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Address to graduating police officers

by Simon Longstaff

Introduction

I was tempted to dust off my academic robes for this occasion. After all, there are few opportunities when they might be worn - and they need an airing! But more importantly, by wearing my gown and hood I might have added in some small part to the important sense of occasion that properly belongs to an event such as this.

Yet, instead of wearing black and scarlet, I stand here plainly suited. I do so quite deliberately, and for what I believe to be a very important reason.

Let me explain. Preparing this address has forced me to think deeply about the key issues that confront the men and women who graduate today. The more I thought about these matters, the more I came to realise that there is no way in which I can set myself up as some kind of expert to dole out a few words of wisdom.

Who am I to speak to you who will risk life and limb in order to protect me from harm? Who am I to speak to you who accept a measure of social isolation in order to keep me safe? Who am I to speak to you who accept the onerous responsibility of handling power without corruption?

There is only one answer to my question. It is that I stand before you today as nothing more and nothing less than an ordinary citizen. I am not a politician who can lay claim to the status of a formal representative. I am not bound into the institution of government. Instead, I speak as a citizen - as one of those who are the source of trust that you enjoy and in whose name you act.

Hence my plain dress and the simple content of the thoughts that I bring to you today.

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A key question - the relationship between trust and power

In thinking about today's address, my mind kept returning to a dominant theme; the relationship between 'trust' and 'power'. It is relatively easy to point out that police officers are authorised to exercise civil power in a way that is quite beyond that allowed to ordinary citizens. Likewise, it is a fairly simple matter to identify the operational realities that make the exercise of power a matter of practical necessity.

Few would disagree with the proposition that the responsible exercise of power relies on a foundation of trust. However, what can one say about the practical foundations of 'trust' and how it is linked to 'power' ? Are there any compelling reasons why police officers ought to treat the idea of 'trust' with the same respect that they treat the practice of 'power' ?

My own view on this is that the best way to understand the relationship between 'trust' and 'power' is to come to grips with the notion of what it means to be a professional.

We tend to use the term 'professional' in two different senses. On the one hand, we talk about 'professional' football players, 'professional' dancers and so on. By this we mean nothing more than that certain people are paid money in order to play sport, dance and so on.

When I hear police officers talk about their professional obligations, I suspect that they are saying something more important than that they get paid for the work that they do. Indeed, the notion of professionalism that they refer to is an altogether more rich and complex notion.

It is this second, and more traditional, sense of the term that I wish to explore with you today. People generally talk about the professions of medicine, law, engineering and so on. On face value, the professions seem to share very little in common. So what might it be that links them as professions?

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The spirit of public service

In August of last year, the Australian Council of Professions issued a discussion paper, on the nature of professionalism. Significantly, a press release about this paper was issued under the title, In The Public Interest. Both the paper and the release sought to distinguish a profession from "more commercially minded occupational associations". As opposed to others, professional practitioners:

... must at all times place the responsibility for the welfare, health and safety of the community before their responsibility to the profession, to sectional or private interests, or to other members of the profession.

If the idea of a profession is to have any significance, then it must hinge on this notion that professionals make a bargain with society in which they promise conscientiously to serve the public interest - even if to do so may, at times, be at their own expense. In return, society allocates certain privileges. These might include one or more of the following:

• the right to engage in self regulation
• the exclusive right to perform particular functions
• special status

At all times it should be remembered that what society gives, it can take away. It only accords privileges on the condition that members of the profession work to improve the common good. It should be noted that a capacity for a profession to fulfil this role depends on the extent to which the broader community trusts its judgement and motives.

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Are police officers members of a profession?

So how might police officers fare in light of this discussion? It seems to me that there are good reasons for regarding police officers as members of a profession. You clearly provide a service that is essential to the welfare of society. And in a world of increasing complexity and technical sophistication, there is ample evidence of the high level of knowledge and skill that you must be able to exercise. You are, in a very real sense, the civilian counterpart to those engaged in the profession of arms.

But what of the commitment to act in a spirit of public service - even when to do so is not in your personal interest or that of your fellow officers? I have no doubt that the police service has a strong sense of its obligation to the community. And I understand that this abiding sense of commitment underscores the careers of the vast majority of officers who serve with quiet distinction.

