[edit: seems i was only off by a century. :)
see amorfati's excellent reference below...]
I can't give you published works on the subject, i will offer a few thoughts for what little they're worth.
During the Enclosures in greater Britain, and the subsequent Industrial Revolution, (from what i gather) the main use of the Law was to evict the peasantry and harass recalcitrant workers - through the Court's bailliffs and sheriffs, direct force was applied by locally hired thugs - backed up as necessary by regular army troops when things got out of hand. I don't recall 'police' forces being relevant before say the world wars (when they were integrated as part of the domestic paramilitary apparatus). It is relevant to remember that the same people writing the laws in the House of Commons, were the very same people benefitting from the Enclosures and the Factories laws, were the same people sitting as Magistrates to condemn any who opposed them, were the same people who served as officers commanding the armies of the State --- i speak not of class 'sameness', but of individuals, and of individuals related by blood, marriage, and close social relations.
Given Imperial Britain's policies of expulsion and colonial domination - the forms and actions of their paramilitary forces in their colonies (especially the prison colony of Australia) would probably yield more grist - since all the trouble makers were shipped out for a century, how did the empire deal with them where they landed? (You can be sure the reports from the vicious experiments made their way back to the mother land, all the better to domesticate the grumbling masses too numerous to expel en-masse.)
other paramilitary forces:
the actions of the Irish Constabulary in occupied Ireland (who served as the model for the canadian federal police), and the colonial forces in imperial India.
The American model seems to be for the capitalists to hire their own agents of violence, while paying off the elected officials (in one way or another) to look the other way. The agents of violence may be local thugs (various strikes and 'range wars'), or existing paramilitary organisations such as the Pinkerton Agency [a pox upon their withered souls] or the American Legion (who volunteered to machine gun the families of striking mine workers, among other atrocities). Only occasionally did the capitalists have to resort to calling up militias or regular troops, as a last resort (though their complete control of the organs of propaganda ensured they suffered no discomfort from the murder of the inconvenients).
The expansion of domestic police would seem to be tied to foreign conflicts, combined with the personal ambition of certain vicious individuals in the state bureaucracy. Again the integration of domestic police into a national paramilitary framework would seem to blend with the world wars; followed by the use of local police by the federal state to surveil/harass/murder those the State (and its conjoined twin- Capital) deemed 'undesirable', or deviant, or just unconvenient.
I wish you luck on your search.
(Okapy:: can you give some insight on French/continental developments? )
