The first modern police force, commonly said to be the London

London

London is the capital city of :England and the :United Kingdom, the largest metropolitan area in the United Kingdom, and the largest urban zone in the European Union by most measures. Located on the River Thames, London has been a major settlement for two millennia, its history going back to its...

 Metropolitan Police

Metropolitan Police Service

The Metropolitan Police Service is the territorial police force responsible for Greater London, excluding the "square mile" of the City of London which is the responsibility of the City of London Police...

, established in 1829, promoted the preventive role of police as a deterrent to urban crime

Crime

Crime is the breach of rules or laws for which some governing authority can ultimately prescribe a conviction...

 and disorder.

Law enforcement however has only ever constituted a small portion of policing activity.
Policing has included an array of activities in different contexts, but the predominant ones are concerned with the preservation of order and the provision of services.

History

In some societies, in the late 18th century and early 19th century, these developed within the context of maintaining a layered societal structure and the protection of property.
In the United Kingdom in the late 18th century:
In the United States in the 19th century:

In 1690 John Locke

John Locke

John Locke FRS , widely known as the Father of Liberalism, was an English philosopher and physician regarded as one of the most influential of Enlightenment thinkers. Considered one of the first of the British empiricists, following the tradition of Francis Bacon, he is equally important to social...

 wrote that:
Similarly, Adam Smith

Adam Smith

Adam Smith was a Scottish social philosopher and a pioneer of political economy. One of the key figures of the Scottish Enlightenment, Smith is the author of The Theory of Moral Sentiments and An Inquiry into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations...

 described how:
This close link between property and government (and thus police function) was also noted by John Jay

John Jay

John Jay was an American politician, statesman, revolutionary, diplomat, a Founding Father of the United States, and the first Chief Justice of the United States ....

, who repeatedly said that:
According to Monaghan, this: and by US Founding Father James Madison

James Madison

James Madison, Jr. was an American statesman and political theorist. He was the fourth President of the United States and is hailed as the “Father of the Constitution” for being the primary author of the United States Constitution and at first an opponent of, and then a key author of the United...

. who declared that government:
Given that the crimes of governments and associated elite institutions have historically been greater than those of the "smaller" criminals they prosecuted, and that such institutional influence has been perceived, by some groups, as a promoter of violence, alienation and socioeconomic disparity which gives rise to crime, the institutional role of police has been criticized.