Yet, all of us are painfully aware of those occasions when members of the service have abused their power and betrayed the community's trust. The damage done goes well beyond that suffered by particular individuals. The police service is an important social institution. When wounded by the sharp edge of public cynicism, it will continue to bleed long after personal scars have healed. Daily we witness the loss of vitality of all manner of institutions brought down by the unscrupulous. Witness the damage done to politicians, lawyers, bankers and so on.

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Professional standing is essential

I want to go beyond an endorsement of the professional standing of police officers and suggest that it is absolutely essential that society publicly and consciously confirm the professional status (and responsibility) of our police.

This is because I can see no other way in which the link between 'power' and 'trust' can be explained and maintained.

If consciously adopted, the idea of policing as a profession lays a firm foundation for resolving some of the tensions outlined above. It makes clear that police powers are privileges granted by the community on the understanding that their exercise will always be for the public good. It points to the fact that these privileges are qualified and that they can be withdrawn as a matter of community discretion. It explains why there will always be evolving social boundaries within which the police must work. Some may regard such limitations as a burden, or as impractical and therefore, unacceptable. I can understand the frustration of those whose hands are tied while arch-villains walk free.

Yet there is another side to the argument in favour of police officers taking on the yoke of professionalism as a freely accepted responsibility. I've suggested that there are benefits in this for society. But what's in it for you?

I would argue that there are two principles that society should recognise as part of its compact with individual officers and with the service as a whole.

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The need for a framework of self-regulation

Firstly, society should accept that a professional police service is entitled to establish a reasonable framework for self-regulation. It has already been noted that the actions of some officers have worked to undermine public confidence in the absolute integrity of the service. This has generated a range of responses, of which the most typical is represented by an inclination to 'tighten the rules' or to beef up the mechanisms for regulation and surveillance.

Those who advocate such a response are generally sincere in their intentions. The trouble is that they fail to realise that the supposed cure is sometimes as bad as the ill to be addressed. It is a little like prescribing sleeping pills to ward off drowsiness.

While accepting that there needs to be a broad framework of rules and regulations governing the activities of any community, I am wary of any system that has the capacity to erode the foundations of personal responsibility. An over-reliance on rules and regulations can have precisely this effect. As the detail and coverage of rules increases, so people come to rely on them as an external authority that defines what is ‘right’ and ‘wrong’. In time, one is liable to hear people saying things like, "If it's not banned by the rules, then it must be okay" or, "It is not up to me, let the authorities decide".

All-in-all, this tends to weaken the ability of people to stand up and challenge clear cases of wrong-doing that are not covered by the rules. Those who want to get away with improper conduct escape censure by squeezing through the gaps in the rule book.

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The need for inter-personal accountability

This is not to suggest that police officers should be unaccountable. Parliaments, governments and their agents have a legitimate role in overseeing the service on behalf of the community. However, I put it to you that there is another type of accountability, of equal or greater significance, which you owe to each other. I put it to you that there is an element of personal accountability that arose from the moment you donned your uniform. This is not just an obligation to bring honour to the uniform you wear. That is important. However, there is a deeper responsibility that you owe to each other as people who engage in a shared practice.

I am not trying to make a case for blind loyalty to one's mates - whatever the cost. The concept of 'mateship' is sorely abused these days. Loyalty is only ever owed to a deserving object and some people forfeit the right to be regarded as a 'mate' when they do things that are beyond the pale of acceptable behaviour. In doing so they break the reciprocal bonds of accountability that I am talking about today.

In many respects, the bonds of inter-personal accountability are the sinews that hold a profession together. I hope that you preserve and develop these bonds during your careers. You should be able to return to this place in three, five or twenty years time and look each other in the eye knowing that you can render an honourable account of your service.

This leads into my second point. As an outsider, it seems to me that a police service can only operate effectively when its officers are willing and able to exercise a certain amount of discretion in the conduct of their duties.

Popular recognition of the police as members of a professional service implies that the community must come to recognise that police officers play a creative role in the maintenance of order in society. They are called upon to exercise judgement and not merely apply the dead letter of the Law.

