I was born in the late 60’s but I recently had a conversation with someone my senior. They told me that, pre-1970, police officers and sheriff deputies were all called peace officers.
He told me that “back then”, no one used the term, "police officer". The name meant something; people actually looked to the peace officer to restore peace when things got out of hand. I pulled out my 1977 Webster’s Dictionary to find the definition of peace officers; "any officer of the law charged with the preservation of the public peace, as a sheriff, constable, or policeman." 1
I looked on the internet at several current dictionaries and pulled seven definitions of "peace officer". They were all very similar and shared three points: 1) civil officer, 2) appointed to preserve/enforce the law, and 3) examples of police and sheriff. The major difference I see in the definitions is the change from “preservation of the public peace” to "enforce and preserve the law”.
As a police cadet in the Dallas Police Academy in 1990, I remember very vividly, the Rodney King beating in March of 1991. I remember thinking to myself, how could those officers keep beating him? I also got the eerie feeling that the people I had sworn to protect did not trust the police anymore. A couple of years later there was a big push across the US for “community policing”. This was an attempt to get officers back in their neighborhoods, reconnect with their community, and restore the broken relationship and trust.
Today, 33 years later, I am a retired peace officer. I have seen, first hand, the divide between law enforcement and the communities they protect, continue to divide. I believe we, law enforcement, have to come back to the peace officer mentality. Yes, we live in different times and yes our culture is more violent, but law enforcement has to step back into the role of the peace officer, the guardians of peace. We need to stand with our communities instead of waiting for them to do something wrong. Departments need to stop evaluating officers based on their numbers; the number of arrests, the number of tickets, or the number of traffic stops. We are losing the numbers game.
Law enforcement has to be active in enforcing the law but we also need to be more active in community affairs. We need to go back to knowing the people of our communities. There needs to be relationship and trust and it starts with recruiting and training.
When you think of today’s law enforcement officers, do you think of them as peace officers? Do you trust law enforcement? I would love to hear from you on this topic. If you have comments or questions, email me at [email protected].
