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Policing is important – its function is to protect citizens from each other, or citizens from institutions OTHER than the state

Normatively speaking then, the protection of fundamental moral rights - specifically justifiably enforceable moral rights - is the central and most important purpose of police work. As it happens, there is increasing recourse to human rights legislation, in particular, in the decisions of domestic as well as international courts. This is an interesting development. However, it must also be pointed out that the criminal law in many, if not most, jurisdictions already in effect constitutes human rights legislation. Laws proscribing murder, rape, assault and so on, are essentially laws that protect human rights. So it is clear that whatever the historical importance of a "Statist" conception of human rights - human rights as protections of the individual against the State - such a conception is inadequate as a general account of human rights. Human rights, in particular, and moral rights more generally, also exist to protect individual citizens from their fellow citizens, and individual citizens from organisations other than the organisations of the State. Moreover, tort law is also relevant here, e.g. tort law provides for compensation for the unintended infringement of human rights.//// In this connection, please note that we do not say that the protection of (legally enshrined, justifiably enforceable) moral rights ought to be the only goal of policing; merely that it ought to be the central and most important goal, and that other important roles derive from it. Here it is important to note that we are rejecting the dichotomy sometimes offered between police as law enforcers and police as peace-keepers. Both roles are important, but our account shows why they are important. Law enforcement is important mainly because laws embody moral rights. Likewise, peace-keeping is important in large part because disorder typically consists of, or is a prerequisite for, violations of moral rights, including rights to security of person and of property.//// Moreover, there are numerous service roles that police play, and ought to continue to play, because they consist of, or facilitate, their central and most important role of protecting moral rights. Consider, in this connection, police assistance in relation to missing persons who might have come in harm's way, or assisting drunks who might otherwise harm themselves1 3 or be harmed.

Policing is an inevitable/necessary part of the U.S. state

ETERNO associate dean and director of gradiate studies @ Molloy College 2010 (John, PhD in criminal justice from SUNY Albany, is also retired captain of NYPD, managing editor of Police Practice and Research: An International Journal, author of Policing Within the Law: A Case Study of the New York City Police Department (2003), has published in various journals including The International Journal of Police Science and Management, Women and Criminal Justice, Justice Research and Policy, etc, “Policing in the United States: Balancing Crime Fighting and Legal Rights”, in Eterno & Das (eds) Police Practices in Global Perspective, p5., note://// indicates par. breaks)[AR SPRING16]

Policing in any nation is an inextricable and essential aspect of the existing government. The government of the United States is an elected democracy. It is a tripartite system including legislative, executive, and judicial branches. Essentially, the legislature creates the laws, the executive is charged with enforcing laws, and the judiciary interprets the laws. At the federal level these branches are the president, Congress, and federal courts (the highest court being the United States Supreme Court). Because the founding fathers of the U.S. (the authors and supporters of the Constitution of the United States) feared tyranny, no branch of government has unlimited power. That is, the branches of government check and balance one another. As James Madison writes in The Federalist Papers (No. 48), "An elective despotism was not the government we fought for; but one which should not only be founded on free principles, but in which the powers of government should be so divided and balanced among several bodies of magistracy as that no one could transcend their legal limits without being effectually checked and restrained by the others." Americans, taken as a whole, cherish these limits and the freedoms that come with them.

Police exist for any industrial society and have increased relevance in larger, more heterogeneous societies. Important to distinguish police as they function under non-democratic regimes vs as part of a democracy

MARX professor emeritus @ MIT, specializes in race, ethnicity, collective behavior, and social movements 2001 (Gary, author of Protest and Peace, Undercover:Police Surveillance in America, various edited or co-edited books, and various journal articles, “Police and Democracy”, in M. Amir and S Einsten (eds) Policing, Security and Democracy: Theory and Practice Vol 2, note: the text is taken from Gary Marx’s MIT url and is there cited as being the version that appears in the edited book, url accessed 4/23/16, http://web.mit.edu/gtmarx/www/dempol.html, note://// indicates par. breaks)[AR SPRING16]

