The North-West Mounted Police 1873-1905

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The North-West Mounted Police 1873-1905

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Titles	The North-West Mounted Police 1873-1905: Law Enforcement and the Social Order in the Canadian North-West
Name	Roderick Charles Macleod
Type of Resource	text
Genre	Thesis
Abstract	--Description taken from "The North-West Mounted Police 1873-1905: Law Enforcement and the Social Order in the Canadian North-West"-- The North-West Mounted Police were created in 1873 to perform a specific mission; to ensure that Canadian administration and settlement of the newly-acquired North-West Territories was carried out in a peaceful and orderly manner. The police did so with a remarkable degree of success. Contacts between white society and that of the Indians in the region were not marred by violence. Largely because of the efforts of the police only a few small bands of Indians participated in the 1885 rebellion. Crime and violence among the settler population remained firmly under control at all times. This was not merely a negative achievement because the police helped to create a climate in which the population of the North-West Territories were confident that justice was being done. The efficiency of the police and their popularity with the public was so great that the Canadian government was eventually compelled to recognize that the force had outgrown its original terms of reference. The Mounted Police developed gradually into a permanent institution, too valuable to be lightly discarded. The reasons for the success of the Mounted Police can be divided into two categories; structural and sociological. The structure of the force was adapted quite deliberately from that of the Royal Irish Constabulary, the prototypical British colonial police force of the nineteenth century. The N.W.M.P., however, had advantages not enjoyed by similar organizations elsewhere in the world. Officers of the force exercised extensive judicial powers. For the first decade or so of their existence, the police carried out vitually all functions of government in the North-West Territories. Above all the Mounted Police were not an alien imposition but a genuine expression of the society they served. Sociologically, the Mounted Police can be seen to have attracted, through a highly complex process of selection, a consistently competent group of officers and men. The elite nature of the force together with public acceptance of the high social standing of Mounted Policemen freed them from the pressures of local opinion and power which might otherwise have hampered them. The Mounted Police played so large a part in the creation of western Canadian society that by the time their original assignment was complete they had become an important part of the way in which that society defined itself and hence indispensable.
URL	https://search.proquest.com/pqdtglobal/docview/288048640/fulltextPDF/B2D92471D7804533PQ/65?accountid=14739
Form	text
Access Condition	Responsibility regarding questions of copyright that may arise in the use of any images is assumed by the researcher
Subject Hierarchical Geographic	North America--Canada------
Subject Local Name	--Saskatchewan--Mistawasis--Canada--------