Peel’s Principles of Law Enforcement
Something all Americans should be aware of, and aren’t. I wasn’t. Helen Dale pointed it out on Facebook, and we Americans had to confess ignorance. “Christ on a skateboard,” said Helen.
Sir Robert Peel ‘s Principles of Law Enforcement 1829
- The basic mission for which police exist is to prevent crime and disorder as an alternative to the repression of crime and disorder by military force and severity of legal punishment.2. The ability of the police to perform their duties is dependent upon public approval of police existence, actions, behaviour and the ability of the police to secure and maintain public respect.3. The police must secure the willing cooperation of the public in voluntary observance of the law to be able to secure and maintain public respect.
4. The degree of cooperation of the public that can be secured diminishes, proportionately, to the necessity for the use of physical force and compulsion in achieving police objectives.
5. The police seek and preserve public favour, not by catering to public opinion, but by constantly demonstrating absolutely impartial service to the law, in complete independence of policy, and without regard to the justice or injustice of the substance of individual laws; by ready offering of individual service and friendship to all members of society without regard to their race or social standing, by ready exercise of courtesy and friendly good humour; and by ready offering of individual sacrifice in protecting and preserving life.
6. The police should use physical force to the extent necessary to secure observance of the law or to restore order only when the exercise of persuasion, advice and warning is found to be insufficient to achieve police objectives; and police should use only the minimum degree of physical force which is necessary on any particular occasion for achieving a police objective.
7. The police at all times should maintain a relationship with the public that gives reality to the historic tradition that the police are the public and the public are the police; the police are the only members of the public who are paid to give full-time attention to duties which are incumbent on every citizen in the intent of the community welfare.
8. The police should always direct their actions toward their functions and never appear to usurp the powers of the judiciary by avenging individuals or the state, or authoritatively judging guilt or punishing the guilty.
9. The test of police efficiency is the absence of crime and disorder, not the visible evidence of police action in dealing with them.
There is some doubt as to whether these are Peel’s words. Wikipedia has a different version:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peelian_principles
“Basic mission” does not sound to me like a phrase from 1829.
They probably weren’t Peel but they or something like them has nevertheless formed the fundamental basis of policing in the UK since the 1830s. Until now…
Huge contrast between Peel’s London police force, and the more typical quasi-military organization elsewhere. Spain’s Guardia Civil, the French gendarmerie, hell even the RCMP were all initially cavalry units. The French and Spanish to crush civil unrest and the Canadians to patrol the border of an aggressive, expansionist United States.
The English public was extremely hostile towards the police force when Peel set it up because they thought only foreigners like Prussians went in for that kind of thing. The police were really only accepted and respected in the second half of the nineteenth century.
The police at the airports are armed like the Terminator and it’s always a jolt to see them.
This is still the ideal of the various police forces in the UK. It’s an ideal that may only rarely be attained but it remains the philosophy to be aspired to.
What admirable principles of law enforcement. However there’s an obvious problem at #6 when a
police force is faced with a militarised civilian population armed with semi-automatic weapons.
Admirable indeed. It reminds me of the themes running through Terry Pratchett’s Vimes novels.
I worry very deeply when police officers refer to non-police as ‘civilians’, as though they’re not themselves civilians. Pratchett slathered this point on with a trowel, and rightly so. The horrifying hardware that police (even here in the UK) like to drape themselves with (they don’t quite have tanks yet, but it’s only a matter of time) aside, police are increasingly becoming tools of government rather than of law. That is an absolutely terrible idea. We’ve all seen where that leads, but we (collectively) seem to take giant leaps in that direction with evident glee.
Curiously, when I worked for the Fire Brigade (christ – close to 30 years ago now) they called non-brigade staff like me and members of the public who were not fire officers “civilians”. It was less worrying than police officers thinking they’re not civilians, but worrying enough.
‘Civilian’ or not, I think I did various fairly good computery things for the particular Fire Brigade I worked for. But all I was remembered for was picking a fire station lock because something inside was urgently needed and nobody else knew what to do, then being made to teach all the senior officers how to pick locks. All kinds of locks. Office doors, desk drawers, filing cabinets, handcuffs…. I asked whether they wanted to get into, say, smashed up cars or burning buildings, but it was mostly office-based stuff they were interested in. I feel slightly uncomfortable about that now.
Fortunately, it was classified as gumption rather than larceny. Surreal, though. I doubt I’ll ever forget me, a kid employed to do something entirely different, standing over the chief and deputy chief of that fire brigade while I taught them to pick locks. Did I say I feel uncomfortable about that now?
latsot, if it makes you feel any better, I once bought a book on how to pick locks. I wasn’t interested in burgling; I just thought it was a skill that might come in handy sometime.
(Unfortunately–or fortunately, depending on how you look at it–the book was full of technical terms and I couldn’t figure the damn thing out. So my lock-picking skills are nonexistent.)
latsot,
Police ‘like to drape themselves’ with hardware because the civilian population, particularly in the US, with some states insane firearms laws, is becoming increasingly dangerous because it’s so well-armed. Any police officer, in the West, could be confronted by someone armed with a semi-automatic or even an automatic weapon. They naturally become somewhat wary. Anyone who has used semi-automatic firearms understands how lethal they are.
Ultimately any democratic society gets the police force it deserves. An unarmed police force enforcing the law in an unarmed society seems ideal, however it’s a fantasy, rather like Pratchett’s novels.