The Rise and Fall of Material Witness Detention in Nineteenth Century New York
The detention of witnesses in New York City in the nineteenth century largely began and ended because of the city’s professional police force, first organized midway through the century. The city’s system of constables and night-watchmen in the first half of the nineteenth century lacked the manpower or incentives to aggressively prosecute crime. Though statutes long permitted magistrates to detain witnesses if there was a risk they would not appear at trial, few if any persons identified as witnesses were brought to magistrates by these early, largely ineffective, officers. As the city developed a professional police force, more aggressive (and questionable) investigative tactics began to be used. As the force grew in manpower and efficiency, witnesses were increasingly arrested by officers and brought before magistrates who committed them to jail. Ultimately, these rising numbers proved counter-productive. The police found that citizens were becoming increasingly unwilling to speak with officers. As the public became increasingly aware that knowledge of a crime could lead to incarceration, the police asked the legislature to put an end to the detention of witnesses. The legislature obliged the police request about a decade after it was made and abolished the detention of material witnesses in 1883.
