The Nuttall Encyclopædia describes him as a "self-satisfied night constable" with an inflated view of his own importance as the leader of a group of comically bumbling watchmen.

His absurd pseudo-legal rhetoric confuses matters even more, but when the Prince arrives at the truth about Don John, the plot is revealed and the arrested man confesses.

[3] Shakespeare appears to be poking mild fun at the amateur police forces of his day, in which respectable citizens spent a fixed number of nights per year fulfilling an obligation to protect the public peace, a job for which they were, by and large, unqualified.

But Dogberry and his crew are also given a thematic function, as they (accidentally) uncover Don John's plot and begin the process of restoration that leads to the play's happy conclusion.

According to historian John W. Draper, Dogberry's behaviour as constable is an exaggeration of genuine problems with the amateur policing system at the time, in which sleeping during the night-watch was common, and watchmen often tried to avoid confronting criminals.

[2] Though the play is nominally set in Sicily, Dogberry's watch appear to be acting under English law of the period, according to which loiterers at night could be arrested under the catch-all charge of vagrancy.

[5][6][7] In a noted 1976 Royal Shakespeare Company (RSC) production set in India during the British Raj, John Woodvine played Dogberry "as a member of the local constabulary with a Peter Sellers Indian accent".