A Police Service Rating Scale

Abstract

Criticism of his government, of governmental bodies, and of public officials has long been a cherished, free-for-all prerogative of every American citizen. Of such criticism the police bodies of the United States have had their full share, and by far the greater part of it has come, and still comes, from the general public.1 Further-more, this criticism is widely scattered in the public prints. The question might well be asked, "What knowledge of police work is possessed by the critics? " The answer is, of course, that they have little or none, especially of police work in its entirety. Yet they never hesitate to pass judgment, no matter how ill informed they may be of police work in general and of the particular occurrence that they are presuming to judge. Such criticism is obviously unfair; it is, indeed; often entirely unwarranted by the actual facts.. In the fall of 1926, for example, it was charged that vice was rampant in Detroit, and the responsibility for this state of affairs