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In his legislation, Peel suggested
nine principles that would govern his police force:
1. To prevent crime and
disorder, as an alternative to their repression by military force and by
severity of legal punishment.
2. To recognize always that the power
of the police to fulfill their functions and duties is dependent on
public approval of their existence, actions and behavior.
3. To recognize always that to secure and
maintain the respect and approval of the public means also to secure the
willing co-operation of the public in the task of their observance of
laws.
4. To recognize always that the extent
to which the co-operation of the public can be secured, diminishes
proportionately with the necessity of the use of physical force and
compulsion for achieving police objectives.
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5. To seek and preserve public
favor,
not by pandering to public opinion, but by constantly demonstrating
absolutely impartial service to law, in complete independence of policy
and without regard to the justice or injustices of the substance of
individual laws. By ready offering of individual service and
friendship to all members of the public without regard to their wealth
or social standing. By ready exercise of courtesy and friendly
good humor, and by ready offering of sacrifice in protecting and
preserving life.
6. To use physical force only when the
exercise of persuasion, advice and warning is found to be insufficient
to obtain public co-operation to an extent necessary to secure
observance of law or to restore order. To use only the minimum
degree of physical force which is necessary on any particular occasion
for achieving a police objective.
7. To maintain at all times a
relationship with the public that gives reality to the historic
tradition that the police are the public and that the public are the
police. The police being only members of the public who are paid
to give full-time attention to duties which are incumbent on every
citizen, in the interests of community welfare and existence.
8. To recognize always the need for
strict adherence to police executive functions and to refrain from even
seeming to usurp the powers of the judiciary or avenging individuals of
the state, or authoritatively judging guilt and punishing the
guilty.
9. To recognize always that the test
of police efficiency is the absence of crime and disorder, and not the
visible evidence of police action in dealing with them.
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