Early forms of policing were communal, informal, and ineffective.
Explanation:
In the early colonies policing took two main forms. It was both informal and communal, which is referred to as the “Watch,” or “The Big Stick” (Spitzer, 1979). The watch system was composed of community volunteers whose primary duty was to warn of immediate danger. This is why it is communal since it based on community volunteers and a community system. It was informal because it wasn't based or operated by the government which means there is no clear or organized professional system. This in turn, made it ineffective because the watch system didn't have any clear structure which made it full of defensive holes.
