The Missouri State Highway Patrol as a representative model

Abstract

Using a socio‐historical analytical approach, explains the emergence and evolutionary iterations of the Missouri State Highway Patrol (MSHP) as it developed into a virtual state police organization. The legal history of the MSHP is chronicled, and the cultural opposition to a state police department in Missouri is explained. Despite the show‐me states’ long‐standing opposition to state‐level policing authority, the evolution of the MSHP into a state‐police‐like organization is developed as a model that is representative of numerous other state‐level police organizations across the nation. The evolutionary patterns in the development of the MSHP are foreshadowed by other state‐level police organizations, like the Illinois State Police.

Public opinion and satisfaction with state law enforcement

“…The research reported here is about a state highway patrol, and not about other forms of state law enforcement such as state police and state investigative agencies (Torres, 1987). It also remains an open question as to whether these findings will hold up if, as Falcone (2001, p. 592) argues, similar to other state patrols, the CSP were to evolve and “become more state police like in both function and structure.” Despite these limitations, this study makes an exploratory contribution to the literature by stepping into a research void and by identifying similarities and differences in public perceptions of state law enforcement agencies relative to local police and law enforcement in general. Further research is needed to move beyond general public perceptions (which may be based on media portrayals of these agencies) to determine why various individual and contextual variables are related to such views (Gallagher et al , 2001).…”

“…Such a focus comes at a price (Bechtel, 1995; Falcone, 1998, 2001), as state law enforcement agencies tend to be neglected in research on public opinion about policing. As a result, we know little about how the public perceives state law enforcement agencies and their functioning because there is a lack of social scientific research in this area.…”

“…the Kansas Bureau of Investigation; the Colorado Bureau of Investigation). It has been argued that the sharp distinction between the state police and the state highway patrol is fading as the latter takes on some of the features of the former by acquiring search, seizure, and broadened criminal investigative powers (Falcone, 1998, 2001).…”