The article is devoted to the history of the formation and legal regulation of the activities of the lower ranks of the county police of the Russian Empire from the first half of the XIX to the beginning of the XX century. The rea-sons for the introduction of police custody in the territory of Astrakhan, Baku, Kazan, Nizhny Novgorod, Perm, Samara provinces and the Kingdom of Poland are considered by the author. The position according to which in the second half of the XIX century the im-portance of protecting public order and public safety in rural areas was actualized in the state policy of the Russian Empire is substantiated by the author. The reasons for that were the reforms carried out at that time. The most important reform was the abolition of serfdom. The lack of a sufficient number of police officials in the coun-tryside, erforming law enforcement functions, was the reason for the introduction of the institution of police village constables. On the basis of archival and other historical sources, the article shows that the activities of police village constables from the state bodies and the liberal press were evaluated differently: state structures noted the positive results of the activities of police village constables to ensure public order and the safety of society and the state; in contrast, the liberal community absolutized the distrust of the activities of police village constables and the lack of their support from the population. The existing contradictions between society and the state were one of the reasons for the destruction of the law enforcement system and the collapse of the Russian Empire itself.