8 ms·

The Little Cards That Tell Police 'Let's Forget This Ever Happened' (2020)

61 points by felurx 4y ago

felurx 4y ago
I saw this in a comment by drewrv on another submission: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=33616641 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=33616641
mc32 4y ago
Personally, I think discretion, as long as it’s not abused, should be available to decision makers. Strict unbending rules are not ideal. In other words a little abuse is acceptable, a lot of abuse should not. I’m sure some people are uncomfortable with that. However I feel that lack of latitude leans tyrannical and fascistic. Most counties I’ve been to permit police latitude (and in some cases way more than a little latitude) and there are places where a victim can decide on civil consequence (receive $$) or proceed with criminal case (potential jail time).
- giraffe_lady 4y ago
  This view really only works if you consider the police as a whole a respectable & valuable workforce, and capricious enforcement to be a deviation from that norm. The problem is if you view the police as they actually act over time, the uncertainty and cruelty is basically designed in. They are part of a long term and slow motion terror campaign against the most vulnerable members of our society. Whatever they should be, that is consistently how they act, and any power we give them should be considered within that reality. There is no power they have ever been granted that they have not chosen to use for tremendous harm and personal gain.
  - mc32 4y ago
    On the whole, I would consider the police a valuable workforce with some reservations. The vast majority are not performing egregious violations of civil rights. What we see in the news are the exceptions. That said, I don't see a usable alternative --even considering the abuse. It's a human system--and maybe a remote robotic AI assisted system would be worse-- so it suffers from human fallibility. A system without police is worse. You will have gangs and vigilantes take over who will be worse than police forces (yes, I know police in Venezuela are indistinguishable from violent gangs --but I'm talking about most police forces in advanced economies). Without a police force you get what we saw in the Wild West and what they got in Somalia --gangs and warlords and outlaws and whatnot. I'm not saying don't strive for improvement -what I am saying is we must allow discretion (an example of what happens with lack of discretion is what happens with mandatory sentencing) Even in China, you want a police force over no police and the police in China are even less concerned with civil rights and offer more discretion to the "right" people. In Russia, I would say it's closer to a draw as they are pretty corrupt, but your gangs are still worse. Thinking in idealistic fashion is an okay exercise but we also need to face reality and the reality is that people cannot "police themselves" adequately.
    - giraffe_lady 4y ago
      > The vast majority are not performing egregious violations of civil rights. What we see in the news are the exceptions. I can not see it this way, and I have earned that honestly. I have lived much of my life in poverty and addiction and across decades and dozens of interactions, not a single cop treated me with dignity and respect while I was homeless. Now I can code, can afford a dentist and $300 boots, and we get along fine! The violations are not the exception, they are build in to the system. The violations against people like you, against who I am now, those are exceptions. But in general? No. I'm not arguing for lawlessness here. I am saying we should not be funding a hostile paramilitary force to harass the citizens we have already failed in other ways.
      - mc32 4y ago
        When I was young I too had encounters with them and it was less than ideal. But I also feel that without them there society would be worse off. Yes, there can be improvement and they definitely need to better weed out bad apples (they need to better detect criminals within their ranks --just like the clergy needs to and schools need to). But also realize they are doing what society is asking them to do. Allowing some discretion is what allows them to ignore homeless in the park or in a ditch or wherever the locality finds unofficially permissible. If they followed the letter of the law in many places, they'd have to call in the paddy wagon way more often.
      - s1artibartfast 4y ago
        Do you have any concrete suggestions for improvement besides defunding the police?
        giraffe_lady 4y ago
        Do you have any suggestions for dinner besides food? The answer is the answer, sorry you don't like it.
        mc32 4y ago
- joshstrange 4y ago
  > Personally, I think discretion, as long as it’s not abused, should be available to decision makers. > as long as it’s not abused That ship has long since sailed. The police have proven more times than I can count that they absolutely cannot be trusted not to abuse this.
  - mc32 4y ago
    Right, so you give some leeway but have oversight. It very well could be that the PBA cards are given out too freely. Maybe officers let too many people with broken lights off the hook or tear up too many parking tickets. I definitely would like to see better parking enforcement and more official cars get towed. I'd be all for that, no question.
    - joshstrange 4y ago
