POLICE DISCIPLINE.

[From the Annual Report of the Police Commissioner, November 30, 1908.]

When my service as commissioner began I ventured experimentally to depart in some respects from the plan of rewards and punishments which long had been followed. After a test of two and a half years I consider the new method to be established, and I may therefore speak of it with freedom. [NOTE, 1913.- It has now been in effect seven and a half years.]

Under the former system specific acts of a meritorious character were rewarded with medals, with additional days or weeks of vacation, and with public commendation in general orders. I have used none of these stimulants, for I believe that it is impossible to administer them with an even hand to a force of 1,400 men; that they create jealousies and disappointments; that they often miss the modest man of great merit; that they encourage the pushing of "claims" to special recognition; that a single mistake, known by the rank and file to be a mistake, turns the whole system to ridicule; and that a policeman who is capable of performing an act of conspicuous merit will not stop to think of a possible reward. [NOTE, 1913.- The force now numbers approximately sixteen hundred men of all grades.]

These are reasons enough, it seems to me, but especially is it my purpose to raise above all other considerations the single idea of duty to be done. I seek to convince the policeman that the best and bravest work that he can do is expected of him always. I wish him to realize that apart from the criticism or the approval of his immediate superiors he is making a record for himself day by day, and that when the time comes, that record of sobriety, of ability, of zeal and of results accomplished,

and nothing else, will help him to advancement, or will intercede for him if in misfortune.

But simultaneously with the loss of immediate rewards the method of punishment has been recast. To make my

meaning clear I give the following table of trials and penalties since 1894:

[NOTE, 1913.- Statistics for the years 1909, 1910, 1911 and 1912 have been added to the original table.]

In a few cases each year complaints were withdrawn, either at the trial or before it; such cases are included in the table as trials and acquittals.

The new system was applied in the middle of the police year 1906, and the full effect is to be seen in 1907

Punishment Duty.

and 1908, especially in 1908, when it was no longer an experiment. As a comparison will best serve in explanation, I take for that purpose the last full year of the old system, noting the circumstance that the five reductions in rank in that police year were due to the unusual occurrence known as the "Tech. riot."

In 1905 the cases tried numbered 105, and in 1908 the number was 36. But in 1905 there were 58 acquittals, and in 1908 only 9. This illustrates the first point in the new system, which is the private examination of complaints by the commissioner, and the dismissal without trial of those found to be frivolous or otherwise without merit sufficient to justify formal hearing. In 1908 the number so dismissed was 49, and although the defendant policeman was called upon in each case to submit a reply in writing, supported, when necessary, by the written statements of others, 49 such defendants were spared the trouble, the anxiety, and, in many cases, the cost of counsel which a trial would have involved. Complaints from citizens are often based on spite, on a misunderstanding of the facts or on ignorance of the laws and of the powers and duties of a policeman. Looking further we find that in 1905 there were 7 dismissals from the force, following 47 convictions, and in 1908 there were 14 dismissals, following 27 convictions. This develops another part of the punishment system, which is this, that when a man is guilty of a single grievous offence, such as intoxication while on duty, or is guilty of an offence of less magnitude but of such character as to show by itself or in connection with similar previous offences that he is constitutionally unfit to be a policeman, dismissal from the force is the one and final penalty.

A result of this policy, I believe, is to cause a complaint and summons for trial to be regarded by the members of the force as a matter of great gravity, and to deter them from the commission of petty offences, the penalty of which they can no longer expect to be also petty.

In 1905 fines ranging from two to thirty days' pay were imposed upon 26 men. In no case have I used this form of punishment. I believed that it was a great hardship to the families of the men, and that because of that fact a man so punished, whatever his offence, received the sympathy of the force. For fines I substituted punishment duty in excess of regular and extra duties, thus allowing to the family of the man the money which he had earned, securing extra service to the public, and causing the offender to be regarded humorously instead of sympathetically by his comrades.

Another method of punishment formerly practiced, the transfer of men from one division to another, I have never used. Service in all divisions is equally honorable and no division should be made a penal colony. The work of divisions differs in quantity and in character, and I have tried so to assign men that on the whole the square pegs shall be in the square holes and the round pegs in the round holes. Transfers of men following acquittal or conviction on trials have never been part of their punishment; they have been ordered because the very circumstances of the trial made it wise to place them in new surroundings; and in such transfers, as in all others, I have considered the places of residence of the men assigned or removed, in so far as the good of the service would permit.

The system then, to state the matter briefly, abolishes special rewards for meritorious acts which, with the rising standard of efficiency that is applied to the force, have become every-day matters. It sifts charges much as a grand jury would do, and thus saves trouble, anxiety and expense to many men against whom frivolous complaints are brought. It reduces the number of small punishments, abolishing altogether the fine, but it discharges men convicted of offences which prove them to be unfit for the service.

The system seeks to deal with men by hand rather than with machinery; to prove to them that their superiors are guided by common sense and a spirit of

fair play, and that though the interest of the public is always first and the interest of the whole department is always second, the comfort, the welfare and the ambitions of the individual members of the force are never forgotten.

This method of treatment should bring about, and in a large measure, I believe, actually has brought about, a condition in which a member of the force who shirks his duty, or otherwise misbehaves, finds himself subjected to the disapproval and the contempt of his own comrades.