Each strategy below is a framework for a potentially compelling narrative.

But that's all.

The magic really happens when our law enforcement instructors completely depart from my poor words and tell their own story. Remember, you have one great advantage over an English lit teacher, your stories of heroic deeds and a quest for justice are true!

You must strive to prevent crime.

When a crime is committed, you must pursue and bring to justice those responsible.

You need to be professional, calm and restrained in the face of violence and apply only that force which is necessary.

You must protect, help and reassure all members of your community, striving to reduce their fear of crime.

In doing these things, you must be compassionate, courteous and patient, acting without fear or favor or prejudice to the rights of others.  

You must act with integrity, common sense and sound judgement in all that you do - while on-duty and off.

You will experience life like no other profession on earth. You witness the best and the worst behavior in your fellow citizens. You must deal with good people on their worse day and bad people on their best.

People at their extremes - not from the comfort of a classroom - but in your face or worse yet, just over your shoulder.

As a police officer, you don't read about history, you are an eyewitness, sometimes a participant.

You must possess good judgement and display character. Why?

Because you are entrusted with enormous power: to deprive a fellow citizen of their liberty. As a police officer you are entrusted with the power to take into custody citizens - by force if necessary.

On rare occasions, you may even have to use lethal force and deprive a citizen of  their life.

In democratic societies, citizens grant increased authority to police in order to live in a safe community. They give police the power to detain, search, arrest citizens, and lawfully use physical force when situations dictate.

This authority is unlike any granted to other members of the government. In this sense, police officers are the very pillars of a democratic society.

There is a social contract between citizens and law enforcement officers. This Trust is critical to a functioning democracy.

In the United States our rights are set forth in the United States Constitution. They are the rightful heritage of every citizen.

In a very real way, day in and day out, it is a police officers' responsibility to safeguard a citizens' constitutional rights.

The way that police officers talk to citizens;
the way that they interact during a traffic stop;
every sentence that they put together;
every comment that they make to the community...

...all have a profound impact on how citizens view their government at large.

Every time a police officer has contact with the public, the citizen who is involved makes a judgement.

And studies have shown that the single most determining factor for how a citizen evaluates that contact is not "did I receive a ticket", but rather "was I treated fairly."

How a citizen answers that question will renew or erode their confidence in democracy and the fairness of our system of government.

Life is Not Fair. But I Am

The police are the most visible pillars of a decent, harmonious society. When they act with predictability, restraint, and fealty to the rule of law, ordinary people gain faith in their government.

When the most dispossessed person in the poorest neighborhood receives the same treatment as the rich man living high upon the hill, civil society is strengthened and the police are ennobled.

The Guarantors of Personal Dignity

No doubt some will protest that human dignity-centered policing is a simplistic solution to a set of complex, often unique police challenges. But as the most visible public institution that is charged with maintaining justice, the police in their ordinary duties have the power to be guarantors of personal dignity and even-handed treatment - truly heroic figures in their own right.

These duties are a professional calling. They cannot be outsourced or privatized.