The thesis that had been put forward by Monkkonen in "Police in Urban America 1860-1920" thus applies to policing in America, but not as well to policing in Europe. From the 1890s on, American police handed over social welfare duties to new professional agencies and focused more on crime control. In Britain, the pressure to relinquish the class control role was not as great, moreover, police-community relations had been emphasized by founding commissioners. Police duplicated the inequalities of the class society, enforcing one law for the rich, another law for the poor. The German experience was similar to that of the British in spite of striking organizational and political dissimilarities; but while British class control was welfarist, the German class control became more coercive during the period. 1 table and 14 references (Author abstract modified)