section_path: Legal institutions/Military and police
section_name: Military and police
paragraph_text: Military and police
  
  While military organisations have existed as long as government itself, the idea of a standing police force is a relatively modern concept. For example, Medieval England 's system of travelling criminal courts, or assizes, used show trials and public executions to instill communities with fear to maintain control. The first modern police were probably those in 17th-century Paris, in the court of Louis XIV, although the Paris Prefecture of Police claim they were the world's first uniformed policemen.
  
  Max Weber famously argued that the state is that which controls the monopoly on the legitimate use of force. The military and police carry out enforcement at the request of the government or the courts. The term failed state refers to states that cannot implement or enforce policies; their police and military no longer control security and order and society moves into anarchy, the absence of government.