Explanation: A rare bit of OC from me!

As surprising as it might sound, the Roman Republic had no formal policing forces at all! An unusual point of unity between an ancient polity noted for its sense of hierarchy, and hierarchy-averse modern anarchist ideology!

The Romans, you see, had a very minimalistic government in the period of the Republic precisely because they feared the imposition of tyranny by government fiat. For that matter, only the most important issues were covered by criminal law - treason, murder, abuse of power, rape, and false testimony. Everything else - from theft to assault to slander - was covered by civil law. So if there was a criminal on the loose, the thinking was that, as the community had agreed to make the laws, so too would the community band together to enforce them - it was a citizen's responsibility, when called to, to help his neighbors seize hold of a dangerous criminal and bring him in for trial! And if the person was not a dangerous criminal, if it was only a civil dispute... what need was there for such urgency?

This... does have its weaknesses, and the Roman Empire would later see the vigiles, a formalized town watch with some policing duties (particularly separation of violent parties, and delivery of the accused to trial; not so much general crime prevention), and stationarii, legionary detachments tasked with suppressing banditry and other exceptionally violent crimes. Nevertheless, even in the Empire's time, much of enforcement of civil law was down to oneself and one's neighbors - people are noted as screaming at all hours of the night outside of folk who refuse to turn up for court in a reasonable amount of time; or when a judgement is reached by default if the accused doesn't show up to a civil trial within the month, appearing with their friends and (entirely lawfully, as that was the expected enforcement mechanism!) seizing the 'fined' amount of property from the person's home themselves!

I'm not an anarchist myself, and I consider, despite the abhorrent state of policing in my country and the importance of oversight of all positions of power in general, policing to be a positive institution overall. Conceptually, at least, for as much as American police do their damndest to drive the cost-benefit analysis into the red.

However, it is a demonstration of a legitimate and important point often raised by anarchists - that formal policing forces are not the difference between a (more or less) functioning society and chaos. They are a convenience, not a necessity, and policing forces are comparatively recent inventions. Modern policing dates only to the 19th century; post-Roman military policing only to the 16th century in most European cultures. Irregular and volunteer institutions of militia-watch date to the medieval period, but only with the emergence of high-density towns and cities. Before that, enforcement was by the community itself - sometimes good, sometimes bad.

The mutual aid functions of Roman collegia might also be of interest to anarchists looking for refutations to common canards of the supposed fantastic nature of anarchist solutions to problems. I may not agree with anarchist proposals as optimal, but I am often more than happy to lend a voice about whether they are functional!