      > It very well could be that the PBA cards are given out too freely. I can't see a legitimate reason for PBA cards to be given out at all. If leeway is going to be given it should be given based on the situation (not the person). Friends/family of the police should not be given more leeway.
      - mc32 4y ago
        I have no problem with that. However, I guess in theory, someone is vouching for the cardholder --so it provides more information than just giving someone a lookover. Kind of like a "precheck".
        runnerup 4y ago
        That makes no fucking sense.
    - ender341341 4y ago
      For things related to car maintenance I think there should be a special class of tickets available, a "Provide proof you fixed the problem by {date} or pay {fine}$", they already informally exist (I've known a few people who got a ticket along with the officer's email and told if they provide proof the officer will cancel the ticket). This would take needing discretion out of the question, and also provide better incentive to the driver than "I hope the same cop doesn't pull me over again and remember they already gave me a warning".
- s1artibartfast 4y ago
  Of course, the ideal state is reasonable and good laws enforced uniformly. The current policing system is non-functional without discretion because nearly everything is criminalized with overly harsh punishments. Police are pretty terrible arbiters of discretion, but I would rather have that than the current laws enforced. I am much more concerned about over enforcement than under enforcement.
manv1 4y ago
The problem in most other countries isn't PBA cards, it's bribes, either solicited by or offered to the police. So this is really not that big of an issue in the grand scheme of things. I mean, cops usually get free coffee and snacks. Is that an issue?
- matthewdgreen 4y ago
  I think we should pay cops enough that free coffee and snacks isn't necessary, but obviously that's a much smaller issue than having a two-tier justice system that gives different results for "friends of police" and "ordinary taxpayers." When I worked at a large corporation, HR gave us a lecture about not accepting any gifts over $25 or something. I would like to live in a world where police departments function with at least a similar level of integrity.
  - giraffe_lady 4y ago
    People don't give cops free coffee because they think police are so underpaid they can't afford a cup out of their own pocket. They do it because they know that police enforcement and assistance is inconsistent and based largely on mood and favoritism, and are doing what they hope will put them on the right side of that.
    - matthewdgreen 4y ago
      When I say I'm willing to pay police more, it's not because I'm worried they can't afford donuts.* I'm saying this because I would like to have a more professional police force and I'm willing to raise compensation as a carrot in exchange for enforcing higher standards (i.e., basic standards of ethical behavior that are table stakes for white collar employees in large corporations.) Right now most police pay is bad, but police get a basket of official and "unofficial" benefits to make up for it. We should eliminate the unofficial ones and offer real compensation in exchange. * Although, yikes, I paid $7.50 with tax for 1/2 dozen donuts at Dunkin yesterday, so maybe this isn't trivial.
      - 4y ago
KingMob 4y ago
"Laws for thee, but not for me" ...and my immediate family and friends.
- kelseyfrog 4y ago
  As for an explanation, this tracks with the five factor moral foundations model[1] and specifically with the loyalty (and possibly authority) factor(s). There's a profound difference between those who primarily conceptualize morality through individualizing foundations(care & fairness) and those who primarily conceptualize morality through factors(loyalty, authority & sanctity)[2]. The police are systemically biased toward selecting for members who favor authority and loyalty. It should come as no surprise that those values are reflected in behavior like this. Personally, I'm curious to engage with and hear from those who hand out such favors. How is it justified? 1. Graham et al., 2013; https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=2184440 https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=2184440 2. Graham J., Haidt J., & Nosek B. (2009)
joshstrange 4y ago
Yet another example of how our policing in this country is beyond broken. These cards are disgusting and what they represent is the exact opposite of what police should stand for. I hate our current state of law enforcement (local and federal) that essentially lets "enforcers" pick which laws they enforce and who they enforce them against. The ability for police to utilize "discretion" might sound like a good thing but I think it's not. If they enforced the laws equally and universally we would see that some (perhaps many) laws need to be stricken from the books because of how many people are regularly breaking them. Instead the police get to pick so if you piss them off they might write you up for a minor infraction that they ignore 99% of the time. The police should not have this power. Another example of police getting to decide if they want to do their jobs are not is what happened to the CA DA Chesa Boudin. He came in and tried to implement various criminal justice reform policies and the police didn't like that so what did they do? They stopped doing their jobs. They let crime rise to the point that civilians, incorrectly, assumed the DA wasn't doing his job and they recalled him. Let that sink in, a DA tried to make changes and the police decided to just not do their job in order to make him look bad so they could get him effectively "fired" and they didn't have to make any reforms/changes. That's absolutely disgusting. Just imagine trying to pull a stunt like that were you work and think about how well it would go over. Police are not a protected class, they should be held to a higher standard than the rest of us but instead they are held to almost no standard at all. We need massive police reform in the US and it's becoming even more clear that there is little worth "saving" from our current system.
