Editing August Vollmer

{{Short description|American police chief (1876–1955)}}
{{use American English|date=February 2020}}
{{use mdy dates|date=February 2020}}
{{Infobox police officer
| name         = August Vollmer
| image        = August Vollmer cph.3b17374.jpg
| caption      = August Vollmer, 1929
| birth_date   = {{birth date|1876|3|7}}
| death_date   = {{death date and age|1955|11|4|1876|3|7}}
| badgenumber  =
| birth_place  = [[New Orleans, Louisiana]], U.S.
| death_place  = [[Berkeley, California]], U.S.
|module= {{Infobox police officer|child=yes
| name         = August Vollmer
| department   = [[Los Angeles Police Department]]
| service      = United States
| serviceyears =
| rank         = Chief of Police 1923–1924
}}
| nickname     =
| department   = [[Berkeley Police Department]]
| service      = United States
| serviceyears =
| rank         = Chief of Police 1909–1923
| awards       =
| relations    =
}}
'''August Vollmer''' (March 7, 1876 – November 4, 1955) was the first police chief of [[Berkeley, California]], and a leading figure in the development of the field of criminal justice in the United States in the early 20th century. He has been described as "the father of modern policing".<ref name=":0">{{Cite journal|last=Go|first=Julian|date=2020|title=The Imperial Origins of American Policing: Militarization and Imperial Feedback in the Early 20th Century|journal=American Journal of Sociology|volume=125|issue=5|pages=1193–1254|doi=10.1086/708464|issn=0002-9602|doi-access=free}}</ref> Vollmer played an influential role in introducing early 20th-century police reforms, which increasingly [[Militarization of police|militarized police departments]] in the United States.<ref name=":0" /><ref>{{Cite magazine|last=Lepore|first=Jill|title=The Invention of the Police|url=https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2020/07/20/the-invention-of-the-police|access-date=2020-07-13|magazine=The New Yorker|date=July 10, 2020|language=en-us}}</ref> A veteran of the [[Spanish–American War]] in the [[Philippines]] and the [[Philippine–American War]], Vollmer introduced reforms that reflected his experiences in the U.S. military.<ref name=":0" />

==Early life==
Vollmer was born in [[New Orleans]] to German immigrant parents, John and Philopine (Klundt) Vollmer. His father saw to it that he learned to box and swim, both of which he excelled at. Upon his father's death, his mother returned to [[Germany]] with her children for two years, after which she returned to New Orleans in 1886, but soon thereafter decided to move her family to [[San Francisco, California|San Francisco]]. In July 1890, the Vollmer family moved across the bay to Berkeley.

Before he was 20, August helped organize the North Berkeley Volunteer Fire Department, and in 1897, was awarded the Berkeley Fireman medal. He supported his mother and the rest of his family as a partner in Patterson and Vollmer, a hay, grain, wood and coal supply store, at the corner of [[Shattuck Avenue]] and Vine Street near a fire station north of downtown Berkeley.

In 1898, August enlisted in the [[Eighth Army Corps (Spanish–American War)|Eighth Corps]] of the [[United States Army]],<ref>{{Cite journal|last=Go|first=Julian|date=March 2020|title=The Imperial Origins of American Policing: Militarization and Imperial Feedback in the Early 20th Century|journal=American Journal of Sociology|volume=125|issue=5|pages=1207|doi=10.1086/708464|s2cid=219511237|doi-access=free}}</ref> fighting in numerous engagements in the [[Spanish–American War]] in the [[Philippines]] as well as taking part in occupation duties following the close of formal combat. Vollmer left the military in August 1899 and returned to Berkeley. In March 1900, he began working for the local post office.

==Law enforcement==
In 1904, Vollmer became a local hero when he leapt onto a runaway railroad freight car on Shattuck Avenue in [[Downtown Berkeley, California|downtown Berkeley]] and applied its brakes, preventing a disastrous collision with a loaded passenger coach at the [[Berkeley station (Southern Pacific Railroad)|Berkeley station]]. This event led to his election as town marshal on April 10, 1905.