Of course there is a prima facie obligation to obey the law. However, justice frequently requires that other more fundamental principles be taken into account when deciding on the conditions for strict enforcement. There will be times when Parliament deems a matter sufficiently important to warrant a policy of strict liability. Yet, one hopes that the drive for certainty and the perception that "somebody is doing something' will not lead to an erosion of reasonable discretion.

Which leads us back to the issue of the relationship between 'trust' and 'power'. The continued ability of police to engage in self-regulation and to exercise discretion depends on the maintenance of community trust in the integrity of the police force. This is not a task to be shouldered by the Commissioner alone. Nor is it a matter to be resolved by an anonymous system. The integrity of the police service is nothing more than an amalgam of the integrity of its individual officers.

And there is the rub. No amount of rules and regulations, no amount of technical expertise, no amount of formal training will give rise to the virtues that must be found in the professional police officer. To speak of "acting in the spirit of public service" will be to utter mere words unless the obligation can be translated into action.

People will only apply principles that they understand and which they feel really inclined to support. In short, they must be the kind of people who want to do what is right for its own sake, and not just because the rules say so or for fear of punishment. In another time, we might have spoken of such people as being virtuous.

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Virtue and the ethical dimension

Virtue is, in part, learned from following the examples of others. But it is not a matter of mindless obedience and imitation. In such circumstances, a wrong turn can be disastrous. No, there is also need for an ability to think for oneself and, eventually, to adopt a course of action or way of life because of personal commitment based on mature reflection.

To talk of virtue and responsibility is to use the language of ethics. It is a language that many have lost. Others feel genuinely uncomfortable when it is uttered. The ethical dimension surrounds us. It is part of everything that we do. Whenever we have a choice, or a decision to make, we enter the ethical landscape. But what sort of place is this?

Firstly, it is a place where practical decisions are made - “what do I do here and now?”.

Secondly, it is a place of ‘greys’ rather than ‘blacks and whites”. Equally valuable principles come into conflict and there are many occasions when there is no simple answer. We are left to muddle through as best we can - sometimes having to choose the least bad alternative. Is it any wonder that people feel uncomfortable? After all, most of us look for certainty as an antidote to an ever changing world. Certainty relieves us of the burden of choice. Yet here is a place where the firm ground of certainty gives way to the boggy terrain of the ethical dilemma.

Finally, ethics is about relationships. It is about the choices we make about ways in which we relate to other people. Hence my insistence on notions of inter-personal accountability as an indispensable addition to the cold logic of regulation and surveillance.

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Conclusion

Relationships are the key. The true professional understands this because of the constant requirement that personal interests be submerged in favour of others. This can only be done if one is open to others and to their needs.

When it comes to police officers, I believe that a serious commitment to professionalism calls forth a primary virtue. I speak of moral courage - the ability to stand up for what is right, even when to do so involves significant personal cost. Physical threats tend to be immediate and intense. Because of this, the corresponding type of courage is sometimes treated as if more 'real'. But both are equally important and both give rise to heroes.

Some think that heroes are forged in the white heat of the dangerous moment. But there is another kind of hero, the person of quiet decency whose achievement is only built over an entire career. We are struck by the intensity of lightning, yet fail to mention the thunder that rolls on into the distance long after the lightning's moment has passed. We are captured by the tumultuous descent of the waterfall while the steady progress of the river is ignored. And we marvel at the ocean's power unaware of the fact that we stand upon ground claimed for us by the silent witness of the ancient cliff. In each case the spectacular is only made possible by the patient and mundane.

Our society needs a police service made up of professional officers who are capable of both types of heroism - people who have the courage to act in a spirit of public service, whatever the demands may be. I am not sure that we always deserve you!

I can understand why levels of cynicism, frustration and alienation can build to levels such that officers surrender themselves to the siren voice of those who hold that being a police officer is "just another job". But there is nothing inevitable about such a surrender. It is always a matter of choice.

Being asked to address you today has been for me a very great honour. As you commence your careers as professional police officers, I conclude with a question and a challenge. If ethics is about the quality of our choices, then I ask, "How will you choose?". My challenge to each of you is to choose well.

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