The protection and preservation of life must be the highest priority of the police. Now this may sound like the obvious, and it is to those police in democratic societies that practice democratic policing. However, it is not obvious to many police from many different countries. They prioritize things like maintaining order or protecting the government far above that of preservation of life. That is why you have police from countries that routinely indiscriminately fire guns into crowds and cause widespread death and injury. Iran is one of the obvious recent examples but this has also recently happened in India, Nepal, Kenya, and Zimbabwe to name a few. The populace rarely will put up with this for long before uprisings or even insurgencies appear.
Police should always work with integrity and professionalism. This simply means that the police should do the right thing in an acceptable and transparent manner even if they “know” no one is watching. If they continue to operate this way they should have no problems.
It should be clear what the police should (can) and should not (cannot) do. Clear cut policies and guidelines, particularly concerning use of force and when you can and cannot search are so important in policing. See the “Maintaining the Rule of Law” section for a further description of this topic.
All police at times can temporarily detain citizens. It should be noted that all police have the authority to temporarily detain citizens. In most counties some type of reasonable suspicion is needed to temporary detention of movement. However, this may simply be a suspicious person in a suspicious place under suspicious circumstances. Once again – the policies and rules and laws should be clear to the police and citizens when this can take place. Read the rest of this entry »
