Skip to main content

The Police

To Protect and Serve is the most succinct and appropriate mission statement of law enforcement, and has gained worldwide recognition thanks to Hollywood, which is unsurprising as it is the motto of the LA Police Department.

US police also have a written constitution to defend and use of the word defend, rather than uphold, might explain the more militant nature of US policing as opposed to the more softly softly approach of other Western police forces.

The UK police also swear an oath, which understandably references the Crown and takes several other obligations and duties, most notably to keep the peace, but with no written constitution to uphold (or defend), police here have a much more interpretive role, and unfortunately their priorities and policies too often depend on who is doing the interpreting.

The history of policing goes back much further than we may realize, and while Richard I was not busy crusading, he was also enlisting knights to be his 'keepers of the peace' and as we have already noted, this role of maintaining peace on our streets is a primary function of police, to this day.

The reason that most of us view the police as a fairly recent institution, is probably because modern policing really began with Robert Peel and his 'Nine Principles of Policing' which were remarkable in their time, and should still be held as the foremost aspiration for a civilian police force.

It is also remarkable, that after many hundreds of years and multiple iterations, police forces throughout the modern world are facing their most difficult and potentially destructive challenges, at a time of relative prosperity and general respect for the law.

As with many things in life, our greatest strengths will often become our most profound weaknesses and the maintenance of a civilian police force that recruits from, and has the support of, the society it serves, is the foundation of Western Democracy.

Six of Peel's Nine Principles use the word 'public' in phrases such as "public approval" and "co-operation of the public" and it is this notion of community policing by consent that has been so successful, and is today seen as increasingly vulnerable.

The problems with community policing are these:-

What happens when there is more than one community?
 And
What happens when a community does not want to be policed or does not recognize the Law of the Land?


Comments

Popular posts from this blog

Jim Gardiner

It seems that the British Justice system is continuing to over reach it's prerogative in dealing with British citizens. A recent case, which on first viewing, seems rather silly and an unnecessary waste of police and court's time, on further scrutiny, looks like an absolute and nonsensical  miscarriage of justice . It concerns a British burger vendor , who, in conversation with a customer, stated that there was a problem with muslim "no-go" zones in Manchester, at which point the customer, a Mr. Palmer, denounced the claim as an urban myth. The vendor (Mr. Gardiner) promptly produced evidence supporting his statement which the customer refused to read, preferring to remain in ignorance of the facts. The vendor was understandably upset that his truthful and heartfelt assertions had been slighted by someone who refused to examine the facts that he had helpfully prepared. He then refused to serve the customer who reported him to the police. So far so good. A co

Eid 2013: Somali rape gang

It may seem odd to begin a blog named after Chelsey Wright, with a story about an apparently unrelated, albeit similar attack, in another part of the country, but this was the one that first alerted me to the depth of our decline as a law abiding nation. There are many disturbing aspects of this case : The reaction of the defendants The reaction of the defendant's families  The religious context The media coverage The prosecution It was this last point that really bothered me, and still does, because the case was widely reported as a young girl who went willingly to meet a man she did not know, and then 'accompanied' him to meet a larger group of men she also did not know, in a hotel where she otherwise had no business to be.  The circumstances were set and the 'victim' seemed anything but an innocent party to the events that followed.  But after their conviction, the girl released a statement detailing how she had been corralled by the men and fo

John Alabi

A recent case in Canada highlights the growing subversion of Western Legal systems, where every opportunity taken to use our laws against the interests of the population and State. The case was brought to my attention at JihadWatch , and involves an Ontario landlord who was taken to court accused of discrimination under the Human Rights Code for refusing to take off his shoes in his tenant's apartment. On the surface, this is quite a simple, and easily resolved case, requiring a reprimand and possibly a small fine and agreement to behave differently in future (although even this may be inappropriate, as Mr Alabi had already acquiesced to their demands, see below). It is, after all, perfectly reasonable, if not usual, for people to ask visitors to remove outdoor shoes when entering their living space, and over the years I personally have, on several occasions, complied with such requests. What is different here, is that a simple landlord/tenant dispute is being used to set