Democracy, whether viewed as a process or an end condition, is defined by broad values involving participation and formal rules about procedures such as elections. But for most persons most of the time these are removed from daily life. That is not true for the police, the agency of government that citizens are most likely to see and have contact with.//// All industrial societies use police to control crime and to contribute to public order (e.g., mediating and arbitrating disputes, regulating traffic and helping in emergencies). But the organizational condtions conditions under which police operate, the means they use and the ends they seek vary greatly between democratic and non-democratic societies, even as there are overlapping areas involving the control function of policing.//// One element in defining a democratic society is a police force that://// 1. is subject to the rule of law embodying values respectful of human dignity, rather than the wishes of a powerful leader or party//// 2. can intervene in the life of citizens only under limited and carefully controlled circumstances and//// 3. is publicly accountable./// These conditions are inherent to police in a democracy. As inherent are ongoing myths. For example, //// It is a myth that all that stands between total chaos and social order is the police. Social order has multiple sources. These include socialization to norms, a desire to have others think well of us, reciprocity, self-defense and the design of the physical environment. Yet police are an important factor. Their importance increases with the heterogeneity and size of a society as well as with the more recent globalization of the world..//// A defining characteristic of police is their mandate to legally use force and to deprive citizens of their liberty. This power is bound to generate opposition from those who are subject to it. It also offers great temptations for police abuse and abuse on behalf of the authorities controlling them. Law enforcement requires a delicate balancing act. The conflicts between liberty and order receive their purest expression in considerations of democratic policing., which is not necessarily equivalent to 'policing in a democracy'. For example until recently South Africa had many of the trappings of a democratic society for white citizens, but its policing was highly undemocratic. One can also imagine a monarchy rather than a republic, in which the police are none-the-less broadly accountable to law and the public and police power is llimited and consistent with values such as those in the U.N.’s Universal Declaration of Human Rights. The general political framework of a country involving the means of choosing leaders and establishing rules may show a degree of independence from the organization and activities of police even though there is some link between them..//// It is ironic that police are both a major support and a major threat to a democratic society. When police operate under the rule of law they may protect democracy by their example of respect for the law and by suppressing crime. Police are moral, as well as legal, actors.//// But apart from the rule of law and public accountability, the police power to use force, engage in summary punishment, use covert surveillance, and to stop, search and arrest citizens, can be usedbe used to support dictatorial regimes, powerful vested interest groups and practices. When non-democratic regimes are toppled a prominent demand is always for the elimination of the secret police. The term "police state" as represented by Germany under National Socialism and the former Soviet Union under communism suggests the opposite of a democratic state. Police are subservient to a single party, not a legislature or judiciary. The policing of crime and politics merge and political dissent becomes a crime. Here the police function may not be clearly differentiated from and may overlap that of the security services (e.g., as with the military or national intelligence agencies). This may also involve cooperation with citizen vigilante groupsgroups or they themselves becoming vigilante groups. groups or the police becoming vigilantes themselves.//// The meaning of the term "police" has changed over the last 5 centuries. The word police comes from polity", meaning the form of government of a political body. In Europe in the 15th century it referred broadly to matters involving life, health and property. There was no distinct police force. Policing was done intermittently by the military and society was largely "un-policed". With the formation of modern states with clear national borders beginning in the 18th century, policing became concerned with internal security With and with the expansion of the law over the next several centuries, police also came to be increasingly concerned with the prevention of public dangers such as crime and disorder … and the prevention or redress of breaches of law. They also themselves came to be more controlled by the law. (Fogelson (1977), Lane (1967), Critchley 1972.)//// There is no simple or widely agreed upon definition of a democratic police. Indeed it is easier to define a non-democratic police and non-democratic police behavior than their opposites. But viewed abstractly all democratic police systems share the ideal that police powers are to be used according to the rule of law and not according to the whims of the ruler or the police agent. The police, as the arm of T the state’s power, must be used in a restrained fashion and proportional to the problem. In the original British model there was to be policing by consent and hence an unarmed police. Ideally citizens would accept police authority out of respect, rather than out of intimidation. (Melville-Lee 1901; Colquon 1969)

