Institutional Integrity and Policing
The integrity of the American institution is an absolute necessity. From President Truman’s Executive Order 9808, 1946; Establishing the President’s Committee on Civil Rights:
The preservation of civil liberties is a duty of every Government-state, Federal and local.
For the purpose of this article, let’s define institutional integrity of American government as: the extent to which our government fulfills its duty to secure the unalienable rights of life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness, for all Americans. Let’s refer to the pursuit of happiness as “purpose.”
Because institutional integrity isn’t something we often think about and discuss, Americans lose focus on the intentionality of our government—why do we have government? Why do citizens cede power to officials to act on our behalf?
Our government exists first to secure the unalienable rights of life, liberty, and purpose, for all Americans. Our founders outlined this concept in the Declaration of Independence. Other positive government functions, such as common defense and infrastructure, are needed, but secondary. If we fail to ensure the liberty of Americans but have roads, our government has failed. Our government does not exist solely to build roads. Our government exists primarily to ensure our lives, liberty, and purpose.
As an example, consider cases the US Supreme Court hears. They are primarily cases that focus on American liberty with respect to government.
Wouldn’t progressives demand institutional integrity for the collective good of all Americans? Wouldn’t conservatives demand institutional integrity to secure the rights of individual Americans? The end result of both views is the same—institutional integrity is vital to both collective and individual Americans.
Further, we are a republic, not a pure democracy. Elected officials execute the government on behalf of the citizens. We need our elected officials to hold a high standard of American institutional integrity. When we fail to secure the unalienable rights for all Americans, we need to consider that first a failure of government. We need leaders who figure out why we failed, and we need them to question how we could be better.
Again, President Truman’s Executive Order 9808, 1946; Establishing the President’s Committee on Civil Rights:
Too many of our people still live under the harrowing fear of violence or death at the hands of a mob or of brutal treatment by police officers. Many fear entanglement with the law because of the knowledge that the justice rendered in some courts is not equal for all persons.
My heart goes out to the family of Tyre Nichols and the people of the city of Memphis. The American institution failed to protect an American citizen’s life and liberty.
My heart goes out to the police officers of Memphis who love their city and are horrified by the treatment of Nichols by some who chose to betray their professional standards.
To the credit of the City of Memphis: officials responded quickly and appropriately, firing and suspending officers and other government agents, charging officers with murder, releasing camera footage without delay, and disbanding their special tactics police unit. These actions possibly prevented the mass protests and mob violence nationwide, both of which we saw last year following the murder of George Floyd.
The officers involved in the Nichols incident likely committed criminal offenses; the legal process is still ongoing. But every incident of police brutality makes me question: why? Is it possible to change our thinking of policing and deadly force in America?
If we could try, we could first consider—what ‘can’ we do to stem police brutality?
We could choose to do nothing and hope for the best. Maybe some think it’s permissible to sacrifice the lives and liberty of others in an attempt to control crime, even if it means further incidents. Maybe some think it’s a problem we cannot fix. In my view doing nothing represents maintaining conditions for future failures of government to ensure the lives and liberty of all Americans.
At the other end of the spectrum is the full George Floyd Justice in Policing Act that failed political agreement in 2021. The bill gridlocked in part due to concerns regarding police officer qualified immunity and a national register of police actions.
When we think about what we can do, let’s avoid ‘do nothing’ and ‘political gridlock’. Let’s look at it through the lens of personal liberty. What is the role of American government? To ensure the lives, liberty, and purpose of all Americans. Policing is government, at least an extension of government, and acting on behalf of, government officials. Policing also obviously has a crime control element.
Can we, as a nation, refocus policing to focus on protecting the lives and liberty of all Americans?
Let’s think about a mission statement. The National Institute of Justice in 1988 published an article on Crime and Policing which states in the first line, “The core mission of the police is to control crime. No one disputes this.”
Could we consider, “The core mission of the police is to preserve the lives and liberty of all Americans by protecting them from crime.”? Changing the overall intent would mean police still have the task to control crime, with a core mission to protect Americans.
Many police officers today already consider preserving the lives and liberty of Americans as their core mission. But if police units lack a defined mission statement, they have deficiencies in guidance, training, and equipping. Controlling crime means focusing on bad actors, who some might see as adversaries. Maybe military grade weapons are appropriate for adversaries. In contrast, protecting Americans might mean non-lethal focus to preserve the life and liberty of citizens.
We shouldn’t defund the police. If the core policing mission is to protect Americans while controlling crime, we need to change some requirements, and we need to re-train, re-equip, and consider guidance for police forces. Of course this is complex because police forces nationwide are segregated into thousands of units with thousands of bosses.
Police can, and should, still respond to crime. But that should not be their core mission. The focus of police should be on protecting the lives and liberty of all Americans.
May God Bless the United States of America.
