among Vollmer s friends and colleagues for preserving evidence of his role in reforming the police. John Holstrom, who was a key advisor and helped to supervise work on the first volume, had discussions with Jane Howard Robinson and Gene Carte, co-directors of the volume, about designing another series of interviews. The first volume had been produced with funds from the Law Enforcement Assistance Administration and with time volunteered by the participants. New plans originally called for a more extensive volume that would be funded by a grant from another source. Although the search for a grant was ultimately unsuccessful, John Holstrom made many fruitful contacts with law enforcement individuals and agencies about possible interviewees, and he encouraged the other participants in their efforts to collect and organize more material. ii For the next several years, Gene Carte, John Holstrom, Jane Howard Robinson, and Willa Baum, Director of the Regional Oral History Office, maintained informal communication about the progress toward compiling a new series. Even before the first volume was issued, Gene Carte had begun to interview people whom he was especially interested in including in a second volume. The first of these was Austin MacCormick, the prison reformer who had taught at the School of Criminology, University of California at Berkeley, in the early 1950s. Carte, who taught at Trenton State College in New Jersey from 1971 to 1973 and at the University of Cincinnati in Ohio from 1973 to 1977, scheduled interviews over the next five years as circumstances allowed. Jane Howard Robinson, who remained in the Bay Area, conducted the interview with Charles Gain, then chief of the San Francisco Police Department. The same outline of questions was used during these interviews, but it was followed less closely. Many of the interviewees had fewer personal contacts with Vollmer than those who contributed to the first volume. They did, however, offer more information about the national reform climate and Vollmer s place within it. The Regional Oral History Office at Bancroft Library agreed to hold the tapes and give whatever assistance they could until a time when specific plans for a new volume were made. Most of the tapes were transcribed, either at Bancroft or at the Criminal Justice Department at the University of Cincinnati, soon after completion. The transcripts were edited by Gene Carte or by Elaine Carte and were sent to The Bancroft Library for safekeeping. Nine interviews had been conducted by 1977 when Gene Carte died. Some time later, Willa Baum, Jane Howard Robinson, and Elaine Carte agreed that the materials gathered should be made available in some form. They decided to produce a volume resembling the first one, with Elaine Carte serving as director and performing editing and coordinating functions. Two of the nine interviews were not available for inclusion, one because of an inability to contact the interviewee after the transcript was sent for approval, and the other because the interviewee was dissatisfied with the substance of his remarks. Because of Gene Carte s death, some information about the setting and circumstances of the interviews has been lost. This is the reason for an occasional lack of detail in the interview histories. Similarly, interpretive comments made in this preface or in the interview histories are the responsibility of the present director. I am grateful to everyone involved with this project for patience in helping to bring it to completion. All the interviewees were cooperative and supportive during the process of editing and approving transcripts and supplying biographical information. Jane Howard Robinson worked hard in ill the early stages to compile a summary of necessary tasks, and she has continued to give friendly encouragement. Willa Baum has done far more than her share in keeping both a detailed and an overall sense of the progress of the volume. She greatly eased the problems of distance, both in place and time, that I faced in organizing the material. Other assistance was given by staff members at the Regional Oral History Office and at the Department of Criminal Justice, University of Cincinnati. Elaine Carte Project Director 16 September 1982 Minneapolis, Minnesota iv INTRODUCTION The image of professional policing as we knov it today is largely the creation of one man, August Vollmer, who was police chief of Berkeley, California, from 1905 to 1932. Vollmer was a tireless crusader for the reform of policing through technology and higher personnel standards. Under his direction the Berkeley department became a model of professional policing efficient, honest, scientific. He introduced into Berkeley a patrol-wide police signal system, the first completely mobile patrol first on bicycles, then in squad cars modern records systems, beat the analysis and modus operandi . The first scientific crime laboratory in United States was set up in Berkeley in 19l6, under the direction of a full- time forensic scientist. The first lie detector machine to be used in criminal investigation was built in the Berkeley department in 1921. Vollmer s department was best known for the caliber of its personnel. He introduced formal police training in 1908, later encouraging his men to attend classes in police administration that were taught each summer at the University of California. Eventually he introduced psychological and intelligence testing into the recruitment process and actively recruited college students from the University, starting around 1919- This was the beginning of Berkeley s "college cops," who set the tone for the department throughout the 1920s and 30s and came to be accepted by police leaders as the ultimate model of efficient, modern policing. Nationally, Vollmer worked through such forums as the International Association of Chiefs of Police, serving as President in 1922. He served as a police consultant in cities like Kansas City, Missouri (1929), and he directed the police study for the 1931 National Commission on Law Ob servance and Enforcement, better known as the Wickersham Report. He con demned the corruption and ineffectiveness that prevailed in most American police departments and urged professionalization of the police function, removal of political influence from routine police operations, and the adoption of modern technological methods. Vollmer s concept of professionalism has dominated police literature since he articulated it, and remains relatively unquestioned today. We need to explore the origins of this concept, the historical realities within which it developed, and the police department that served as its model .

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