About Undercover Units
In England, the first police force was established in 1829 by Sir Robert Peel as the Metropolitan Police of London. The force occasionally employed undercover detectives, but there was much public anxiety that these powers were being used for the purpose of political repression. The 1845 official police orders required all undercover operations to be specifically authorized by the superintendent. It was only in 1869 that Police commissioner Edmund Henderson established a formal undercover (plainclothes) detective division. “Undercover Operation.” Wikipedia, Wikimedia Foundation, 29 Apr. 2018, en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Undercover_operation. “NYPD's Color of the Day.” Mental Floss, 7 Mar. 2013, mentalfloss.com/article/49036/nypds-color-day. In the United States, a similar route was taken with the establishment of the Italian Squad in 1906 by the New York City Police Department under police commissioner William McAdoo to combat crime and intimidation in the poor Ital