In 1907, Vollmer was re-elected town marshal.  He was also elected president of the California Association of Police Chiefs, even though, by title, he was not yet a police chief himself.  In 1909, Berkeley created the office of police chief, and Vollmer became the first to hold that office.

Drawing on his military experience, and his own research, Vollmer reorganized the Berkeley police force.  Vollmer had discovered that very little literature existed in the United States on the subject of police work, so he located and read a number of European works on the subject, in particular, ''Criminal Psychology'', by [[Hans Gross]], an Austrian criminologist, and ''Memoirs of Vidocq'', by [[Eugène François Vidocq]], head of the detective division of the French police in Paris.  He then set out on a program of modernization.  He established a bicycle patrol and created the first centralized police records system, designed to streamline and organize criminal investigations.  He established a call box network.  And he trained his deputies in marksmanship.

In the ensuing years, Vollmer's reputation as the "father of modern law enforcement" grew.<ref name="Bond" /> He was the first chief to require that police officers attain college degrees, and persuaded the [[University of California]] to teach [[criminal justice]].  In 1916, UC Berkeley established a criminal justice program, headed by Vollmer.<ref name="Time" /> At Berkeley, he taught [[Orlando Winfield Wilson|O. W. Wilson]], who went on to become a professor and continued efforts to professionalize policing, by being the first to establish the first police science degree at Municipal University of Wichita (now [[Wichita State University]]).<ref name="Wichita" /><ref name="cdlib" />  This is often seen as the start of [[criminal justice]] as an academic field.

Vollmer's courses taught how there were "racial types", and how "heredity" and "racial degeneration" contributed to crime.<ref name=":0" />

Vollmer was also the first police chief to create a motorized force, placing officers on motorcycles and in cars so that they could patrol a broader area with greater efficiency.  Radios were included in patrol cars.  He was also the first to use the [[lie detector]], developed at the [[University of California]], in police work.  Vollmer supported programs to assist disadvantaged children, and was often criticized for his leniency towards petty offenders such as drunks and loiterers. He also encouraged the employment and training of [[African American]] (first hired in 1919) and female (first hired in 1925) police officers.<ref name="Berkeleyside" /> This included the hiring of [[Walter A. Gordon]], who became the recipient of the [[Benjamin Ide Wheeler Medal]] in 1955.<ref name="Benjamin Ide Wheeler Medal" />

In 1921, Vollmer was elected president of the [[International Association of Chiefs of Police]]. Vollmer left the [[Berkeley Police Department]] for a brief stint as police chief of the [[Los Angeles Police Department]] from 1923 to 1924, but returned upon being disillusioned by the extent of corruption and hostility towards leadership coming from outside the department.{{Citation needed|date=May 2020}} Nonetheless, Vollmer introduced [[militarization of police|militaristic reforms]] to the LAPD.<ref name=":0" />

Vollmer married Millicent Gardner in 1924.  They had no children. In 1926, Vollmer played himself in the silent serial ''[[Officer 444]]'' which was filmed in Berkeley under the direction of [[John Ford]]'s brother [[Francis Ford (actor)|Francis Ford]].

[[File:August Vollmer, 1934.jpg|thumb|right|Vollmer in 1934]]
Vollmer contributed to sections of the [[Wickersham Commission]] national criminal justice report of 1931, namely to the fourteenth and final volume, ''The Police'', which advocated for a well-selected, well-educated, and well-funded professionalized police force.  Other portions of the Wickersham report were sharply critical of current police practice; one of the volumes was entitled ''Lawlessness in Law Enforcement''.<ref name="Forst" /> Vollmer was the 1931 recipient of the [[Benjamin Ide Wheeler Medal]].<ref name="Benjamin Ide Wheeler Medal" />

