The Mission
Policing in the 1980s and the early 1990s had lost its way. There was an underlying assumption that crime rates were based on the level of social indicators or dysfunction in a community; things like the amount of poverty, education, drug use, or family dysfunction. Police leaders believed they could make a difference when a serious offence took place and they worked hard to put the bad guy in jail, but for overall safety, police were there to just "hold the line". When I was in charge of a district at VPD, my commercial Break and Enter rate doubled in one quarter. A detective phoned me and asked if I had noticed the problem (I sadly had not). No boss that I reported up to noticed the crime wave.
I watched closely as NYPD Commissioner William Bratton announced that the NYPD could make a community safe. [1] In his short two-year time in that office (1994 to 1996), New York's crime rate dropped by 75%. They had been provided an influx of new members and put in place a number of innovative strategies. Many of these strategies were developed by Deputy Commissioner Jack Maple.[2] Bratton said words to this effect: It turns out that crime is caused by people, and people can be stopped.
There is reporting that there were some issues with how this was done. Putting lots of pressure on police to reduce crime without being very careful that members colour inside the lines can lead to problems. There were also lessons about what worked and what did not. The principle though was clear, police could reduce crime and make a community safe. To do that, police leaders needed to keep their eye on the ball.
My thesis is this. The mission of first responders is to make or keep the people in their community safe. Mission statements amongst first responder agencies often include a lot of different ideas that are very lovely, but are not actually about the mission.
In 2008, the mission of the Abbotsford Police Department became (and still is): To Make Abbotsford the safest City in BC. We debated making it: To Make Abbotsford Safe. The four extra words make the mission measurable.
I just read the strategic plan of a major Canadian police service. It did not contain a mission statement nor did it not contain any commitment to making the community safe. It had all the important values and commitment to community you could ever want. That is all essential. However, and respectfully, what the community really needs to be is safe. Keep your eye on the ball.
It may seem trite to go back to this, but the first truly civilian police service in Europe was the London Metropolitan Police Force, established by Sir Robert Peel in 1829. He became known as the "Father of Modern Policing." His people established a list of policing principles that remain as central to the mission of policing today as they were two centuries ago.
Peel Got It Right
Sir Robert Peel and his team put together the first real civilian police service – London, 1829. He and his team came up with 9 principles:
All of these principles remain fundamental. It amazes me the first truly civilian police service in the western world got this much right.
Look again at the first five words, To prevent crime and disorder, and to the last principle, that the test of police efficiency is the absence of crime and disorder.
To be sure, the principles include the need to hold the public trust, to understand that police are part of the community and that integrity in the performance of duties is essential. Police cannot make a community safe without effective partnerships with their community and the trust of the public.
But the mission is to make the community safe. That is best done by preventing crime. Investigating crime and bringing people to justice is essential, but wherever possible, it is better to have prevented the crime rather than investigating it.
I once read a person's critique after my attempt to teach leadership to a group of investigators. I had confessed to them that I was not as accomplished at investigating as they were. The person wrote that I had no credibility because being an investigator is all that police do. I remain discouraged that I failed to get through to that person about our real role in society.
To prevent crime and disorder, as an alternative to their repression by military force and severity of legal punishment.
To recognize always that the power of the police to fulfill their functions and duties is dependent on public approval of their existence, actions and behavior, and on their ability to secure and maintain public respect.
To recognize always that to secure and maintain the respect and approval of the public means also the securing of the willing cooperation of the public in the task of securing observance of laws.
To recognize always that the extent to which the cooperation of the public can be secured diminishes proportionately the necessity of the use of physical force and compulsion for achieving police objectives.
To seek and preserve public favor, not by pandering to public opinion, but by constantly demonstrating absolute impartial service to 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 the public without regard to their wealth or social standing, by ready exercise of courtesy and friendly good humor, and by ready offering of individual sacrifice in protecting and preserving life.
To use physical force only when the exercise of persuasion, advice and warning is found to be insufficient to obtain public cooperation to an extent necessary to secure observance of law or to restore order, and to use only the minimum degree of physical force which is necessary on any particular occasion for achieving a police objective.
To maintain at all times a relationship with the public that gives reality to the historic tradition that the police are the public and that the public are the police, the police being only members of the public who are paid to give full-time attention to duties which are incumbent on every citizen in the interests of community welfare and existence.
To recognize always the need for strict adherence to police-executive functions, and to refrain from even seeming to usurp the powers of the judiciary of avenging individuals or the State, and of authoritatively judging guilt and punishing the guilty.
To recognize always that the test of police efficiency is the absence of crime and disorder, and not the visible evidence of police action in dealing with them.