Yes, police can further intrude upon liberties, especially with new technology, BUT any society needs BOTH liberty and order, therefore striking the right balance with some form of democratic policing is necessary

MARX professor emeritus @ MIT, specializes in race, ethnicity, collective behavior, and social movements 2001 (Gary, author of Protest and Peace, Undercover:Police Surveillance in America, various edited or co-edited books, and various journal articles, “Police and Democracy”, in M. Amir and S Einsten (eds) Policing, Security and Democracy: Theory and Practice Vol 2, note: the text is taken from Gary Marx’s MIT url and is there cited as being the version that appears in the edited book, url accessed 4/23/16, http://web.mit.edu/gtmarx/www/dempol.html, note://// indicates par. breaks)[AR SPRING16]

An important task of a democratic society is to guard against the misuse of physical , psychological and moral coercion by police as well as to uphold human, civil and social rights and dignity in an equitable manner.. A related task is to guard against the 'softer' forms of unwarranted secret and manipulative control made possible by new technologies. Because these are often subtle, indirect and invisible, this is clearly the more difficult task..//// In his novel 1984 (1998) George Orwell described a society with both violent and nonviolent forms of social control (a boot stomping on a face and Big Brother watching on the video). In linking these two Orwell offered a model based on his experiences during the Spanish Civil War and his observations of the former USSR, Germany, and Italy. Yet in contemporary democratic societies these two forms are increasingly uncoupled, and the latter is in ascendance. Aldous Huxley (1990) in his novel Brave New World emphasized 'softer' forms of control. He may be a better guide to the future than George Orwell (1998).//// To judge current democratic societies only by traditional standards focusing on overt and direct police behavior can result in a vision which is too narrow and an optimism which may be unwarranted. Given powerful new technologies that can silently and invisibly pierce boundaries of distance, darkness, time, and economic and physical barriers that traditionally protected liberty (if also violations), police may become less democratic in their behavior. New information extractive technologies [examples given below] are making it possible to have a society in which significant inroads are made on liberty, privacy and autonomy, even in a relatively nonviolent environment with democratic structures in place.//// In recent decades subtle, seemingly less coercive forms of control have emerged such as video surveillance, computer dossiers, and various forms of biological and electronic monitoring and behavioral and environmental manipulations. Marx 1988, Lyon 1994//// Technology may make police more efficient. Powerful computer data bases that analyze crime patterns may help solve crimes and locate perpetrators, new forms of identification involving DNA or computerized fingerprinting may help convict the guilty and protect the innocent. New technologies may help control police. For example police accountability might be enhanced by the video-taping of all police encounters with citizens. This could serve as a deterrent to misbehavior and offer a new form of evidence in disputed accounts (although it might also mean a more passive police hesitant to innovate or take risks).//// However there is no necessary guarantee that the enhancements of police power offered by new technologies will be used to protect, rather than to undermine democracy, particularly when this can happen so silently and effortlessly. A democratic society must ask the question, "how efficient do we want police to be?" Democratic societies have traditionally been willing to sacrifice a degree of order for increased liberty. Similarly, citizens must seriously ask themselves://// 'What am I willing to give up, or 'suffer' in order to become and remain reasonably protected?//// Democratic societies experience a continual tension between the desire for order and the desire for liberty. Both are essential. While as the case of the police state suggests, one can have the former without the latter, it is not possible to have a society with liberty which does not also have a minimum degree of order. The balance between these will vary depending on the context and time period. Democratic policing seeks to avoid the extremes of either anarchy or repression.

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