He retired from the Berkeley Police in 1932 as his eyesight began to fail.  He was then appointed as a professor of police administration in the Political Science Department at the University of California, and went on to found its School of Criminology.  He was also among the five people elected as the first directors of the [[East Bay Regional Parks District]] in 1934. The same year Vollmer was awarded the [[Public Welfare Medal]] from the [[United States National Academy of Sciences|National Academy of Sciences]].<ref name="PublicWelfare" /> Vollmer authored the 1936 book ''The Police and Modern Society''.<ref>{{Cite journal |last=Lindesmith |first=Alfred R. |date=1937 |title=Review of The Police and Modern Society. |url=https://www.jstor.org/stable/2768248 |journal=American Journal of Sociology |volume=43 |issue=1 |pages=180 |doi=10.1086/217667 |jstor=2768248 |issn=0002-9602|url-access=subscription }}</ref> In 1941, he was instrumental in the establishment of what would become the [[American Society of Criminology]], the leading professional criminological association in the world.<ref name="asc41" />

==Drug prohibition==
Vollmer was against police involvement with the problem of [[drug addiction]],<ref name="addiction" /> which he viewed as a medical and regulatory issue rather than a criminal one: "Like prostitution, and like liquor, drug use was not a police problem; it never has been and never can be solved by policemen."<ref name=Bewley-Taylor>David R. Bewley-Taylor, ''United States and International Drug Control, 1909-1997'' (Continuum: 2002), p. 38.</ref> Vollmer wrote that enforcement of moralistic vice laws leads to police corruption and "engenders disrespect both for law and for the agents of law enforcement."<ref name="disrespect" /> Vollmer supported the establishment of federal distribution, at cost, of habit-forming drugs.<ref name="dispense" /> Vollmer's views, however, found little favor in the [[Prohibition of drugs|prohibitionist]]-dominated consensus of the time.<ref name=Bewley-Taylor/>

==Later life and death==
Late in life, Vollmer developed [[Parkinson's disease]] and cancer. On the morning of November 4, 1955, he told his housekeeper, "I'm going to shoot myself. Call the Berkeley Police", then stepped outside and did so.<ref name="suicide" />

==Tributes==
* Bald Peak in the hills above Berkeley was renamed Vollmer Peak in 1940.<ref name="Gudde">{{cite book |last1=Gudde |first1=Erwin G. |title=California Place Names |date=1962 |publisher=University of California Press |location=Berkeley and Los Angeles |page=338 |edition=Second |url=https://archive.org/details/californiaplacen0000erwi/page/338 |access-date=13 July 2023}}</ref><ref name="Berkeleyside2020">{{cite web |last1=Hicks |first1=Tony |title=Berkeley's first police chief supported eugenics, prompting calls to rename Vollmer Peak |url=https://www.berkeleyside.org/2020/09/15/berkeleys-first-police-chief-supported-eugenics-prompting-calls-to-rename-vollmer-peak |website=Berkeleyside |access-date=13 July 2023 |date=15 September 2020}}</ref>
* In 2004 the [[Alameda County Sheriff's Office]] christened a new 32-foot custom patrol boat the ''August Vollmer''.
* In 1959 the American Society of Criminology established the August Vollmer Award to recognize an individual whose scholarship or professional activities have made outstanding contributions to justice or to the treatment or prevention of criminal or delinquent behavior.
* In the [[Nero Wolfe]] detective stories created by [[Rex Stout]], Wolfe's doctor, who frequently helps him with his cases, is Dr. Vollmer.

