Metropolitan Police Department

“ Through a little back door, up a stone flight of stairs, into a broad corridor one passes to the offices where are quartered the heads of the most important branch of Scotland Yard—the Criminal Investigation Department, with its wide-reaching organisation stretching beyond the confines of London over the whole world.
It is its business to keep its fingers on the pulse of crime, to watch vigilantly the comings and goings of thousands of men and women, and to bring to justice all those whose acts have made them a menace to society. ”

“ It is curious this suspicion of the police which sometimes affects otherwise clear-headed people. You pick out men whose character is without flaw from their childhood upwards. You put them into a blue uniform, and lo! their whole personality alters. They are hypocrites and bullies, bribed by bookmakers and prostitutes, and capable of any sort of baseness.
Let us return to the Riddle Department. The secret of dealing with such a happening as I have painted above lies naturally in the organisation. Every division has a certain number of reserve men—approximately 10 per cent. ”

“ They are all detectives, but their work is specialist work, totally different to that of the bulk of the men of the C.I.D. It may be that sometimes they realise that a man's life or liberty depends on their scrutiny, but for the most part they do their work with cold deliberation and machine-like precision. Is one set of finger-marks identical with another? That is all they have to answer. It is the pride of the department that since it has been established it has never made a mistake. ”

“ It is necessary to point out that the existence of the [Pg 68] department is not so much for the purpose of detecting crime as of detecting criminals. In the administration of justice a judge takes the past career of a prisoner into consideration when passing sentence. The main work of the department is to furnish the clue to a past career by scrutinising the finger-prints of persons on remand to discover whether they are habitual criminals or not.
A thousand aliases will not help a man, no change of appearance, no protestations of mistake, if his prints correspond with those in the files. ”

“ Train officers on mechanics of community policing and their role in implementing it; Measure and evaluate individual, supervisory, and agency police performance on community engagement, problem-oriented-policing projects, and crime prevention, rather than on arrest and citation productivity. 2. Focus Stop, Search, Ticketing and Arrest Practices on Community Protection FPD must fundamentally change the way it conducts stops and searches, issues citations and summonses, and makes arrests. FPD officers must be trained and required to abide by the law. ”

“ The Metropolitan force has about 1,800 men for its 14 precincts and one harbor station, but men are continually called for and assigned to guard visiting diplomats and dignitaries, and for special duty at the White House, government establishments, and even as ushers at tea-parties. With days off, sick leaves and men on special assignments, the force is lucky when it can put 300 cops on the streets on any shift.
The police are used for many duties delegated to others in well-regulated cities. For instance, policemen must act as collection agents for wives with delinquent husbands. ”

“ When implemented fully, community policing creates opportunities for officers and community members to have frequent, positive interactions with each other, and requires officers to partner with communities to solve particular public safety problems that, together, they have decided to address. Research and experience show that community policing can be more effective at crime prevention and at making people feel safer. ”

“ It would be futile to pretend that there are twenty thousand plaster saints in the Metropolitan Police—there are not. Yet, man for man, in efficiency, in honesty, there is not their equal in the world in any profession. ”

“ In other directions red tape has been 140abolished and economies brought about; the way has been opened for individual merit in all ranks; steps have been taken to develop and teach better methods; the work of the department has been brought closer to the public. There is a new spirit in the New York Police Department to-day—a spirit certain to develop the public good will and appreciation that is so necessary to the best order of public service. ”

“ I ask that the Congress grant me the discretion to assign the State Police either to the Department of the Interior or retain it directly in the Executive Office of the President. The police force must be a civilian body although its members will be selected largely from our defense forces. But it will not be a military force. By intensive training and, we hope, with the aid of the United States law enforcement agencies, we plan to fit the members of our police force for their difficult and trying task. They must know the law and the constitutional premises of our Government. ”

“ A policeman is prepared for his responsibilities by a thorough course of training, as scientific in its way as that of a doctor, a lawyer, or a school teacher.
Instead of going on his beat redolent of the plough, with a thousand pitfalls before him, the young constable now has a thorough theoretical acquaintance with his duties before ever he dons a helmet. More than that, he has been shrewdly observed for weeks to see whether his temperament is fitted to his calling. If it is not, be he ever so able in other respects, he is of no use as a police officer. ”

“ We are all local officials.”
We do not charge that the really terrible conditions in Washington are the fault of the Metropolitan Police. Most of the cops on that overworked force are honest. If given the opportunity they would love to do their duty. Most policemen all over the country are honest, too. They are slaves of a setup with the establishment of which they had nothing to do and which they are powerless to correct. Big payoffs are not made to men in the ranks. ”

“ For support of the school, $12,000, and deficiencies of the current year, $8,000 a total of $20,000.
METROPOLITAN POLICE.
The Metropolitan Police force consists of 238 men, of whom 6 are detectives. In view of the fact that the population of this District is one-third greater than when the present number was fixed by law, and is rapidly increasing, the board earnestly recommends that an increase to the force be authorized to the extent of 16 sergeants and 50 privates or patrolmen.
The members of the force have been active and. ”

