Early Roots of Policing

Early roots of policing

During the following pages this paper will discuss Sir Robert Peel and his nine principles of policing. Sir Robert Peel was born on February 5, 1788 and died on July 2, 1850. He had many accomplishments during his life. He was the Conservation Prime Minister of the United Kingdom; he was in the cabinet at Home Secretary. He changed the United Kingdom’s penal code reducing the number of crimes punishable by death. Overall he is considered the father of modern policing. One of his accomplishments was the creating of the nine principles of policing. The nine principles help to show what the police’s roles was in earlier times and this paper will discuss how these principles are still in affect today.

The first principle is: “The basic mission for which the police exist is to prevent crime and disorder.” This is true and false in today’s society. People are split in whether police are to protect and server or to enforce the law. People known that police can never prevent all crime from happening. Since police cannot prevent crimes they find ways to help solve crimes that happen. Departments have everything from patrol officer to computer crimes divisions. Preventing crimes is an important mission for every police officer on duty and off but the main mission must be something a little broader than just prevention.

The next principle is: “The ability of the police to perform their duties is dependent upon public approval of police actions.” I believe that this is as true a statement as it was back then. Public opinion has a great deal of weight for and against a police department. If the public believes that the police are not let people have there constitutional rights they will let it be know by calling the public officials like majors in the area. If enough pressure is put on mayors and other public official they will start to look it to the actions of the police force and change policies to help keep the public happy.

Then “the police must secure the willing co-operation of the public in voluntary observance of the law to be able to secure and maintain the respect of the public.” I believe that is to be true today as much if not more today. As the population in towns gets bigger the police department usually stays the same. If all the citizens started to break the law there would not be enough police to control or enough prison and jail to hold the criminals. The public in general must want to obey the law for the law to work.

The next principle that states “the degree of co-operation of the public that can be secured diminishes proportionately to the necessity of the use of physical force.” I believe that this is also correct today. Look at the Rodney King incident, when people believed that the police used unjustifiable force they started to act out and break laws themselves. If things continued down the path it was going at that time it would be hard for the police to gain control of the city back.

The fifth principle states “Police seek and preserve public favour not by catering to public opinion but by constantly demonstrating absolute impartial service to the law.” I believe whole heartily that police should be an impartial service in the communities they work. Police should be there to arrest people who break the law no to harass the people who have done nothing wrong.

“Police 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 is the next