- secabeen 4y ago
  This is essentially the argument that "All Cops are Bad"; some few cops are bad, but all cops willingly participate in a system that protects and enables those bad actors. The US military is a good comparison, they routinely dishonorably discharge soldiers who misbehave or fail to behave in honorable ways; police seem much less able to manage themselves in the same way. (Not that the US military doesn't have its own share of problems, nor do they always kick out the people they should, but they seem to have a better culture of doing so than most US police forces. Both could certainly be improved further.)
  - 4y ago
draw_down 4y ago
DerekL 4y ago
Title needs (2020).
Havoc 4y ago
TIL. I thought that's a thing Hollywood made up
deleted 4y ago
[deleted]
1letterunixname 4y ago
The law should be blind. If not, then there's discrimination. Should there be special cards to dispense it?
netsharc 4y ago
Here's a great read about corruption https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2015/01/19/corruption-revolt https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2015/01/19/corruption-rev... , it's a review of the book "Thieves of State", but it also has a lot of amazing insight about corruption around the world, and how it undermines public trust and even makes the fight against terrorism harder.
specialist 4y ago
I really don't want to think about the police reform food fight. (I'm busy with other fights.) Now that we're all being dragged kicking and screaming into the fray, I suppose I'll have to form an opinion. Until I do, the Peelian 9 Principles appear to be a good starting point. (Copypasta below.) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peelian_principles https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peelian_principles -- Sir Robert Peel – Metropolitan Police of London – 1829 The Peelian principles summarize the ideas that Sir Robert Peel developed to define an ethical police force. The approach expressed in these principles is commonly known as policing by consent. In this model of policing, police officers are regarded as citizens in uniform. They exercise their powers to police their fellow citizens with the implicit consent of those fellow citizens. “Policing by consent” indicates that the legitimacy of policing in the eyes of the public is based upon a general consensus of support that follows from transparency about their powers, their integrity in exercising those powers and their accountability for doing so. 3 CORE IDEAS The goal is preventing crime, not catching criminals. If the police stop crime before it happens, we don’t have to punish citizens or suppress their rights. An effective police department doesn’t have high arrest stats; its community has low crime rates. The key to preventing crime is earning public support. Every community member must share the responsibility of preventing crime, as if they were all volunteer members of the force. They will only accept this responsibility if the community supports and trusts the police. The police earn public support by respecting community principles. Winning public approval requires hard work to build reputation: enforcing the laws impartially, hiring officers who represent and understand the community, and using force only as a last resort. 9 Policing Principles To prevent crime and disorder, as an alternative to their repression by military force and severity of legal punishment. 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, and on their ability to secure and maintain public respect. To recognize always that to secure and maintain the respect and approval of the public means also the securing of the willing cooperation of the public in the task of securing observance of laws. To recognize always that the extent to which the cooperation of the public can be secured diminishes proportionately the necessity of the use of physical force and compulsion for achieving police objectives. To seek and preserve public favor, not by pandering to public opinion, but by constantly demonstrating absolute impartial service to law, in complete independence of policy, and without regard to the justice or injustice 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 individual sacrifice in protecting and preserving life. To use physical force only when the exercise of persuasion, advice and warning is found to be insufficient to obtain public cooperation to an extent necessary to secure observance of law or to restore order, and to use only the minimum degree of physical force which is necessary on any particular occasion for achieving a police objective. 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. 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 of avenging individuals or the State, and of authoritatively judging guilt and punishing the guilty. 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.