==Notes==
{{reflist|refs=
<ref name="Bond">{{cite web|last1=Bond|first1=Mark|title=How the 'Father of Law Enforcement' Created an Academic Vision for Criminal Justice that Lives on Today|url=http://inpublicsafety.com/2014/01/how-the-father-of-law-enforcement-created-an-academic-vision-for-criminal-justice-that-lives-on-today/|website=In Public Safety|date=January 16, 2014|publisher=American Military University|access-date=16 January 2014}}</ref>
<ref name="cdlib">{{cite web |url=http://content.cdlib.org/view?docId=tf3v19n6s0&doc.view=entire_text |title=Guide to the Orlando Winfield Wilson Papers, ca. 1928–1972 |publisher=[[California Digital Library|Online Archive of California]] |access-date=2006-10-20}}</ref>
<ref name="Berkeleyside">{{cite web|last1=Dinkelspiel|first1=Frances|author-link=Frances Dinkelspiel |title=Remembering August Vollmer, the Berkeley police chief who created modern policing |url=http://www.berkeleyside.com/2010/01/27/remembering-august-vollmer-the-berkeley-police-chief-who-created-modern-policing/ |website=Berkeleyside|date=January 27, 2010 |access-date=21 March 2017}}</ref>
<ref name="Benjamin Ide Wheeler Medal">{{cite web|title=Benjamin Ide Wheeler Medal|url=http://berkfund.org/about/benjamin-ide-wheeler-medal/|website=Berkeley Community Fund|access-date=31 July 2018|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20180731183204/http://berkfund.org/about/benjamin-ide-wheeler-medal/|archive-date=31 July 2018}}</ref>
<ref name="PublicWelfare">{{cite web|title=Public Welfare Award |url=http://www.nasonline.org/site/PageServer?pagename=AWARDS_pwm |publisher=National Academy of Sciences |access-date=14 February 2011 |url-status=dead |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20110604024100/http://www.nasonline.org/site/PageServer?pagename=AWARDS_pwm |archive-date=June 4, 2011 }}</ref>
<ref name="Time">{{cite magazine|title=Finest of the Finest |magazine=[[Time (magazine)|Time]] |date=February 18, 1966 |url=http://jcgi.pathfinder.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,899019,00.html |url-status=dead |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20081014095649/http://jcgi.pathfinder.com/time/magazine/article/0%2C9171%2C899019%2C00.html |archive-date=October 14, 2008}}</ref>
<ref name="Wichita">{{cite web|url=http://webs.wichita.edu/?u=CRIMINALJUSTICE&p=/gradprgm/ |title=Master of Arts in Criminal Justice |publisher=School of Community Affairs, [[Wichita State University]] |date=2012-03-01 |access-date=2012-05-15 |url-status=dead |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20131203170100/http://webs.wichita.edu/?u=CRIMINALJUSTICE&p=%2Fgradprgm%2F |archive-date=2013-12-03 }}</ref>
<ref name="Forst">{{cite book|last1=Forst|first1=Linda S.|last2=Dempsey|first2=John S.|title=An Introduction to Policing|date=1 Jan 2015|publisher=Wickersham Commission|page=19|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=W4TCBAAAQBAJ&pg=PA19|access-date=16 September 2016|isbn=978-1-305-54468-0}}</ref>
<ref name="asc41">{{Cite web|url=https://www.asc41.com/History.html|title=History of ASC|website=www.asc41.com|access-date=June 5, 2020|archive-date=May 15, 2020|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20200515010300/https://www.asc41.com/History.html|url-status=dead}}</ref>
<ref name="addiction">{{cite book |last=Vollmer |first=August |title= The Police and Modern Society: Plain Talk Based on Practical Experience |year=1936 |publisher=University of California Press |page=118 |quote= Drug addiction, like prostitution, and like liquor, is not a police problem; it never has been, and never can be solved by policemen. It is first and last a medical problem.}}</ref>
<ref name="disrespect">{{cite book |last=Vollmer |first=August |title= The Police and Modern Society: Plain Talk Based on Practical Experience |year=1936 |publisher=University of California Press |page=237}}</ref>
<ref name="dispense">{{cite book |last=Vollmer |first=August |title= The Police and Modern Society: Plain Talk Based on Practical Experience |year=1936 |publisher=University of California Press |page=117 |quote=The first step in any plan to alleviate this dreadful affliction should be the establishment of federal control and dispensation—at cost—of habit forming drugs.}}</ref>
<ref name="suicide">{{cite news | url = https://www.newspapers.com/clip/14229779/august_vollmer_suicide/ | title = Vollmer, Famed Berkeley Criminologist, Kills Self | work = [[The San Bernardino County Sun]] | date = November 5, 1955 | access-date = 2019-09-01 | archive-url = https://web.archive.org/web/20190901111833/https://www.newspapers.com/clip/14229779/august_vollmer_suicide/ | archive-date = September 1, 2019 | url-status = live }}</ref>
}}

