Thank you, Emile Perez, for your outstanding, professional representation of French law enforcement in Washington, D.C...

And Christian Decharriere for the extraordinary hospitality we have received from our hosts here in Paris.

Merci beaucoup.

One of the great struggles among emerging democracies around the world today is the establishment of an effective, credible police force.

Until we see the near collapse of a society, we may take for granted how essential an incorruptible police force is.

In 1994, I had the opportunity to help establish an interim police force in Haiti, just as it was trying to recover from the debilitating effects of a disastrous military dictatorship.

In addition to an appalling lack of resources and training, the police there had no history of independent civil law enforcement.

They were tied to the military and had been used as an arm of political repression by whatever dictator happened to be in power.

Lack of credibility in the police spilled over into the equally unreliable judicial and prison systems.

My experience there gave me a greater appreciation for the law enforcement agencies of my own country and yours, which, from their beginning, have focused on the importance of a credible criminal justice system.

By and large, the established democracies of the world enjoy police departments that are honest and nonpartisan; whose members are well educated, well trained and reasonably well compensated.

The poorest democracies don't tend to have it so good.

Haiti is the poorest country in the Western Hemisphere, and one of the poorest in the world.

It does not have the resources to provide basic equipment to its police, never mind the wherewithal to engage in effective corruption fighting.

That's what makes Haiti so attractive to narcotics traffickers as a transshipment point to markets for illegal drugs in the United States.

Still, even wealthy democracies cannot afford to take their own immunity from such temptation for granted; not when drug traffickers and money launderers are willing to offer millions of dollars to escape apprehension.

The amount of money associated with illegal narcotics is such that it represents a real threat to law enforcement everywhere.

So, in addressing our overall theme of police ethics, I thought it appropriate to talk about corruption and strategies to combat it.

I will also touch on a related issue, the abuse of police authority.

Most of my professional career was spent in the New York City Police Department, where I served as commissioner.

New York City has a very big police department.

Some 40,000 uniformed members.

But typically, police strength varies.

Often, a police chief may not have the budget to hire new police officers as older ones retire or otherwise leave the service.

Yet an increase in the crime rate may be followed by a public demand to hire more officers as quickly as possible.

However, for a police chief, I would recommend that you not hire new officers too quickly.

Especially if it means sacrificing a careful screening process.

In a department as big as New York is it is inevitable to have police officers with ethical problems.

Some will get into trouble after they join the force.

Others are trouble to begin with.

And if I were allowed to write the ten commandments of police management, the first would be: Do not hire your problems.

In other words, don't sacrifice good screening of police candidates just to fill vacancies quickly.

It has been my experience that the worst periods of ethical lapses by the police involved those officers who were hired in a hurry.

New York, Los Angeles, Washington D.C. - all have experienced this problem in their ranks.

When you sacrifice good screening, your buy problems for yourself later on.

My second commandment of police management would be:

Do Not Economize on Ethics.

There is a popular mantra among public officials these days in the United States.

It is a boast, really, which says:

We can do more with less.

Taxpayers like to hear that.

But my experience tells me you can usually only do more with more.

Especially in law enforcement.

Cost cutting may be popular with the public or with the official to whom the police executive reports...

But police executives should resist budget reductions that undermine the integrity of their departments.

Typically, the public wants to see the police presence it is paying for…

In uniform, on the street, assuring the public's personal safety.

That's understandable.

So when savings are sought, there may be a temptation to cut the unseen work of the police, like internal investigative units.

That would be a grave mistake, however.

The internal, anti-corruption fighting mechanisms of a police agency tend to be the most under-funded and least popular to begin with.

Police officers assigned to internal affairs are frequently resented by the rest.

And even some police executives are reluctant to give more resources to those who may succeed in uncovering corruption and a potential public scandal, fearing that this may reflect poorly on them.

Some police executives would prefer not to know, content to hope that whatever misconduct is going on stays out of sight.

But corruption does not stay hidden for long.

Pretty soon everybody smells it.

An effective internal investigative function---one that will prevent corruption in addition to uncovering it -- must be embraced by the head of the police agency.

It must be given the necessary resources to function effectively.

In short, the police chief must embrace internal affairs in a very big way, and give it the money and the people to do the job properly.

Just as painstaking screening of recruits will spare you trouble later on, the robust support of internal affairs will spare you the painful embarrassment of a police scandal.

How should police executives respond when a scandal does erupt?

There is where the third commandment comes in:

Do Not Resist Outside Help.

