Matthew Guariglia is Affiliated Scholar at the University of California College of the Law, San Francisco, Senior Policy Analyst at the Electronic Frontier Foundation, and coeditor of
Colonial Methods: Francis Vinton Greene's Journey from Empire to Policing the Empire City
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Published:October 2023
2023. "Colonial Methods: Francis Vinton Greene's Journey from Empire to Policing the Empire City", Police and the Empire City: Race and the Origins of Modern Policing in New York, Matthew Guariglia
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Born into a military family, Francis Vinton Greene belonged to a generation of soldiers and military officers who served in the American West, Spanish-American War, and Philippine wars and brought their colonial experience to policing in the United States. As a general, Greene was an architect of colonial governance in the Philippines and organized the police force in US-occupied Havana. This chapter explores the similarities between attempts to subordinate US overseas colonies and multiracial New York City. After becoming police commissioner in 1903, Greene reorganized the detective bureau to emphasize the ability of officers to infiltrate communities and the importance of immigrant detectives.
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