Title: The 9 Principles of Good Policing - The Atlantic
Headings: The 9 Principles of Good Policing
The 9 Principles of Good Policing
Content: To 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. To recognise always the need for strict adherence to police-executive functions, and to refrain from even seeming to usurp the powers of the judiciary of avenging individuals or the State, and of authoritatively judging guilt and punishing the guilty. To recognise 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. Interestingly, William J. Bratton, who was police chief in Los Angeles for at least part of Dutta's tenure, espoused these same principles. To read a lawman's reaction to Ferguson, Missouri, that better accords with them, see Max Geron's observations. " Their strategy for policing protest, if they had a formal one, seems to indicate a lack of understanding of the effect that a strong show of militarized force can have on a community that believes they have been disenfranchised by their police department," he writes. " For American police, retention of the 'servant' mindset is more critical than that of the 'warrior' mindset." There are police officers who agree and others who disagree. The relative influence of those factions will have tremendous consequences for American society in years to come.