When I was deputy police commissioner in New York, a prominent newspaper columnist exposed a scandal involving a small group of police officers.

Among other things, the officers were stealing narcotics from drug dealers and reselling them.

The number of police officers involved was very small.

But that wasn't the real scandal.

The real scandal was how long the corrupt police officers were able to operate untouched by internal affairs.

The internal affairs division had become a paper tiger, resting on its fearsome reputation, but in fact, successful only in pursuing the easiest cases.

At the time, internal affairs was avoiding complex cases and failing to adequately manage the rest.

The situation demanded a major overhaul of that department.

We replaced the head of internal affairs with a career federal prosecutor from outside of the police department.

And we brought in a prestigious consulting firm to recommend how a new internal affairs bureau could better manage corruption cases.

This outside involvement not only gave us the fresh perspective and expertise that we needed; it also helped us regain the confidence of a skeptical press and public.

We gave the new internal affairs bureau more resources, including the best investigators in the police department, whether or not they wanted to be transferred there.

However, I resisted the idea of turning over the internal affairs function of the police department to an outside agency entirely.

While some totally independent agencies, like Hong Kong's Independent Commission Against Corruption, appear to be very effective, an outside agency typically has a very difficult time penetrating the natural barriers and complexities of a police department.

An outside agency would need to have extensive subpoena power and the authority to terminate careers in order to overcome anyone who might try to frustrate their investigations inside the police department.

The New York City Police Department, like many police agencies, is as inscrutable to outsiders as the Vatican.

I also think the police should take pride in the fact that they can keep their own house in order, and not surrender their capacity to clean up corruption to an outside agency.

Beyond outright corruption itself, another ethical issue confronting police executives is the even-handed, unbiased policing of societies with diverse ethnic groups and traditions.

Police departments in the United States have had a long history of alienation from minority groups, particularly African Americans whose legitimate efforts to assure civil rights were violently resisted, particularly in the Southern United States, often with the complicity of the local police.

While that era is now 30 years gone, many of our major city police departments, including New York's, remain disproportionately white even as black and other minority populations have grown tremendously.

And for decades, police supervisors tolerated the use of racial slurs and worse by police officers, rationalizing that such blatant bad conduct was acceptable in high crime neighborhoods.

As with corruption fighting, it falls to the police chief to set the example in making biased conduct unacceptable.

How does he do that?

Two ways:

First by launching a very strong drive to recruit minorities to the ranks of the police department.

I believe that with a police department as diverse as the community it serves, the problem of bias will effectively resolve itself.

Secondly, the police department should make it clear that racial or ethnic or religious prejudice won't be tolerated. In some police departments, a police officer who utters a racial slur is subject to dismissal.

That's the way it should be.

Because, first and foremost, the police must be impartial enforcers of the law.

Nothing erodes public confidence in the police faster than an officer who takes money from criminals or one who selectively enforces the law against people he simply doesn't like.

This is particularly true today, as divided societies come together and look to the police to maintain order in a professional way without prejudice.

There should also be the expectation of maintaining order with the least amount of force necessary.

Society gives the police two extraordinary powers.

One allows the police to deprive people of their liberty, if only temporarily.

The other allows police to use deadly force when necessary.

Precisely because we give our police officers such extraordinary authority is why we also hold them to the highest standards possible.

While it is important for law enforcement executives to motivate their officers, to support them and come to their defense when justified…

...It is equally important that they vocally condemn police misconduct and rigorously penalize it.

Otherwise, the few who are corrupt or brutal can quickly undermine public confidence in the many who do their job courageously.

A great deal is at stake, although sometimes the people closest to the job are the last to see it.

Some police officers just see themselves as lowly civil servants, with a thankless job that will never make them rich.

But in fact, the police are a very important element of the glue that holds society together.

They are society's very visible proof of whether the state functions fairly or not.

The society that allows its police to be mired in systemic corruption cannot emerge as a stable democracy, and certainly not a great nation.

The same is true of societies in which the police act politically or at the whim of a repressive regime.

Many people have come to expect, and even take for granted, honest, unbiased and nonpartisan enforcement of the law.

That's how it should be for the public.

They should be able to take it for granted.

But as law enforcement executives, we don't have that luxury.

We can't take anything for granted.

We have to make sure the corrupt police officer doesn't take an inch.

For a surely as he will take an inch, he will take a mile.

And in doing so, he will tarnish the reputation of the selfless thousands who have sacrificed their lives in the line of duty.

We owe it to them and to the public we serve to make certain, wherever possible, that the words "police" and "ethics" remain synonymous.