Police work

“ The immediate result of the institution of an effective police force, whose main object was prevention, was precisely that which was to be expected: convictions for crimes of violence decreased, because evil-disposed persons knew that they could no longer commit them with impunity, and convictions for minor offences increased, because the vigilance of the new policemen brought to their proper punishment many a petty depredator who had easily hoodwinked his familiar friend, the old parish officer. ”

“ We are coming to understand that the policeman can be a social agent, a next friend, an instructor in obedience to the law. We are beginning to regard as the best officer the one who makes the fewest, not the most arrests. In some cities women [Pg 23] are being added to the police force, and there are police matrons, and jail matrons, and even women judges. ”

“ When in any division, offences are frequently committed, there must be reason to expect that the police in that division is not properly conducted.
The absence of crime will be considered the best proof of the complete efficiency of the police. In divisions where this security and good order have been effected, the officers and men belonging to it may feel assured that such good conduct will be noticed by rewards and promotions. ”

“ Even the police, East and West, certainly no friends of mine, were not without a kind of—hum—let me say a kind of gratitude for the way I had come out of corners into which I had occasionally been crowded.
Law-abiding citizens, whom the police feel it their duty to protect and to avenge, do not shoot at people from the rear or from shadows, do not pick quarrels and lay traps. ”

“ Hundreds as well as tythings had definite police functions to perform: when a crime was committed, information had to be at once given to the hundred-men and tythingmen of the district, and it was their duty to pursue, arrest, and bring to justice all peace-breakers. ”

“ There are, no doubt, many occasions on which it is desirable to transfer bodies of police from one place to another in order to concentrate the forces of law and order at some threatened or strategic point, but in so doing the danger to be apprehended from the resulting increase of local animus, ought to be taken into account, and adequately provided for. ”

“ The diminution of our police force in so large a State with such difficult communications has had the result that the police force, moved incessantly from one end of the State to the other, never arrives in time to prevent crime! ”

“ No modern institution has been more talked about and written about than that of the police. The police problem is, in all cities, one to which continual thought is given by citizens as well as officials. ”

“ Finally, it is ordained “that it shall be the duty of every citizen to act as a police officer for the detection of offenses and the apprehension of offenders, who shall be immediately handed over to the proper captain or chief of patrol.” ”

“ 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 ”

“ 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. ”

“ Shall we substitute for an institution so noble, so admirable, a changeable police, whose numbers can be extended or curtailed at pleasure? Or, shall we have a legion of agents, who will be discharged the moment they are thought past service? It is generally known that the police of safety is recruited even at the present time from the prisons and Bagnes, which are a sort of preparatory school for spies on robbers, and the nursery whence they must be drawn. ”

“ With the central government corrupt, the superior courts venal, the upper classes of society prone to violence, and the masses for the most part unacquainted with justice, the sixteenth century would have found a good police force according to our standard, about as useful and as easy of comprehension as they would an Edison's phonograph or a modern treatise on the Spectrum Analysis. ”

“ Now, when a police officer undertakes to investigate a crime, he is possessed and saturated with the thoughts and experiences he has with bad people. He is drifting and turning in the way of finding a criminal, magnifying this, minimizing that, throwing himself on this side in order to catch somebody, standing before a community that demands the detection and punishment of the criminal, blamed if he does not get somebody into the lockup before morning. “What are the police doing?” says the newspaper, and the newspapers, you know, are not always right, mostly. ”

“ Police as News Gatherers.—As a matter of fact, a paper has comparatively few paid men on its staff, though it has hundreds of non-paid watchers who are just as faithful. The police are the chief of these. As every reporter knows, a policeman is compelled to make to his captain a full and prompt report of every fire, robbery, murder, accident, or mishap involving loss of, or danger to, life or property occurring on his beat. This report is made to the local precinct or station, whence it is telephoned to police headquarters. ”

“ The core function of the police, crime prevention and detection, cannot be neglected. Particularly now, with the increased need for a multi-ethnic well trained police force in action all over the country, we must address this problem immediately. ”

“ 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. ”

“ And just so you'll know how much that is, there are only 550,000 police officers in America. So with these 100,000 all going on the streets, that's about a 20 percent increase in the police forces of America to keep our people safer. ”

“ In each country the police are organised on a different principle, and act in the execution of their duty on a different code of rules. In all cases, for instance, of mendicancy, drunkenness, brawling, and disorder, the initiative rests practically with the police, and it depends almost entirely on the instructions issued to the police whether such offences shall figure largely or not in the statistics of crime. ”

“ Let us consider first the constitution of the force. The whole body of police is small compared with that of other large cities, and in proportion to the mixed, turbulent public it controls—only one to 500 souls ”

