Police in Havana in the Nineteenth Century

Abstract

Throughout the nineteenth century, the police performed various roles ranging from those traditionally and properly associated with urban police to the assumption of obligations in line with judicial police. In this context, the force also came to be responsible for organizing the city’s social life and a variety of everyday activities, including the surveillance, control, and suppression of crime, leading to the introduction of various initiatives throughout the nineteenth century to regulate operations and improve organization. Despite this, countless complaints were made throughout the century challenging the appropriateness and efficiency of the judicial body. Various factors were behind such difficulties, with some related to the heterogeneity of the personnel selected or the lack of morality displayed by officers, and others stemming from the city’s lack of effective infrastructure, preventing the police from operating effectively.