61 points by felurx 4y ago

I saw this in a comment by drewrv on another submission: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=33616641 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=33616641

mc32 4y ago

Personally, I think discretion, as long as it’s not abused, should be available to decision makers. Strict unbending rules are not ideal. In other words a little abuse is acceptable, a lot of abuse should not. I’m sure some people are uncomfortable with that. However I feel that lack of latitude leans tyrannical and fascistic. Most counties I’ve been to permit police latitude (and in some cases way more than a little latitude) and there are places where a victim can decide on civil consequence (receive $$) or proceed with criminal case (potential jail time).

giraffe_lady 4y ago
This view really only works if you consider the police as a whole a respectable & valuable workforce, and capricious enforcement to be a deviation from that norm. The problem is if you view the police as they actually act over time, the uncertainty and cruelty is basically designed in. They are part of a long term and slow motion terror campaign against the most vulnerable members of our society. Whatever they should be, that is consistently how they act, and any power we give them should be considered within that reality. There is no power they have ever been granted that they have not chosen to use for tremendous harm and personal gain.
- mc32 4y ago
  On the whole, I would consider the police a valuable workforce with some reservations. The vast majority are not performing egregious violations of civil rights. What we see in the news are the exceptions. That said, I don't see a usable alternative --even considering the abuse. It's a human system--and maybe a remote robotic AI assisted system would be worse-- so it suffers from human fallibility. A system without police is worse. You will have gangs and vigilantes take over who will be worse than police forces (yes, I know police in Venezuela are indistinguishable from violent gangs --but I'm talking about most police forces in advanced economies). Without a police force you get what we saw in the Wild West and what they got in Somalia --gangs and warlords and outlaws and whatnot. I'm not saying don't strive for improvement -what I am saying is we must allow discretion (an example of what happens with lack of discretion is what happens with mandatory sentencing) Even in China, you want a police force over no police and the police in China are even less concerned with civil rights and offer more discretion to the "right" people. In Russia, I would say it's closer to a draw as they are pretty corrupt, but your gangs are still worse. Thinking in idealistic fashion is an okay exercise but we also need to face reality and the reality is that people cannot "police themselves" adequately.
  - giraffe_lady 4y ago
    > The vast majority are not performing egregious violations of civil rights. What we see in the news are the exceptions. I can not see it this way, and I have earned that honestly. I have lived much of my life in poverty and addiction and across decades and dozens of interactions, not a single cop treated me with dignity and respect while I was homeless. Now I can code, can afford a dentist and $300 boots, and we get along fine! The violations are not the exception, they are build in to the system. The violations against people like you, against who I am now, those are exceptions. But in general? No. I'm not arguing for lawlessness here. I am saying we should not be funding a hostile paramilitary force to harass the citizens we have already failed in other ways.
    - mc32 4y ago
      When I was young I too had encounters with them and it was less than ideal. But I also feel that without them there society would be worse off. Yes, there can be improvement and they definitely need to better weed out bad apples (they need to better detect criminals within their ranks --just like the clergy needs to and schools need to). But also realize they are doing what society is asking them to do. Allowing some discretion is what allows them to ignore homeless in the park or in a ditch or wherever the locality finds unofficially permissible. If they followed the letter of the law in many places, they'd have to call in the paddy wagon way more often.
    - s1artibartfast 4y ago
      Do you have any concrete suggestions for improvement besides defunding the police?
      - giraffe_lady 4y ago
        Do you have any suggestions for dinner besides food? The answer is the answer, sorry you don't like it.
        mc32 4y ago
joshstrange 4y ago
> Personally, I think discretion, as long as it’s not abused, should be available to decision makers. > as long as it’s not abused That ship has long since sailed. The police have proven more times than I can count that they absolutely cannot be trusted not to abuse this.
- mc32 4y ago
  Right, so you give some leeway but have oversight. It very well could be that the PBA cards are given out too freely. Maybe officers let too many people with broken lights off the hook or tear up too many parking tickets. I definitely would like to see better parking enforcement and more official cars get towed. I'd be all for that, no question.
  - joshstrange 4y ago
    > It very well could be that the PBA cards are given out too freely. I can't see a legitimate reason for PBA cards to be given out at all. If leeway is going to be given it should be given based on the situation (not the person). Friends/family of the police should not be given more leeway.
    - mc32 4y ago
      I have no problem with that. However, I guess in theory, someone is vouching for the cardholder --so it provides more information than just giving someone a lookover. Kind of like a "precheck".
      - runnerup 4y ago
        That makes no fucking sense.
  - ender341341 4y ago
    For things related to car maintenance I think there should be a special class of tickets available, a "Provide proof you fixed the problem by {date} or pay {fine}$", they already informally exist (I've known a few people who got a ticket along with the officer's email and told if they provide proof the officer will cancel the ticket). This would take needing discretion out of the question, and also provide better incentive to the driver than "I hope the same cop doesn't pull me over again and remember they already gave me a warning".
s1artibartfast 4y ago
Of course, the ideal state is reasonable and good laws enforced uniformly. The current policing system is non-functional without discretion because nearly everything is criminalized with overly harsh punishments. Police are pretty terrible arbiters of discretion, but I would rather have that than the current laws enforced. I am much more concerned about over enforcement than under enforcement.

