Lawyers are held to the standards of their jurisdiction, which are generally based on the ABA model code. If you violate those standards, your license to practice can be taken from you by your state bar association.
Civil engineers operate under the code of ethics of their professional society, and again can lose certification even if they are not found guilty of a crime under law.
Yet police, while police chiefs have a uniform code of ethics, police officers operate under a hodgepodge of oaths administered by their employers. The role of the police union seems to be to protect police officers' employment first, while the integrity of the calling takes a much lower priority.
I am generally not anti-union, and I absolutely recognize that police deserve labor protection in some form. I submit, however, that a group given such power over others, a group that has been given license to use deadly force in the course of their work, should operate under a framework more like the examples above. An alternative might be a military code of conduct, but I do not believe we should be blurring the lines between police and military.
I am generally not anti-union, and I absolutely recognize that police deserve labor protection in some form. I submit, however, that a group given such power over others, a group that has been given license to use deadly force in the course of their work, should operate under a framework more like the examples above. An alternative might be a military code of conduct, but I do not believe we should be blurring the lines between police and military.
I recognize this entails treating police more like professionals across the board - good pay, for instance should not be dependent on overtime or on traffic detail work. But I think it is consistent with my thoughts yesterday on increasing entry-level training requirements for police.
I recognize this is easier said than done, but I do think there is great value to all in recasting the relationship between police and society as more professional in its focus and less about labor as a commodity. To show I am not the only one who see this as a possible way forward, I'll close with this link from the National Police Foundation: A Hippocratic Oath for policing.
I recognize this is easier said than done, but I do think there is great value to all in recasting the relationship between police and society as more professional in its focus and less about labor as a commodity. To show I am not the only one who see this as a possible way forward, I'll close with this link from the National Police Foundation: A Hippocratic Oath for policing.
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