“ The great deterrent against crime is not vindictive punishment; the more certain you make detection, the less severe your punishment may be. The brilliant sleuth-hound work of which we read so often is a less important factor in police work than organisation. Organisation it is which holds the peace of London. It is organisation that plucks the murderer from his fancied security at the ends of the earth, that prevents the drunkard from making himself a nuisance to the public, that prevents the defective motor-bus from becoming a danger or an annoyance to the community. ”

“ Looking at the establishment as a whole, it appears to your Committee that the Metropolitan police has imposed no restraint, either upon public bodies or individuals, which is not entirely consistent with the fullest practical exercise of every civil privilege, and with the most unrestrained intercourse of private society. ”

“ We thank the City officials and the rank-and-file officers who have cooperated with this investigation and provided us with insights into the operation of the police department, including the municipal court. Notwithstanding our findings about Ferguson's approach to law enforcement and the policing culture it creates, we found many Ferguson police officers and other City employees to be dedicated public servants striving each day to perform their duties lawfully and with respect for all members of the Ferguson community. The importance of their often-selfless work cannot be overstated. ”

“ In a municipal force an officer can only be required to know thoroughly the situation on his particular beat; if he can inform himself about other districts as well, he is so much more valuable to the department, but he is not expected to do much more than get acquainted with the people under his immediate surveillance. In a railroad police [Pg 8] force it is different, and it is required of the officer that he study carefully the criminal situation in all the towns and villages on the division on which he is stationed. ”

“ Imperturbable, quiet-voiced, quiet-mannered, he sits planning the peace of London. He is playing a perpetual game of chess on the great board of the metropolis with twenty thousand men as his pieces [Pg 11] against a cosmopolitan fraternity of evil-doers who never rest. He is the one man in the service who must never make a mistake.
The Commissioner of the Metropolitan Police sleeps on no bed of roses. He must be as supple as willow, as rigid as steel, must possess the tact of a diplomatist, with the impartiality of a judge. ”

“ The Metropolitan Police have the second highest manpower per capita of any large outfit in the country. It is not up to authorized strength, but that goes for most cities. That doesn’t tell the story, because, as we indicated, there are at least five other police forces operating in the city, with several hundred more cops on tap. Generally speaking, the jurisdiction of each force is limited to the particular area for which it was created. All Washington policemen have the right to make arrests for crimes committed in their presence in any part of the District. ”

“ In some ways the administration of the New York Police Department is a soldier’s job. If the ten thousand members were mobilized, they would make quite an impressive little standing army, with 135eight or ten full regiments of patrolmen, a brigade of cavalry, a small transport corps, a little navy, and so forth. As in an army, too, the men are enlisted, and may only be discharged for serious offenses. It is a force scattered over three hundred square miles of territory. The leader must be skillful in laying down regulations, and handling men in the mass rather than by personal contact. ”

“ There have been critics of the C.I.D. Many have held that the system of recruiting from the uniformed police is wrong in essence—that educated men employed direct from civilian life would be more effective. There is no bar against anyone being appointed direct if the authorities chose—but it has been tried. ”

“ The Prefect of Police has beneath his orders all the police of the capital, or rather of the department to which the capital belongs. This service is divided into two special organisations: Municipal Police and Agents of Security. The “Security” force consists of three hundred agents with the title of inspector, commanded by five chief inspectors, ten brigadiers, and twenty sub-brigadiers. These agents are employed in arresting malefactors, and are viewed with intense hatred by the criminal class generally. ”

“ America's law enforcement officers face extraordinary risks-breaking up a drug ring, apprehending a fugitive, responding to an incident of domestic violence, even making a traffic stop. Since the first recorded police death in this country in 1794, more than 13,500 law enforcement officers have been killed in the line of duty. On average, more than 62,000 officers are assaulted and some 20,000 are injured each year. ”

“ We commend City officials for beginning to take steps to address some of the concerns we have already raised. Nonetheless, these changes are only a small part of the reform necessary. Addressing the deeply embedded constitutional deficiencies we found demands an entire reorientation of law enforcement in Ferguson. The City must replace revenue-driven policing with a system grounded in the principles of community policing and police legitimacy, in which people are equally protected and treated with compassion, regardless of race. ”

“ A fight, a robbery, even a murder is always a contingency.
There is a class of men and women who frequent the neighbourhood among whom passions run high. From a police point of view, it is a difficult place to handle—a district even more difficult than the East End, for here the iron hand must be concealed in the [Pg 88] velvet glove. Every officer, from constable to inspector, must be possessed of infinite tact and firmness. Every man on patrol, point, or beat has usually at least one delicate decision to make in a night. ”

“ An order from the general manager consequently reaches the men for whom it is meant through official channels entirely within the police department, and the same is true of statements and reports of the men to the general manager.
Practically everything is run according to a well-understood system, and this is the secret of the department's success. Day in and day out every man on the force knows what he has to do, and expects to be called to order if his work does not come up to what is desired. Hunting down trespassers and thieves is but a part of the routine. ”

“ Even when force is reported, the force review process falls so short of FPD's policy requirements that it is ineffective at improving officer safety or ensuring that force is used properly. First, and most significantly, supervisors almost never actually investigate force incidents. In almost every case, supervisors appear to view force investigations as a ministerial task, merely summarizing the involved officers' version of events and sometimes relying on the officers' offense report alone. ”