manv1 4y ago

The problem in most other countries isn't PBA cards, it's bribes, either solicited by or offered to the police. So this is really not that big of an issue in the grand scheme of things. I mean, cops usually get free coffee and snacks. Is that an issue?

matthewdgreen 4y ago
I think we should pay cops enough that free coffee and snacks isn't necessary, but obviously that's a much smaller issue than having a two-tier justice system that gives different results for "friends of police" and "ordinary taxpayers." When I worked at a large corporation, HR gave us a lecture about not accepting any gifts over $25 or something. I would like to live in a world where police departments function with at least a similar level of integrity.
- giraffe_lady 4y ago
  People don't give cops free coffee because they think police are so underpaid they can't afford a cup out of their own pocket. They do it because they know that police enforcement and assistance is inconsistent and based largely on mood and favoritism, and are doing what they hope will put them on the right side of that.
  - matthewdgreen 4y ago
    When I say I'm willing to pay police more, it's not because I'm worried they can't afford donuts.* I'm saying this because I would like to have a more professional police force and I'm willing to raise compensation as a carrot in exchange for enforcing higher standards (i.e., basic standards of ethical behavior that are table stakes for white collar employees in large corporations.) Right now most police pay is bad, but police get a basket of official and "unofficial" benefits to make up for it. We should eliminate the unofficial ones and offer real compensation in exchange. * Although, yikes, I paid $7.50 with tax for 1/2 dozen donuts at Dunkin yesterday, so maybe this isn't trivial.
    - 4y ago

KingMob 4y ago

"Laws for thee, but not for me" ...and my immediate family and friends.

kelseyfrog 4y ago
As for an explanation, this tracks with the five factor moral foundations model[1] and specifically with the loyalty (and possibly authority) factor(s). There's a profound difference between those who primarily conceptualize morality through individualizing foundations(care & fairness) and those who primarily conceptualize morality through factors(loyalty, authority & sanctity)[2]. The police are systemically biased toward selecting for members who favor authority and loyalty. It should come as no surprise that those values are reflected in behavior like this. Personally, I'm curious to engage with and hear from those who hand out such favors. How is it justified? 1. Graham et al., 2013; https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=2184440 https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=2184440 2. Graham J., Haidt J., & Nosek B. (2009)

