GUARD YOUR INTEGRITY AS A SACRED THING.

Brian Tracy
The first police reform movement began with a citizen movement known as the Progressives. Fearing the political control that existed over public safety services, they attempted to dismantle the political machines. In addition, they advocated for police departments to narrow the scope of the service they provided, to centralize the department, and upgrade personnel. During their forty year crusade(1880-1920), the Progressives established independent police commissions and civil service exams (Wallace et al., 1995).

A second major reform movement took place from 1910 to the late 1960’s. This reform movement originated within the policing community and called on police officers to conduct themselves in a professional manner. Control over police departments and officers was now placed in the hands of the police chief (Wallace et al., 1995).

For decades law enforcement executives, legislatures, the courts, and academics have attempted to implement strategies to control for integrity within the police profession. Unfortunately, brilliant ideas on paper do not necessarily make the best policies when they are finally operationalized. More often than not, police agencies are strapped by ever shrinking budgets and resources, departments must face internal resistance, agencies are subject to conflict with a governing body, or the department must deal with opposition from the community and are unable to implement any integrity strategy completely.


Police Integrity

Emergence of the problem

Problem assessment

Deciding what to do

Implementation

Evaluation

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