Re: more BS for NY'rs inbound.
<div class="ubbcode-block"><div class="ubbcode-header">Originally Posted By: kraigWY</div><div class="ubbcode-body">All in all, I think a lot, if not all of the "cop bashing" would go away if LE went back to Rober Peel's Principles of policing;
<div class="ubbcode-block"><div class="ubbcode-header">Quote:</div><div class="ubbcode-body">The basic mission for which the police exist is to prevent crime and disorder.
The ability of the police to perform their duties is dependent upon the public approval of police actions.
Police must secure the willing co-operation of the public in voluntary observation of the law to be able to secure and maintain the respect of the public.
The degree of co-operation of the public that can be secured diminishes proportionately to the necessity of the use of physical force.
Police seek and preserve public favour not by catering to public opinion, but by constantly demonstrating absolute impartial service to the law.
Police use physical force to the extent necessary to secure observance of the law or to restore order only when the exercise of persuasion, advice, and warning is found to be insufficient.
Police, at all times, should maintain a relationship with the public that gives reality to the historic tradition that the police are the public and the public are the police; the police being only members of the public who are paid to give full-time attention to duties which are incumbent upon every citizen in the interests of community welfare and existence.
Police should always direct their action strictly towards their functions, and never appear to usurp the powers of the judiciary.
<span style="color: #FF0000">The test of police efficiency is the absence of crime and disorder, not the visible evidence of police action in dealing with it.</span></div></div></div></div>
Kraig I like all the principles above except the last one. I'm going to go slightly off the training focus in this thread perhaps, but I don't think the absence of crime is the correct yardstick by which to measure the police. First, it is patently unfair since the amount of crime in a community is proportional to the values the community holds..not the dedication of the police. The public foolishly demands zero crime and then complains at heavy handed tactics; well you can't have your cake and eat it too. There are communities that with the laziest and most inept police in the country will still have next to no crime at all. There are other communities where there will be significant crime even with a top notch department. The criminals determine whether there will be crime, not the officers, so the police do not have as much control of that as the public often expects.
A much better standard of policing is the conduct of the officers themselves. A much better standard for the law enforcement officers of a free society is their level of respect for liberty and the rule of law. <span style="font-style: italic">Protection of individual rights must always command a higher priority than stopping criminals.</span> The ends do not justify the means if liberty exists - the two principles are mutually exclusive (which is why stop and frisk is wrong). When we as a society demand Mayberry results in a community filled with crackheads and prostitutes we are giving the police a serious incentive to encroach on civil liberty to get results. The police are wrong for taking the bait, but we are wrong and worse we take for granted our own liberty when we ask them too.
The citizens of a free society must police their government if they are to remain free, so criticism of instruments of government power such as the police are not only the right but the <span style="font-style: italic">duty</span> of a good citizen. However the citizen who demands perfect security from the police in a free society is like the fool who gives his dog free reign to bite everyone else and then is surprised when one day it turns on him.
What I am saying is that it is right and proper to judge the police when they fall short of the Constitution and the protection of civil liberties, but also that we should praise them when they uphold those same principles <span style="font-style: italic">even if it means the bad guy gets away or we have a higher crime rate</span>. The police have done their duty in the fullest if they adhere to these principles, regardless of the crime rate. Liberty is not threatened by criminals in the neighborhood but by criminals in government. Citizens have recourse against fellow citizens who commit crimes and if there were no official police at all, a common situation earlier in our history ( and still somewhat present in some areas) there would still be "policing" going on. So why do we have official police then? Because they are supposed to be more respectful of liberty and civil rights than an untrained populace would be.
A public that is so uneducated these days that they don't understand what they should expect from police in a free society doesn't absolve the police from that duty, but it sure makes it difficult to create a culture in law enforcement that cultivates and sustains such officers. We should not make a difficult job harder by unfairly demanding the same results that police in Saudi or North Korea get while at the same time expecting the limitations on police conduct we must have if there is to be liberty. As for me, I agree with the law of the land; I choose liberty. That means limited government and limited law enforcement, and if that means more crime then so be it. I applaud every law enforcement officer who understands and respects that, and apologize to those officers for an unthinking public who largely does not know what proper performance of your duty even looks like, much less appreciate.