joshstrange 4y ago

Yet another example of how our policing in this country is beyond broken. These cards are disgusting and what they represent is the exact opposite of what police should stand for. I hate our current state of law enforcement (local and federal) that essentially lets "enforcers" pick which laws they enforce and who they enforce them against. The ability for police to utilize "discretion" might sound like a good thing but I think it's not. If they enforced the laws equally and universally we would see that some (perhaps many) laws need to be stricken from the books because of how many people are regularly breaking them. Instead the police get to pick so if you piss them off they might write you up for a minor infraction that they ignore 99% of the time. The police should not have this power. Another example of police getting to decide if they want to do their jobs are not is what happened to the CA DA Chesa Boudin. He came in and tried to implement various criminal justice reform policies and the police didn't like that so what did they do? They stopped doing their jobs. They let crime rise to the point that civilians, incorrectly, assumed the DA wasn't doing his job and they recalled him. Let that sink in, a DA tried to make changes and the police decided to just not do their job in order to make him look bad so they could get him effectively "fired" and they didn't have to make any reforms/changes. That's absolutely disgusting. Just imagine trying to pull a stunt like that were you work and think about how well it would go over. Police are not a protected class, they should be held to a higher standard than the rest of us but instead they are held to almost no standard at all. We need massive police reform in the US and it's becoming even more clear that there is little worth "saving" from our current system.

secabeen 4y ago
This is essentially the argument that "All Cops are Bad"; some few cops are bad, but all cops willingly participate in a system that protects and enables those bad actors. The US military is a good comparison, they routinely dishonorably discharge soldiers who misbehave or fail to behave in honorable ways; police seem much less able to manage themselves in the same way. (Not that the US military doesn't have its own share of problems, nor do they always kick out the people they should, but they seem to have a better culture of doing so than most US police forces. Both could certainly be improved further.)
- 4y ago

draw_down 4y ago

DerekL 4y ago

Title needs (2020).

Havoc 4y ago

TIL. I thought that's a thing Hollywood made up

deleted 4y ago

[deleted]

1letterunixname 4y ago

The law should be blind. If not, then there's discrimination. Should there be special cards to dispense it?

netsharc 4y ago

Here's a great read about corruption https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2015/01/19/corruption-revolt https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2015/01/19/corruption-rev... , it's a review of the book "Thieves of State", but it also has a lot of amazing insight about corruption around the world, and how it undermines public trust and even makes the fight against terrorism harder.

specialist 4y ago

I really don't want to think about the police reform food fight. (I'm busy with other fights.) Now that we're all being dragged kicking and screaming into the fray, I suppose I'll have to form an opinion. Until I do, the Peelian 9 Principles appear to be a good starting point. (Copypasta below.) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peelian_principles https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peelian_principles -- Sir Robert Peel – Metropolitan Police of London – 1829 The Peelian principles summarize the ideas that Sir Robert Peel developed to define an ethical police force. The approach expressed in these principles is commonly known as policing by consent. In this model of policing, police officers are regarded as citizens in uniform. They exercise their powers to police their fellow citizens with the implicit consent of those fellow citizens. “Policing by consent” indicates that the legitimacy of policing in the eyes of the public is based upon a general consensus of support that follows from transparency about their powers, their integrity in exercising those powers and their accountability for doing so. 3 CORE IDEAS The goal is preventing crime, not catching criminals. If the police stop crime before it happens, we don’t have to punish citizens or suppress their rights. An effective police department doesn’t have high arrest stats; its community has low crime rates. The key to preventing crime is earning public support. Every community member must share the responsibility of preventing crime, as if they were all volunteer members of the force. They will only accept this responsibility if the community supports and trusts the police. The police earn public support by respecting community principles. Winning public approval requires hard work to build reputation: enforcing the laws impartially, hiring officers who represent and understand the community, and using force only as a last resort. 9 Policing Principles To prevent crime and disorder, as an alternative to their repression by military force and severity of legal punishment. 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, and on their ability to secure and maintain public respect. To recognize always that to secure and maintain the respect and approval of the public means also the securing of the willing cooperation of the public in the task of securing observance of laws. To recognize always that the extent to which the cooperation of the public can be secured diminishes proportionately the necessity of the use of physical force and compulsion for achieving police objectives. To seek and preserve public favor, not by pandering to public opinion, but by constantly demonstrating absolute impartial service to law, in complete independence of policy, and without regard to the justice or injustice 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 individual sacrifice in protecting and preserving life. To use physical force only when the exercise of persuasion, advice and warning is found to be insufficient to obtain public cooperation to an extent necessary to secure observance of law or to restore order, and to use only the minimum degree of physical force which is necessary on any particular occasion for achieving a police objective. 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. 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 of avenging individuals or the State, and of authoritatively judging guilt and punishing the guilty. 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.