law and order in the west
- Created by: D4nny177
- Created on: 05-06-17 18:36
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- law and order
- law enforcement
- the new settlers in the west, no matter who they were, expected the government to protect them and keep the law.
- as the plains were so large, it took a long time for the law enforcement to be set up. and even when it was put in place, it was usually quite bad
- each territory had a US marshal who dealt with the biggest issues and had to enforce federal laws
- each county had a locally elected sheriff who had to catch criminals and look after the jail, the dog pounds, inspect cattle branding and selling the house of those who don't pay tax
- each town has a town marshal. they usually help with sorting out the small crimes and looking after the jail
- problems
- the law enforcement usually took a long time to get to where the crimes were happening and so the police couldn't help the problem
- the enforcers were often corrupt and so even if they could stop a crime they would turn a blind eye if bribed
- there were not enough enforcers to uphold the law so they were easily overpowered
- judges had a poor knowledge of the law
- the enforcers were overworked and underpaid
- some of the sheriffs, like Henry Plummer, were actually in gangs and only held the positions to make sure their gang wasn't arrested
- vigilantes
- quite often the normal people found that because there were no lawmen to protect them, they would need to resort to vigilantism
- a lot of these groups would initially start as a temporary thing with a single objective, but soon the groups began to become obsessed with their power and they stayed together becoming more and more violent and unjust with every kill
- in the short term they solved the problem, but in the long term they just undermined the law and caused people to kill others for personal gain using the excuse that they were being a noble vigilante
- the Johnson county war
- in Johnson county the homesteaders had begun to fence off the water holes and take up more land due to an increased population of homesteaders. this annoyed the ranchers a lot and so they decided to get revenge
- they accused the homesteaders of cattle rustling and used their power in court to send them to jail, they also hired a group of 72 gunmen to kill any 'cattle rustlers'
- the homesteaders and a sheriff called red angus decided to stop their reign of terror and so they (300 homesteaders) attacked the gunmen and would have killed them if the military hadn't shown up
- the military took the ranchers to court, but the ranchers escaped charges. however, the homesteaders had Johnson county and so were not that bothered that they didn't get charged
- law enforcement
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