Modern Law Enforcement Based on 19th Century Principles
"The police are the public and the public are the police"
As we approach January 9 - Law Enforcement Appreciation Day - it’s a good time to review the foundations of our public relationship with law enforcement. The function of law enforcement in the United States is one that demonstrates the necessity of citizen awareness and involvement in this and all levels of our democratic government.
From the time America was colonized until the mid-19th century, law enforcement outside of military law was carried out by citizen watches and slave patrols.
In 1829, Sir Robert Peel established the London Metropolitan Police Force and became known as the “Father of Modern Policing.” In the United States, the first organized, publicly-funded professional full-time police service was established in Boston in 1838 and was based on Peel’s Principles. Aside from the first State Police agency being formed in Pennsylvania in 1905, little widespread innovation happened in policing in the United States until the introduction of the police car, two-way radio and telephone inspired the change of policing strategy focus from preventing crime to responding to calls for service. Professional law enforcement standards and trainings were adopted through the 20th century and new understandings of how societies work brought us full circle back to the basics as outlined by Peel and his compatriots.
Peel’s commissioners established a list of policing principles that remain as crucial and urgent today as they were two centuries ago. They contain three core ideas and nine principles that rely as much on the professional integrity of law enforcement officers as they do on community members sharing the responsibility of preventing crime and supporting officers.
Peel’s Principles
THREE CORE IDEAS
The goal is preventing crime, not catching criminals. If the police stop crime before it happens, there is no need to punish citizens or suppress their rights. An effective police department doesn’t have high arrest stats; its community has low crime rates.
The key to preventing crime is earning public support. Every community member must share the responsibility of preventing crime as if they were all volunteer members of the force. The community will only accept this responsibility if they support and trust the police.
The police earn public support by respecting community principles. Winning public approval requires hard work to build reputation: enforcing the laws impartially, hiring officers who represent and understand the community, and using force only as a last resort.
NINE POLICING POLICIES
Prevent crime and disorder, as an alternative to their repression by military force and severity of legal punishment.
Recognize always that the power of the police to fulfill their functions and duties is dependent on public approval of their existence, actions and behavior, and on their ability to secure and maintain public respect.
Recognize always that to secure and maintain the respect and approval of the public means also the securing of the willing cooperation of the public in the task of securing observance of laws.
Recognize always that the extent to which the cooperation of the public can be secured diminishes proportionately the necessity of the use of physical force and compulsion for achieving police objectives.
Seek and preserve public favor, not by pandering to public opinion, but by constantly demonstrating absolute impartial service to law, in complete independence of policy, and without regard to the justice or injustice of the substance of individual laws, by ready offering of individual service and friendship to all members of the public without regard to their wealth or social standing, by ready exercise of courtesy and friendly good humor, and by ready offering of individual sacrifice in protecting and preserving life.
Use physical force only when the exercise of persuasion, advice and warning is found to be insufficient to obtain public cooperation to an extent necessary to secure observance of law or to restore order, and to use only the minimum degree of physical force which is necessary on any particular occasion for achieving a police objective.
Maintain at all times a relationship with the public that gives reality to the historic tradition that the police are the public and that 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 on every citizen in the interests of community welfare and existence.
Recognize always the need for strict adherence to police-executive functions and to refrain from even seeming to usurp the powers of the judiciary to avenge individuals or the State and of authoritatively judging guilt and punishing the guilty.
Recognize always that the test of police efficiency is the absence of crime and disorder and not the visible evidence of police action in dealing with them.
Thank you to all who serve with law enforcement!
To add to this very informative article, there was a Berkeley police chief in and around 1900, named August Vollmer who also advanced law enforcement. He was given the name of: The Father of Modern Policing.