The Earliest Police Writer, So Far

Police-Writers.com is a website dedicated to listing state and local police officers who have authored books. A police officer published a book in 1886, making him, thus far, the earliest police officer to write a book.

According to the New York Police Department, Thomas Byrnes, was known as "personification of the police department." As a captain he had solved the Manhattan Bank burglary, recovering $3 million in stolen cash and securities. When the Detective Bureau was established in 1882, Thomas Byrnes was appointed the first chief of detectives and he was named superintendent of police in 1892. His considerable personal wealth and the undeniable corruption of the department cast a shadow over his otherwise distinguished career.”

In 1886, Thomas Byrnes published Professional Criminals of America. According to the book description, it “contains biographical sketches, including photographs, of some four hundred of the nation’s leading criminals. Each profile details the crimes committed and the circumstances leading up to arrest and conviction. Also included are short, informative chapters on criminal methods, executions, opium addiction, fugitives from justice, and prison commutation laws, along with intriguing chapters on mysterious unsolved murders, adventurers and adventuresses, and a list of every prison and state penitentiary in America at the time of publication.”

According to one reader/reviewer, “this book was an attempt to make the public aware of the lives and practices of "career criminals" in 19th Century America. Byrnes gives an explanation of numerous criminal professions, such as bank robbers, forgers, con artists, and thieves, as well as sections on opium addiction. The good inspector's writing style seems to borrow heavily from pulp crime stories of the day; his descriptions are lurid, yet still sanitized enough to not offend Victorian sensibilities.

While an interesting exploration of the practices of 19th Century criminals (in case you're interested in pulling off a bogus horse sale or something), the book is more significant as a reflection of common 19th Century beliefs about origins and practitioners of crime. Inspired by developments in psychology, biology, and other fields, in the 19th Century there emerged an idea of the 'criminal class' or 'professional criminal', the idea that there existed an entire underworld class within ordinary society that lived solely by the fruits of their criminal endeavors. While similar ideas had been posited previously, they reached a new currency (and one might even say obsession) during the Victorian age. Much of the theories that formed the underpinnings of these questionable notions would go on to inspire much of the torturous and confused logic of race that would continue to trouble the West throughout the 19th and 20th Century.”

Police-Writers.com now hosts 438 police officers (representing 191 police departments) and their 918 books in six categories, there are also listings of United States federal law enforcement employees turned authors, international police officers who have written books and civilian police personnel who have written books.