Blog: Police Officer or Peace Maker/Keeper?
It’s a public street outside a crowded bar. People are milling around. Two uniformed authorities show up and one of the people, seeing them, decides he won’t be taken under arrest, nor alive. He attacks one of the uniformed authorities and is immediately struck down. The crowd of bystanders notices, mumbles, watches; one of the authorities says, “This is Jedi business. Go back to your drinks.” The crowd doesn’t riot; they don’t attack the Jedi knights; they don’t all pull out their cell phones to start taking pictures or try to capture video. They go back to their drinks and minding their own business. It’s a scene, literally, out of Star Wars. It’s a scene that captured my imagination the first time I saw it and it still engages me with possibility. Of course, there’s a dark side to the Jedi; an opposite side of the force; the dark side… the Sith. We’ll come back to that. Remember that the Jedi are ruled by a council of the most senior and answer to the Senate.
Then we have Camelot; that fictional city where a wise King depended on the opinions and counsel of his knights, conferred upon him at the round table – a meeting place where each was equal. The knights were men of honor and courage and each had taken an oath NOT to be obedient to the King first, but to put the welfare of Camelot first and to protect her citizens. The Knights were well respected by the citizens and, because of his outlook toward leadership, the King was too. Each of them, the King and all his knights, was a capable warrior who leveraged the wisdom gained through experiencing the tolls of combat and, like every other true warrior, preferred peace where and when it could be found… but they wouldn’t shrink away from combat when it was necessary.
A recent newsletter I received compared law enforcement professionals today, generically called “policeman,” even though it encompasses far more, to warriors and Jedi. The question posed was, “Should police officers be warriors or Jedi?” The answer is, you can’t be a Jedi without being a warrior but you CAN be a warrior without being a Jedi. I submit to you that the difference is values and motivation.
I found it amusing to see the newsletter and the question because I’ve long espoused (and many have suffered through listening to me talk about it) that the law enforcement profession should be more like a priesthood; more like the Jedi. They take an oath to the Order; they never marry; they can enjoy women and drink but both within reason and neither in a way that would bring dishonor to the Jedi Order. They are carefully selected and screened, trained to the highest degree of skill through individual mentorship and not released to work on their own as a Jedi Knight until they’ve been tested and proven. There is no timeline for the length of apprenticeship; you train until your mentor says you’re ready and the Jedi council tests you and finds you worthy. After having been through all that, you’d dare not do anything that dishonored the Order, and if you did… it was because you’re human – just like every police officer in our world is today.
The Jedi are not a military order but are considered great warriors. Their skills are unmatched in the fighting world. Oh but if police officers only ever had to master ONE weapon that would be a great blessing. Because they aren’t driven by personal material wealth, the Jedi are never accused of committing actions for their own gain in that sense. Their judgment is so infrequently questioned – or even considered worth questioning – that accusations of unnecessary force, or force motivated by anger are rare in the extreme.
As I mentioned earlier, there is a dark side to the Jedi: the Sith. Every good must have an equal evil. Just like darkness requires light to understand, you can’t understand or even identify evil without experiencing good – and vice versa. The opposites exist and although there may be a huge gray area between them, our understanding of both helps us to refine our judgment. It would be wondrous if our motivations could be as pure as that of the fictional Jedi, but we are human and incapable of 100% separating our personal beliefs and emotions from our judgment. In truth, no one would really want us to. Compassion is based on emotion. Forgiveness is based on emotion. Charity, mercy, thankfulness… they are all based on emotion. Every GOOD action we police officers take requires just as much emotional motivation as every bad action a criminal commits. The range of emotion is very different though. Most of the time, crimes are committed out of just a few motivations: anger, greed, selfishness. The range of positive emotions that can motivate an officer’s actions is much broader. When a police officer succumbs to “the dark side” and commits an act motivated by anger, greed or selfishness, it’s usually quickly identifiable and correctable, punished as necessary.
While I just spent 854 words identifying the differences between the fictional Jedi and our contemporary law enforcement professionals, I have to admit that I also find them very similar. Policemen, I believe, would rather be peacekeepers first. It’s my belief that officers would prefer NOT to arrest people. Certainly we’d prefer NOT to fight people. We’d prefer NOT to have unpleasant interactions and violent exchanges. We’d really rather spend our day available to assist society as necessary but ready to answer the call for combat when needed. We’d rather be friendly and courteous than coldly professional. It’s an unfortunate reality of the litigious world we live and work in that coldly professional has become what’s necessary for us to survive professionally. On-the-job friendliness with those outside the profession carries too much risk of compromise and accusation of unprofessional or prejudicial conduct.
Recognizing all that, some twenty-five years ago (not long after the very first Star Wars movie came out), I thought up a system that would require police officers to train to a higher standard; mentor the younger officers beyond the (usual) minimal standards agencies budget for and include an on-going education component that required a deeper commitment to the profession. What I’m thinking now is that it might be time to resurrect this idea; bring it forward and see if it can be enacted nationwide, available to officers at every level of law enforcement employment: federal, state, county, city and private. If a person has arrest powers, this certification would be made available to them.
The certification would require coordinators, either regionally or by agency and it would require officers to commit time to it on a volunteer basis. It would be great if agencies allowed officers to do it “on company time,” but we all know the condition of budgets today and I expect that few agencies would permit such. The motivation would have to come from within the officers themselves. They would have to be driven to want to be better; committed to maintaining a higher level of performance throughout their career and understand that they’d be tested more than once. The officers would have to prove mastery of all weapons they are issued, tested to insure fitness on a regular basis and identified after certification by a ribbon or pin they could wear on their uniform – identifying them as one of the best of the best; self-driven; self-motivated; proven to a higher standard because they held the commitment of peacekeeping in their heart.
I submit to you, in the end, that the difference between a police officer and a peace keeper is only a matter of their motivation. One strictly enforces the law; the other uses judgment to keep the peace. One embraces the sometimes necessary violence experienced on the job, while the other abhors it but is highly skilled so as to keep it at a bare minimum. One is doing the job purely for a paycheck while the other has committed to helping society and one of the happy side effects is getting paid for it (often far too little, but they do it anyway).
I mean no insult in that comparison. Police officers everywhere, no matter their motivation (as long as it’s not anger, greed or selfishness) should be appreciated and honored. I just think, having been an officer for well over 30 years now, that some motivations might be a bit better than others. Please feel free to email me your thoughts, agreements, disagreements, etc to [email protected].
Stay safe!
Lt. Frank Borelli (ret), Editorial Director | Editorial Director
Lt. Frank Borelli is the Editorial Director for the Officer Media Group. Frank brings 20+ years of writing and editing experience in addition to 40 years of law enforcement operations, administration and training experience to the team.
Frank has had numerous books published which are available on Amazon.com, BarnesAndNoble.com, and other major retail outlets.
If you have any comments or questions, you can contact him via email at [email protected].