Minister of police

“ Because it is against public morals that one of the highest positions in the police-service should be occupied by a man whose hands are not absolutely clean. Make them send you to parliament or appoint you a minister, a councillor of State, an ambassador, in short, any post which your success in the Daubrecq case entitles you to demand. But not secretary-general of police ”

“ I refuse the dowry.—Helena d'Orleans."——The new Ministry of Police has been organized by decree. The Minister is to have attached to his office three directors-general, who are to appoint inspector-general, special inspectors, and commissaries of police in the departments. Prominent among the duties of all of these officials are those of watching and reporting every attempt to influence public opinion against the government, keeping a close eye on the press and on publications of every sort—upon theatres, prisons, schools, and political and commercial associations. ”

“ The political police never interfere with the other branch, and vice versa. If you apply to the chief of the political police, he must get permission from the Minister to take up our business, and you would not dare to explain it to the head of the police throughout the kingdom. A police-agent who should act on his own account would lose his place. ”

“ The Commissioner of Police must exercise his or her command in accordance with general directions of policy given by the Minister responsible for the Police Service. Organisation and administration of Police Service An Act of Parliament must provide for the organisation, administration and discipline of the Police Service, including the appointment of persons to offices or ranks in the Police Service, their removal from office or reduction in rank, their punishment for breaches of discipline and the fixing of their conditions of service. ”

“ The men belonging to the police are a mass of corruption which the Minister of that department divides into two parts: of the one, he makes spies or mouchards; of the other, satellites, exempts, that is, officers, whom he afterwards lets loose against pickpockets, swindlers, thieves, &c., much in the same manner as a huntsman sets hounds on wolves and foxes. ”

“ It will be remembered that, upon the testimony of one Allais, Police Commissioner Yon had charged a Section of Decembrists with a plan to murder Dupin and Changarnier. With an eye upon that, the questors proposed at the very first session, that the parliament organize a police force of its own, paid for out of the private budget of the National Assembly itself, and wholly independent of the Police Prefects. The Minister of the Interior, Baroche, protested against this trespass on his preserves. ”

“ This gives the national executive absolute control of all administrative matters in every part of the republic. The police force also is a national organization under the immediate control of the minister of interior, and the public prosecutor in every department is a representative of the national government. ”

“ 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. ”

“ The police inspectorate operates as an independent body under the Internal Affairs Ministry and has a mandate to promote police efficiency and effectiveness, hold police accountable for their actions, and investigate alleged legal violations. ”

“ There has been no law in our country under our system of a more complete, sweeping and comprehensive measure placed within the powers of a simple executive office, as the Superintendent of Police is, as this law. It exceeds that of the Common Law, where the power is vested in a judicial officer to issue a warrant; but here a policeman may authorise in writing any members of his police force to enter any place complained of by either a member of the police force or by two householders, and arrest all such persons found therein.—Vol. ”

“ The Inspector-General of Police shall make provision for a balanced structuring of the police force and shall have the power to make suitable appointments to the police force, to cause charges of indiscipline among members of the police force to be investigated and prosecuted and to ensure the efficient administration of the police force. ”

“ Since enforcements cannot be counted on, it is the special task of the inspectors and state police administrative offices to urge the other administrative offices, charged with the commitment of the manpower, to take over the affairs of the Security Police within the sphere of their jurisdiction. ”

“ The rough and the criminal do not fear the prowess of the individual policeman, they fear the organization behind him—take that away, and the constable becomes merely a big man armed with nothing more formidable than a wooden truncheon.
The result of this temporary and partial breakdown of the organization was that the whole force suffered a double loss; the general public, no longer feeling the old confidence in the power of the police to protect them, withheld to some extent their moral support ”

“ Promotions are based on merit, and pensions are paid men who have served a certain term of years. This plan has improved conditions by taking [Pg 145] the police out of politics to a large degree. The policy of the head of the department is of the greatest importance to the public. The temptations for graft and corruption in a police department are enormous, but the assurance of a square deal all up and down the line, strict orders to uphold the law, and a well-defined policy against graft of every description, will do wonders to keep a department honest and efficient. ”

“ Whilst some failures may be due to politics, and others to a lack of will, there are certainly enough reasons for which the police alone cannot be held responsible. CRM refers to the fact that there is now a larger force, but this very expansion has caused problems because, as senior policemen tell you when discussing current shortcomings, the training period has been shortened to a pitiful span. ”

“ The committee found, amongst other defects, that the chain of responsibility in the force was very imperfect, and called attention to the remarkable fact that, although Standing Police Orders to regulate the conduct of constables at peaceable public meetings had long been issued, no regulations for the management of unruly mobs had ever been published. ”

“ He also collected a mass of evidence bearing on the causes that were responsible for the prevalence of crime, and proposed that a scientific campaign against the enemies of Society should be inaugurated, under the direction of experts, who should be free to devote the whole of their time and energies to the task. His proposition, in fact, amounted to the creation, if possible, of a centralized police, related to the general government through the Home Office, and officered both in the superior and subordinate grades, by men specially trained for the purpose. ”

