“As a sworn officer, my fundamental duty is to serve the community by safeguarding . . . against threats that could. . . impact peace and order. I will uphold the Constitution and honor the rights of all to life, liberty, equality, and justice. I will never employ unnecessary force. I will respect the privacy of people and communities that I serve, and I will fully obey the laws that I am sworn to enforce.” [1]
This is part of the first paragraph of the Police Code of Ethics from the International Association of Chiefs of Police, written in 1957. It broadly defines the necessity, purpose, and constraints of officers as they perform their duties both in the field and in the office. Police officers swear to keep the peace and maintain high moral standing, especially while in uniform.
In the last decade or so, several instances of police brutality have been highlighted by the media. In response to some police brutality, people have rioted in protest, pushing for police reform. The media’s portrayal of officers has been a disservice to the men and women who serve in uniform to protect domestic peace. Their job is to preserve peace, and the vast majority of the 750,000 law enforcement officers in the United States do just that [2]. Assuming the system is broken because of certain tragic events—which are genuinely awful and should never have happened in the first place—is a far cry from reality.
Calls for Reform and Their Results
A memorable police reform movement occurred after the death of George Floyd in 2020. In response to police brutality, 20 states had riots, resulting in an estimated $1 billion in damages, based on insurance claim reports [3]. With public calls to defund the police and to increase police accountability, Congress drafted a bill to standardize reforms, including lowering the standard for police to be convicted of misconduct, limiting unnecessary use of force, building a national record database for officer misconduct, and allowing the Department of Justice to make standards for police training. This bill barely passed the House and got stuck in the Senate, where it died [4].
Other reforms proposed after George Floyd included body cameras, bias training, restriction of force, and civilian oversight boards. Generally, they were intended to improve peacekeeping, but have had little effect on police behavior and accountability. Body cameras, for instance, have caused little to no substantive difference in the use of force by officers or against officers [5]. Civilian oversight boards have floundered without sufficient power to make changes, and they can even negatively affect trust between police and the public, even though they were created to do the opposite [6]. Bias training programs were already around before George Floyd, with around 70% of large police agencies using them by 2019 [7]. Reforms have only shown that police have already built a system of high-quality training that keeps officers accountable. Any officer who does not follow their respective area’s police regulations does so in violation of the training they have already received.
Yes, there are still officers who do things wrong. And yes, there is an indication that race can contribute to how officers treat civilians [8]. That, however, is not an indication that an already highly regulated system requires more heavy-handed reforms. The public can be outraged by bad cops, but “no one hates a bad cop more than the good cops” [9].
How Policing Works Today
In the US, cops contact around 135,000 people every day. Of that, fewer than 2% result in any form of physical altercation [9]. While 2,700 physical altercations in the country are nothing to discount, police are generally trained to de-escalate potentially physical interactions, use non-lethal force, and protect people’s lives [10]. They are extensively trained to make split-second decisions intended to maintain peace. Some police are required to undergo the same kind of training they use to incapacitate people who are not compliant or are breaking the law, like tasers and pepper spray [9].
Law enforcement misconduct is treated very seriously. The Civil Rights Division of the Department of Justice, for example, systematically handles any sort of misconduct perpetrated by federal officers and even penalizes officers for having knowledge of misconduct and not reporting it [11]. These processes are meant to keep the peace and be respectful to officers, treating them as fairly as possible in court, just like citizens are treated as fairly as possible. They also ensure police are accomplishing their purpose of maintaining peace and order in our communities.
Domestic Peace
Because of the media, we only think of officers who have caused serious problems to citizens and our nation. Those officers are a minuscule percentage of the officers who work to ensure our homes are protected, our streets are safe, our children are looked after, and our families are whole. While some people have had bad experiences with officers, those experiences are not demonstrative of an institutional illness within the ranks of law enforcement, but rather a symptom of individualistic issues. Officers are people—parents, spouses, siblings, aunts, uncles, sons, and daughters. They do the same things we do, like going to their parents’ home for Sunday dinner and taking their children to soccer practice. They are an integral part of national order and domestic peace, whether they’re in uniform or not. They build peace in their own homes and in our cities. Working alongside these brave men and women is our responsibility, as are our justice and our peace.