Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1929-04-24
Maj. Pratt's Recommendations

| Maj. Pratt's request for one hundred
additional patrolmen is founded on the
logical contention that more attention
should be paid to training policemen
and that the enlarged increment would
increase the force to the point where a
real and practical police school, with
an adequate course of training, could
be substituted for the present hit-or-
miss arrangement, which sends rookie
policemen, equipped with gun and baton
patrolling the streets before they have
learned to wear their new uniforms
Maj. Pratt would extend from one to
three months the course of schooling
which the Police Department now Of
fers, and the new course of training
would become a fixed part of the young
policeman's routine. AS it is now the
training is available to young police
men If and when there are a sufficient
number of recruits to make the school
practical. Otherwise the policeman
learns what he can from the casual ad-
vice of his elders and the broad phrase
ology of the police manual.
With his recommendation for the new
patrolmen Maj. Pratt asks for fifty pre-
cinct detectives to be transferred to de-
tective headquarters, doubling the pres
ent force and making available a group
of men in constant training for detec-
tive work from whose ranks could be
selected the detective sergeants. At the
same tiu1e a special force of thirty de-
tectives would be engaged in prohibition
enforcement work.
These are practical recommendations
for the betterment of the Police Depart
ment. If a limited budget makes their
adoption as a whole impossible they
should be carried out from year to year
by degrees, and with the purpose of
eventually increasing the force accord
ing to Maj Pratt's specifications.
There has never been time in the
whole history of law enforcement when
events of frequent recurrence have
placed such emphasis upon the neces-
sity Of we'll trained, we'll drilled police
force. Every day or so finds the judg-
ment of some policeman put to the test,
and too often the test finds the police
man deficient. Our policemen are
taught, through target practice, to use
their guns. AS much. If not more. time
should be spent on teaching them not
to use their guns. Our policemen are
instructed with meticulous care in the
art of filling out summons blanks for
overtime parking. A month or so spent
on intoxicating, in the minds of young
policemen. the theory that their Office.
as an emblem of the majesty of law, re-
quires dignity, discipline and the ability
to command respect without demanding
it would be more valuable to the COM
munity than any number of fines for
infractions of the traffic regulations.
Maj. Pratt states that complaints re-
ceived by the Detective Bureau far out
number the men available to investigate
them. His recommendations for increas-
ing the detective force serve two ends.
He would provide the requisite person.
mel, but at the same time create a force
of probationary detectives at headquar-
ters, thus requiring future detectives to
undergo a period of practical training
to fit them more adequately for their
duties. The development of good de-
tective these days is an accident. 1t
should be carefully premeditated from
the start.