“ The 89th Congress gave us a new start in the attack on crime by passing the Law Enforcement Assistance Act that I recommended. We appointed the National Crime Commission to study crime in America and to recommend the best ways to carry that attack forward.
And while we do not have all the answers, on the basis of its preliminary recommendations we are ready to move.
This is not a war that Washington alone can win. The idea of a national police force is repugnant to the American people. Crime must be rooted out in local communities by local authorities. ”

“ Notification of public meetings and processions enables the Commissioner of Police to make proper arrangements to police them. Proper policing is in the legitimate interests of organisers, participants and the general public. It keeps people safe in situations which could otherwise turn lethal. Even if I were capable of forgetting that fact, my memory of it would have been revived when Mr Shiu took us through the Lan Kwai Fong Report. The Commissioner of Police’s entitlement to notification of public meetings and public processions is not unreasonable or otherwise objectionable. ”

“ Nothing but a well-regulated Police, under a proper System of Controul, can remedy those evils arising from Public-houses, and it is earnestly to be hoped, that the Functions proposed to be exercised by the Central Board of Police would effect this valuable purpose. ”

“ Party and State offices with different authority were amalgamated. Under this designation RSHA, no directives or laws or orders could be issued on a legal basis, because the State Police, in its ministerial capacity, was still subordinate to the Ministry of the Interior, whereas the SD, despite this set-up, was an organ of the Party.
Therefore if I wanted to reproduce this administrative scheme accurately, I should, for example, have to put in place of Amt IV, the Amt “Political Police”, a part of the former Hauptamt Sicherheitspolizei. ”

“ I did it because one of the jobs of the Federal Government is to enhance our security at home and because crime and violence is a problem all over America, in communities small and large.
Well, we're keeping that promise. Last year's crime bill reduces the Federal bureaucracy and takes all the money and gives it to our communities to fight crime. It provides explicitly for 100,000 new police officers. Just since the 4 months since the crime bill took effect, police departments in America have been able to hire over 16,000 police officers. ”

“ Hence the organisation of some force taking its mandate from the many to compel good conduct in the few; some special institution whose functions are to watch over the common weal, and act for the public both in preventing evil and preparing or securing good. From this the police deduces its claim to such interference with every citizen as{192} is necessary to maintain order and ensure obedience to the law. ”

“ But this securing the good-will of the police is comparatively unimportant, and is practically incapable of legal proof. A far more serious thing is the influence steadily brought to bear on the police in many small municipalities, to cause them to refrain from proceeding against certain public-houses. ”

“ The detection of this form of corruption is difficult; nevertheless, if it continues, the people are evidently not awake to their own best interests. In other cities, on the other hand, the police force is maintained upon a high standard. Sometimes civil-service-reform methods are used in the selection of policemen; the passing of an examination is necessary for appointment. This, with a fair system of promotions, should render a police force more like a military organization in its relation to the enforcement of law. ”

“ The police touch all classes of the public at many points beyond the performance of their sterner duties as representatives of the law, and they touch them in a friendly way.... The police in short, are not the representatives of an arbitrary and despotic power, directed against the rights or obtrusively interfering with the pleasures of law-abiding citizens: they are simply a disciplined body of men, specially engaged in protecting 'masses' as well as 'classes,' from any infringement of their rights on the part of those who are not law-abiding. ”

“ Intimately connected with the administration of justice was the police system, which in its intricate ramifications permeated all sections of society. Much as we may feel admiration for the judicial code, which, up to a certain point admirably administered, ensured a certain kind of rough justice throughout the Athalik Ghazi's dominions, the police laws and discipline have greater claims to our favourable opinion, as evidences of an astonishing capacity for government. ”

“ One FPD officer estimated that about a quarter of the Ferguson community distrusts the police department.
A growing body of research, alongside decades of police experience, is consistent with what our investigation found in Ferguson: that when police and courts treat people unfairly, unlawfully, or disrespectfully, law enforcement loses legitimacy in the eyes of those who have experienced, or even observed, the unjust conduct. ”

“ Speaking generally, there are two methods in vogue in American police circles for dealing with crime, and they may be called the compromising and the uncompromising. The latter is the more honest. In a town where it is followed, the chief of police is known to be a man who will not allow a professional thief within the city limits, if he can help it, and he is continually on watch for transient offenders. He will make no "deal" with criminals in any particular, and he takes pride in securing the conviction and punishment of all whom his men apprehend. ”

“ The mildest form of police supervision was believed by many to necessitate the use of domiciliary visits, universal espionage, and official interference with the concerns of daily life. Men could not foresee the possibility of an armed constabulary keeping their hands off law-abiding citizens, and directing their energies solely against law-breakers. It has been said, that had the original police constables been first seen in their present head-dress, the result would have been dubious, but the glazed hat was just homely enough to save the situation. ”

“ But the Mounted Police force has never been in the game. Mounted Policemen have always been strictly non-partisan in politics and no interference with them by politicians of any party would be tolerated for a moment. These law-enforcers have always been absolutely independent of any local or other influences except the commands of their officers in the line of duty, and to this in large measure is due the remarkable reputation of the force for giving every man a square deal, regardless of race or creed or colour. Mounted Policemen have never been respecters of persons. ”