Preservation of the public peace

Preservation of the public peace is the most important duty the police perform. However, this does not mean that preservation of the peace is necessarily synonymous with all other police duties.

Police departments maintain the public peace by pre­venting riots, mobs and other unlawful assemblages, and by ensuring to every citizen the rights guaranteed to him in the Constitution and in the laws of his state. These are the broad, general objectives intended in the term "the pres­ervation of the peace".

In a practical way, police officers preserve the peace by attending to the thousand and one little things that come to their attention each day. These range all the way from complaints about children, to violations of minor regula­tory measures. Differences between neighbours arise, too, and it frequently takes a Solomonlike arbiter to settle the questions satisfactorily.

Not one of the average officer’s problems is significant in itself but, taken together, they are sometimes sufficiently provocative to cause a serious breach of the peace.

The most important work done by the police in preserving quiet and good order, however, results simply from the police being in existence. People are reluctant to tamper with the law or to take advantage of their neighbours when they know that justice will be done. It is for this reason that police departments today strive to establish the reputation of in­vincibility, and to instill in the potential violator’s mind a conviction that he cannot get away with it.

This kind of public education by the police contributes more to law observance and general maintenance of the peace than anything else that is done.

Дата добавления: 2015-09-01