<P> The gradual development of a sophisticated criminal justice system in America found itself extremely small and unspecialized during colonial times . Many problems, including lack of a large law - enforcement establishment, separate juvenile - justice system, and prisons and institutions of probation and parole . Criminal matters were also not the top priority of the sheriff and the courts . The lack of a large institutional framework was a result of relatively small and homogenous colonial communities . These colonies were self - policing and social control was maintained by an omnipresent set of informal restrictions . They also depended on community pressure to regulate human conduct . </P> <P> In Western culture, the contemporary concept of a police paid by the government was developed by French legal scholars and practitioners in the 17th century and early 18th century, notably with Nicolas Delamare's Traité de la Police ("Treatise of the Police", published between 1705 and 1738). The German Polizeiwissenschaft (Science of Police) was also an important theoretical formulation of police . </P> <P> The first police force in the modern sense was created by the government of King Louis XIV in 1667 to police the city of Paris, then the largest city of Europe and considered the most dangerous European city . The royal edict, registered by the Parlement of Paris on March 15, 1667 created the office of lieutenant général de police ("lieutenant general of police"), who was to be the head of the new Paris police force, and defined police as the task of "ensuring the peace and quiet of the public and of private individuals, purging the city of what may cause disturbances, procuring abundance, and having each and everyone live according to their station and their duties". This office was held by Gabriel Nicolas de la Reynie, who had 44 commissaires de police (police commissioners) under his authority . In 1709, these commissioners were assisted by inspecteurs de police (police inspectors). The city of Paris was divided into 16 districts policed by the 44 commissaires de police, each assigned to a particular district and assisted in their districts by clerks and a growing bureaucracy . The scheme of the Paris police force was extended to the rest of France by a royal edict of October 1699, resulting in the creation of lieutenants general of police in all large French cities or towns . </P> <P> However, this early conceptualization of police was quite different from today's police forces, exclusively in charge of maintaining order and arresting criminals . As conceptualized by the Polizeiwissenschaft, the police had an economical and social duty ("procuring abundance"). It was in charge of demographics concerns and of empowering the population, which was considered by the mercantilist theory to be the main strength of the state . Thus, its functions largely overreached simple law enforcement activities, and included public health concerns, urban planning (which was important because of the miasma theory of disease; thus, cemeteries were moved out of town, etc .), surveillance of prices, etc . </P>

When were criminals first used to help create a system to help catch other criminals