“ In the largest cities there are about 20 policemen for every 10,000 people, in smaller cities only 10 or 12. Why is this? Is the number of arrests made by a policeman an indication of his efficiency? Scandals are frequent in the police departments of large cities and this is sometimes explained by saying that the police are exposed to more temptations than any other city officials. ”

“ It is obvious, therefore, that an effective police, by making [407] the profession of dishonesty difficult and precarious, can remove the principal incentive that makes men criminal.
The circle of police employment is constantly widening, and many of the functions delegated to the Constabulary by Parliament and by local authorities have not been so much as touched upon in this book, which, in a small compass, has endeavoured to trace the main features of police development in England through a great number of years. ”

“ The police agencies — all the way from municipal and state forces to the federal bureaus — are responsible for law enforcement and public safety in this country. I am proud of their efforts, which, in my view, are not fairly characterized by the Court's opinion. ”

“ How is a police force established in any part of Great Britain? If we except the metropolis, where the vast concourse from all parts of the empire unavoidably forced upon government, fourteen years ago, the establishment of a central police, since found to be attended with such [Pg 536] admirable effects, it is every where set on foot by the voluntary act of the inhabitants, or a certain portion of them, in a peculiar manner cognizant of the necessity which exists for such an addition to the means of public defence. ”

“ The police, a body of men selected primarily to preserve order, protect life, prevent crime, apprehend the criminal, and perform other administrative duties—men perhaps wholly unfitted as a body for anything else—have been expected to solve, by legislation, problems which have confounded the wisest from the time whereof the memory of man runneth not to the contrary. ”

“ The law being powerless to prevent crime, and the police being unable to give protection, people exerted themselves to safeguard their own interests in their own way; shopkeepers combined to provide patrols to watch the fronts of their shops, householders armed themselves for the defence of their houses, whilst steel man-traps and spring-guns were set up in gardens and coverts. ”

“ Since the ideal standard of excellence aimed at by every properly constituted police force is the complete prevention of crime, and as there can be no record of offences prevented, it is obviously impossible to arrive at an entirely satisfactory conclusion as to the efficiency of police by means of any arithmetical process. ”

“ The Police, besides fulfilling the ordinary duties of a constabulary, such as the preservation of law and order and the detection and prevention of crime, act, as far as their numbers will allow, as escorts for the protection of tax-collectors, serve summonses issued by the judicial authorities, distribute Government notices, and escort Governrnent treasure throughout the country. ”

“ On my representation, a commission was appointed to examine into the principles of the organisation of a general police force, and on its preventive as well as repressive action.- We found that the estimated number of some hundred thousand persons living by depredation as well as by mendicancy, from whom the population of the prisons as well as of reformatories is kept up, was chiefly migratory, and that migration, from one end of the kingdom to the other, required the corresponding extent of action of a police force. ”

“ They are like a great many bodies of police that you find in all communities. Policemen are human, made out of men, and nothing else, and the blue coat and the brass buttons only cover the kind of a man that is inside. ”

“ He knows the ins and outs of the police department better than one or two of the billy-toters that pass for policemen. For patrol duty he is first-class. He can run with the flying thief, or jump fences with the light-footed crap-shooter, and is always handy and willing. ”

“ Further, in the action of the police there is never any uniformity, and while certain police districts are devastated by the massacres under the eyes of a considerable constabulary force, others remain almost untouched owing to the protection of the police, who perform their duties conscientiously and energetically. ”

“ The country, in fact, too often had to witness the ridiculous spectacle of a Legislature solemnly filling the Statute Book with elaborate enactments, whilst the constables whose duty it was to see the law enforced, were quietly going about their own business, following the plough, or minding the shop. English police was in truth at a low ebb, and the inevitable consequences of such a feeble executive quickly followed; bullies and blackguards of every kind overran the realm, and the weak had no rights except such as the strong chose to leave them. ”

“ I intend, if you do not tell me what you're up to, to call for an officer, give you in charge, and tell the police that, if they choose to send down a gentleman in plain clothes to your place, and put out the gentleman you've left there, they'll soon get plenty of evidence of your trade, and catch the whole gang of you. ”

“ The Union shall establish police cooperation involving all the Member States' competent authorities, including police, customs and other specialised law enforcement services in relation to the prevention, detection and investigation of criminal offences. ”

“ Under the military régime espionage was encouraged, and the new functionaries received special [129] instructions to watch carefully such persons as appeared to live beyond their means. At the same time better protection for the public highways was provided, sheriffs being ordered to apprehend vagrants, robbers and highwaymen throughout their respective districts, with the assistance, if necessary, of the military police ”

“ So the State, while busy about protecting life and property, will allow its officer of police to perform any useful office for the community, to instruct a wayfarer as to his road, or tell the passer by what o'clock it is, provided it does not interfere with his watching the pickpocket, or laying the strong hand upon the assassin. ”