The Greek thinker Plato is now on the curriculum for officers in Baltimore. Here are five more texts they should teach in police academies Police officers in Baltimore have been making novel use of their notebooks. Anything Plato has said may be taken down and used, not as evidence against him, but in the classroom, where detective Ed Gillespie has made the ancient Greek philosopher part of the force’s annual in-service training. Gillespie gets his students to discuss cases of police misconduct in terms of Plato’s tripartite model of the soul, which holds that our behaviour is governed, at times, by either the intellect, the “spirit” or the “appetites”. Any further education would be a good thing, since research shows that the more educated officers are, the less likely they are to use force. But philosophy has more valuable insights to offer. Here are some suggestions for what should be on any police department’s reading list. Continue reading...
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