Copping to It

Pindar wrote that “human excellence grows like a vine tree.” His poetic project was to praise excellence, to trace its source in noble and enriching contexts and in good nurturing and to locate responsibility for it in society’s confirming associations. Our current instinct is not to place policing in this realm of lofty aspiration. Yet that is where it belongs. Helping create a peaceable society, being well trained in the heavy responsibilities of wielding the state’s coercive powers, being seen as keeping our social exchanges safe and fair and decent and reflecting human excellence in the face of others’ frailties and deviations: these are our hopes for policing. When the reality of policing becomes something else—bullying, intimidating, harassing, violent, racist and lawless—we do not shrug, quote Lord Acton and adopt an attitude of meek acceptance. We feel the outrage of violation and demand that details of the misconduct be uncovered. We ask that routes for better...