In universal human history police forces are a relatively recent novelty and a departure from long confirmed, proven and established social conventions. Unfortunately, due to a widespread ignorance of history, modern police forces today have become entrenched in society. We cannot conceive of living without them. Having not learned from the past, we are condemned to be imprisoned in the errors of the present. As a consequence of modern policing, society is weaker and more vulnerable than ever before.
How did this come about? Firstly, let us argue the case on modern police forces having the unintended consequence of making society weaker and more vulnerable.
In the days after 9/11, when commercial flights re-commenced in the US, a story is told of a flight captain addressing the passengers before takeoff. Naturally, everyone was nervous, wondering if terrorists with box-cutters might be on the flight. The captain said, “Up here in the cockpit, we are going to be doing our duty. No-one will be allowed through the cockpit doors. We will be flying this plane. We will be doing our duty. If anything happens back in the cabin, I expect all of you to do your duty.”
No policeman on the plane. What then? The captain “empowered” the passengers with an authority to enforce cease, desist and arrest orders on any passenger who stepped out of line or did anything illegal. The captain was authorising the passengers to used necessary force. Note also, however, the captain's admonition that the passengers were to do their duty.
Before the invention of the modern police force every citizen was understood to have a duty—an obligation of citizenship—to identify and apprehend and, if necessary, (in such cases where life was threatened and self-defence was appropriate) kill people committing criminal acts. Every citizen was required not only to uphold the law themselves, but to ensure that everyone else in their circle did also.
This is a fundamentally Christian concept. Self-responsibility leads to expectations and requirements with respect to self-government. Self government leads to expectations and duties concerning the government and protection of one's family, kin, and neighbours. Duties to protect friends, family, and neighbours included, necessarily, duties to identify and apprehend criminals, or those who were threatening the life, limb, or property of family, friends, kin, and neighbours.
Then along came that innovation, the modern police force. The idea behind a professional full-time police force is that it would concentrate resources, enhance professionalism and expertise, and make the capturing of criminals more effective and efficient. It was also rationalised to be a protection for citizens. A corollary of the modern police force is that it is to have a monopoly on the legitimate use of physical force (an astute observation by Max Weber). No longer need a citizen be lumbered with an obligation and duty to apprehend criminals: the police force would take over and do it for him. This would make him safer.
As time passed, the duty of every citizen to identify and apprehend criminals was occluded. The police force saw itself as a monopolistic entity controlling all elements of policing. (Governments always have tendencies towards monopolistic behaviour). The special expertise of the police force was glossed into a universal belief of the incompetence of non-police—that is, the public. The ideology of the police evolved to where it regularly warns citizens against “taking matters into their own hands.”
In former times, the admonition “not to take the law into your own hands” meant that no-one had the right to be judge, jury and executioner. If a criminal were apprehended by the citizenry, he had to be handed over to the judicial authorities for trial. Now, under modern police ideology, that admonition has been changed and extended. “Not taking the law into your own hands” today means not doing anything (except contacting the police) to apprehend criminals.
It began with citizens saying to the police, “We are delegating our duties and responsibilities to lay hands on criminals and offenders to you.” It has ended with the police saying to the citizens, “you have no hands.” Now it has gone even further: if citizens do take direct action against criminals, the police are almost certain to prosecute them for criminal behaviour. The citizens duty to self-police has now become a crime in itself. The police have a monopoly upon force.
The consequences are blindingly obvious to all who stop and think about it. The community is eviscerated, it believes as it has been repeatedly told, that it is weak and vulnerable and incompetent. The use of force is certainly evil, and in almost all cases a crime. The community is now as weak and vulnerable as the police have been prophesying. Consequently a result of having a professional police force is that our communities become more vulnerable, weak, intimidated, threatened and violated by criminals. A second consequence is that crime is institutionalised. Career criminals prosper. Gangs are laws unto themselves. The police square off against the professional criminals for their perpetual wargames. The playing field is the backs of citizens and communities. The citizens are incompetent to do anything except sit there and take it.
A second consequence is that public disrespect and resentment of the police festers. Police boasts about offering comprehensive universal protection are seen as empty. They are regarded as incompetent, stupid, bumbling, bureaucratic, self-important, arrogant, out of touch, defensive, and generally ineffective. Why is this? Because police ideology has led them to over promise and under deliver. Police ideology arouses public expectations which it can never meet. As a consequence, the community generally regards the police as a failure. This is a great shame, but an inevitable result of modern police ideology.
Think about this. In a Christian social framework, when a member of the public complained about police ineffectiveness, the wider public and the police issued a legitimate counter challenge to the complainant: “OK, what are you doing about it. Are you doing your duty?” In modern Athenian society no such counter challenge is possible: the police simply have to wear the charge. Police ideology leaves them with no counter-argument or defence. The result: widespread cynicism about the police.
Every so often a dose of sanity dusts down upon the edifice of police ideology. It dawns on the police monopolists that they are incapable of protecting all citizens twenty-four seven. While the sanity dust lasts, the police realise that universal and comprehensive policing is a utopian idealist myth. They realise they need help. So, the police introduce programmes such as neighbourhood watch groups. But these wax and then wane. Why? Because you cannot grow an island of accountability and responsibility on a sea of dis-empowerment and community irresponsibility. You cannot talk out of both sides of your mouth and be credible.
The prescription to bring long lasting change is not hard to discern.
1. The ideology of the modern police force needs to be tossed out the window.
2. Both the government and the police need to acknowledge that they are incompetent to deal with crime and protect the citizens, without the universal mobilisation of all citizens against crime.
3.Citizens need to be confronted with their fundamental duties and responsibilities of citizenship, which include the duties of protection of life and limb of self, family, kin, and neighbours. They need to be charged repeatedly to carry out these duties.
4.Citizens need to be given immunity from prosecution if they employ reasonable force in protecting themselves and apprehending criminals. Any prosecution of a citizen that may occasionally result from using force in their protection of life or property, or in the apprehension of a person committing a crime, must be tried by a jury of their peers, who will determine “reasonableness.” In other words, the test is a common-sense one: “If I were in that situation, would it have been reasonable for me to do xxx.”
5.The police force needs to be reduced in size and restructured to focus on a role of supplementing citizens in their policing activity, not replacing them.
Will modern Athens heed the prescription? Of course not. Athens does not believe in individual responsibility—therefore, it has no foundation upon which to build a belief and ethic of self-government, family government, and neighbourhood government.
No, modern Athens will do what it always does. Faced with policing failures and inadequacies, it will throw more tax payers money at the problem. More money. More waste. No progress. Crime will not abate. Communities will continue to be preyed upon.
And that's OK. It's karma. After all, in darwinist theology, the weak and the vulnerable must be preyed upon, in order that the more fit of the species may emerge.
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