==References==
* Oliver, Willard M (2017). ''August Vollmer: The Father of American Policing.'' Carolina Academic Press. {{ISBN|978-1-61163-559-1}}
* Carte, Gene E. and Elaine H. (1975). ''Police Reform in the United States: The Era of August Vollmer''. University of California Press.
* Parker, Alfred E. (1972). ''The Berkeley Police Story'' (Springfield, Ill: Charles C. Thomas, 1972)
* [https://web.archive.org/web/20061010195301/http://www.theiacp.org/leadership/pastpresidents.htm International Assn. of Police Chiefs - Past Presidents]
* ''Berkeley Gazette'', April 11, 1905
* [https://books.google.com/books?id=Wnzy44p-DzYC&dq=Eugenics+Vollmer+Stern&pg=PA115 ''Eugenic Nation: Faults and Frontiers of Better Breeding in Modern America''], [[Alexandra Stern|Alexandra Minna Stern]], University of California Press, 2005
* Go, Julian (2020). "The Imperial Origins of American Policing: Militarization and Imperial Feedback in the Early 20th Century"  American Journal of Sociology '''125''', (5) https://www.journals.uchicago.edu/doi/10.1086/708464, 1207.

== External links ==
* [http://www.oac.cdlib.org/findaid/ark:/13030/tf4w1004h9/ Guide to the August Vollmer Papers] at [[The Bancroft Library]]
* [http://www.ci.berkeley.ca.us/police/history/history.html History, Berkeley Police Department]
* [https://web.archive.org/web/20060910120435/http://www.edinboro.edu/cwis/polisci/jimfisher/forensics/polywar1.html Vollmer and the Polygraph]
* [https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0017218/ Officer 444 at the Internet Movie Database]
* [https://archive.org/details/PublicDomainSerialOfficer444_01 Officer 444 at the Internet Archive]
* [http://imgzoom.cdlib.org/Fullscreen.ics?ark=ark:/13030/kt3t1nc9x2/z1&&brand=oac Photo: August Vollmer, Volunteer Fireman (figure on right with colleague's hand on his shoulder)]
* [http://content.cdlib.org/ark:/13030/tf258005b0/?brand=oac Formal Portrait]
* [https://www.berkeleyside.com/2017/04/22/amazing-rediscovery-berkeley-police-treasure "Berkeley police treasure found in Texas ‘mystery box’", ''Berkeleyside'', April 22, 2017]
* {{wikisource-inline|Sunset (magazine)/Volume 31/Chief of Police of "Spotless Town"}}

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{{succession box | title=[[Los Angeles Police Department|Chief of LAPD]]| before=[[Louis D. Oaks]]| after=[[R. Lee Heath]]| years=1923–1924}}
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{{LAPD chief of police}}

{{DEFAULTSORT:Vollmer, August}}
[[Category:1876 births]]
[[Category:1955 suicides]]
[[Category:1955 deaths]]
[[Category:American Eugenics Society members]]
[[Category:American white supremacists]]
[[Category:American military personnel of the Spanish–American War]]
[[Category:American military personnel of the Philippine–American War]]
[[Category:Criminal justice]]
[[Category:Chiefs of the Los Angeles Police Department]]
[[Category:People from Berkeley, California]]
[[Category:Suicides by firearm in California]]
[[Category:People with Parkinson's disease]]
[[Category:Proponents of scientific racism]]