OnPolicing Blog

I recently came across the following speech about policing. I’d heard it many times before, but I never recognized how profound it truly is. I’m paraphrasing it slightly here.

The world grows smaller every day, and the threat of harm by any group, anywhere, can no longer be tolerated. There must be security for all, or no one is secure. Now, this does not mean giving up any freedom, except the freedom to act irresponsibly. Our ancestors knew this when they made laws to govern themselves and hired policemen to enforce them. We have long accepted this principle. We have a criminal justice system for the mutual protection of all citizens and for the elimination of harm. The test of any such higher authority is, of course, the police force that supports it. For our policemen, their function is to patrol the community and preserve the peace. In matters of community harm, we have given them awesome power over us—the power to deny one’s liberty, and in some cases, deny one’s life.

Recognize it?

The speaker of this passage is the alien Klaatu from the 1951 science fiction film classic The Day the Earth Stood Still. The most recent time I saw it, the words struck me in a way that they hadn’t before, particularly the line that immediately follows the above passage: “This power cannot be revoked.”

We know the opposite to be true in our case. The real power of the police, on an individual level as well as on an institutional one, is the ability to act as a legitimate arm of government and, by extension, the people themselves. This power can indeed be revoked, and in many places across the country, it is being formally revoked. In far more places, however, it is being informally invoked on both the individual and community level. For countless reasons, segments of these communities see the police providing security for some but not for all. The result, metaphorically speaking, is security for none from their perspective.

It is also true that most of the 18,000 law enforcement agencies and the nearly one million law enforcement officers carry out their service to the public in a manner that supports the foundation of police legitimacy. We regularly ask the public to find comfort in this fact when police abuse of power is in the national spotlight, such as the July 6, 2024, killing of Sonya Massey near Springfield, Illinois.

I fear the effectiveness of this approach is nearing its end. The misconduct of one is now resulting in the public questioning the conduct of all. The world is indeed growing smaller every day. I do not know the answer to this problem, but I do know that awareness is the first step—awareness of the reality that our power comes from the public and, therefore, can be revoked by the public. Consequently, the answer to this problem, whatever the answer ends up being, must involve the public.

Ideally, it should be led by the public. For example, in 2018, the Texas state legislature passed the Community Safety Education Act that requires high school students, driver’s license applicants, and the police to receive instruction on how to interact with each other during traffic and pedestrian stops. The curriculum also includes instruction on community expectations of police behavior, citizen rights, and how to file a complaint against an officer. The bill was sponsored by an African American Democratic representative of the 23rd Senatorial District, Royce West, to define expectations of behavior for both the public and the police and to “make certain that the trust factor between law enforcement and citizens is stronger than ever.” This proactive approach was driven by the public versus the more usual response of implementing a reactionary measure when police were blamed.

This Act is the kind of forward-looking approach that focuses on prevention—seeking to stop future problems from occurring and ensuring that police legitimacy, not police force, remains the profession’s foundation of power.

I think Klaatu would approve.