How did police officers communicate before radios?

Question

Say one of them needs back up etc.

Answer 1

There were a lot more officers on foot patrols. Here in Scotland there was a network of Police Boxes, a metal shed with a small heater, a phone, a journal to record events and a device outside that alerted the patrolling constable that a call was waiting. Each officer carried a whistle, the Thunderer, which was how he called for help. Females rarely patrolled alone on foot. In Dundee in 1976, when I joined, this system was still in use as well as basic but rubbish two way radios. The Panda Cars had better, but limited radios. At that time a lot of of the areas had foot patrols, particularly the City Centre, where there were up to8 or 9 dedicated Beats. On Night Shift you were required to check every commercial property, on foot, back and front and if possible from above. At that time each beat had a Beat Book which detailed each premises and who held the keys. This was updated every 3 months, on foot. I was armed with a baton, a whistle and a very ancient pair of handcuffs.

Answer 2

While I am no expert on this matter, I do have some information. Before the modern wireless police radios (which didn't become very widely used until about World War II and afterward); big city police used telephone call boxes located in or near their beat. The officer would go to the call box periodically and call the station to find out if there were any calls he needed to answer.

Prior to the call box, the officer would get a list of pending requests from a desk sergeant at the begining of the shift and my gut tells me there was some type of courier/runner/messenger service in use as well.

Back when city cops walked the beat with nothing more than a gun, a stick, and some type of handcuffs he had to listen for cries from the public; especially before telephones were widespread.

As for getting backup; there were two things. That loud whistle others have written about and a law the allows citizens to be immune from civil or criminal prosecution if summoned to assist an officer. Most states have laws like this; nowadays it's especially helpful to officers working in rural areas where back-up is many miles away.

Again, not a complete answer but I offer my thoughts.

Answer 3

Back then, people truly respected cops and they hardly needed backups.

I was shocked to see pictures of a protest over 35 yrs ago, with over 100 people. How many cops were monitoring their freedom of expression? The photo only shows ONE, walking behind of the crowd of over 100 protesters!
In contrast, they posted a modern photo of the Olympic games where cops surrounded the circumference of the stadium in A CONSTANT ROW. No breaks between fans and the athletes.

Now cops use radios to call for backups and coverage, but play the "poor, victimized servant in a dangerous job" role in the eyes of the public. But also, use the radios today as an excuse to violate the Clean Air Act by idling their cars constantly. Some just leave the cars running with the heat on to be nice and toasty when they return...after an unrestricted amount of time

Then they wonder why the public does not respect them!

Answer 4

As previous contributors have said, the blue police telephone boxes boxes were dotted around the area.

When parading for duty, the officer would be given his 'point duties', this would dictate at which call box he was to be at any given time to receive updates and any outstanding jobs. The term 'Being on point' meant being at the right place and on time.

Officers on the beat were also issued with a distinctive sounding whistle to summons help in case of emergency, that was in the day when most of the public would also assist an officer in difficulty!

Answer 5

Beside using the whistle to call for assistance from a nearby constable (there were many more officers patrolling the streets in early days), police blue phone boxes were placed at strategic points. If the local police station wanted to alert a patrolling officer, the station operated a switch causing a blue light to flash on top of the phone box. Police could also ring into their station to report events.
The blue box was at one time featured in the BBC TV Dr Whoo (deliberate mis-spelling) series.

Answer 6

Old time cars and motorcycles had one way radios. They would call the officer's number over the radio, and he would go to either the nearest call box, or for rural cops, the nearest home, and call in to respond. I got this watching American Choppers when they did a police bike, and this came from the curator of the police museum.

Answer 7

They would have call boxes placed throughout the city. These ring directly into the department, where a desk sergeant would radio to a sector car in the area, and relay the information.

The old timers used joke about how they never arrested anyone if they did not think they could drag them to a call box.

Answer 8

I think you would have to look back to the days when the police department first started, in London, England with Sir Robert Peel to figure that out because back then all they had were whistles and a stick for protection.

Answer 9

There were blue police telephone boxes in the street in locations around the town which could only be accessed by policemen.
They also had whistles because there were a lot more policemen on the beat.

Answer 10

Further to the answers of a whistle and call boxes, members of the public would come to the assistance of the police if they heard them whistle, in fact it was against the law not to assist a policeman in trouble.