John Buttrick writes from his Vermont Folk Rocker in his Concord home, Minds Crossing. He can be reached at johndbuttrick@gmail.com.

The Concord Police chief writes on the police website, “Our department strives to develop strong relationships with our citizens, businesses, non-profits and other advocacy groups. We are committed to providing the very best police services possible in order to make New Hampshire’s capital city an enjoyable place to live, work, and play. I invite suggestions and recommendations about how the Concord police can enhance your quality of life in Concord.”

Before making suggestions and recommendations it may be helpful to recognize that twenty-first century policing has departed significantly from its origin. The root of the word for police is the ancient Greek word, polis. Hannah Arendt wrote in “The Human Condition,” “To be political, to live in a polis, meant that everything was decided through words and persuasion and not through force and violence.” In the polis, men argued and debated, as equals, under a rule of law. In those ancient times, police served as facilitators for the faithful functioning of the polis.

Over the centuries, human beings have become more and more accepting of force and violence to maintain the polis. The functioning of the police has followed this trend into the twenty-first century. Policing in America began with the call to enforce the system of slavery, which meant using force to control the slaves. Then, in recent decades police have had to develop a mission in the presence of a proliferation of weapons among the citizenry, 125 weapons for every 100 citizens in America.

A task force on policing, during the Obama administration, observed that police had become warriors. The task force reported that training at police academies is similar to military basic training. The trainers seek to discourage individuality and build a system of comradery and compliance with a command structure. Recruits are trained in the use of force whereas the task force recommended learning to be guardians of “an enjoyable place to live, work, and play.” They need to learn to make individual decisions and take de-escalating action. Most of the task force recommendations were never implemented.

Perhaps we cannot return to the civility of the Greek polis, but our police departments could begin a movement away from a focus on force and violence. The police have a significant presence in our communities and therefore can be an influence for change.

“An overwhelming majority of Americans, of both parties, support major reforms in American policing. And a whole lot of police, defying their unions, also support those reforms. Perhaps, rather than being a presence of force and violence, our police could be trained in their academies to demonstrate “their ability to listen, show empathy, explain their actions, de-escalate tense situations, and leave everyone they encounter with their dignity intact.”

These qualities are very difficult to employ with a gun on the hip. Police presence may be much less threatening if the weapons are left in the vehicle and civilian clothes are worn with a simple ID badge and a name tag. It could transform the mission of the police from enforcement to being guardians of a civil society where every person is treated with respect and care.

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I’m well aware that the recommendation of a much less reliance upon weapons is difficult in a gun-toting society. It would put significant pressure, responsibility, and some danger onto the police to be change agents for a culture that is determined to keep and use their guns. Back in 1978 I entered and won a civic pride essay contest in a small New Hampshire town. One of the ideas I included was to have a community service police department of civil servants without guns or uniforms when doing the daily work of policing, most of which do not require a firearm. However, this winning essay was never released to the public, discussed, nor considered for implementation!

Even so, now may be the time to advocate for police academies that abandon the military model and teach the skills needed to police without carrying weapons. Consider police being recognized as innovative brave examples of ways to face into conflict and disputes without using the threat of weapons.

The success of the police could be a model and the first step toward reducing civilians’ felt need to prepare for force and violence. Instead. the practice of using words, reason, and persuasion could substitute for weapons in our twenty-first century. It could advance the Concord Police Department goal to “strive to develop strong relationships with our citizens, businesses, non-profits and other advocacy groups… to make New Hampshire’s capital city an enjoyable place to live, work, and play.”