Any society in which a significant group feels alienated from policing structures has difficult questions to address, as an examination of the recent history of Northern Ireland will readily confirm.
For a number of reasons, some obvious and others disputed, the former RUC was overwhelmingly drawn from one side of a divided community here.
People in the Protestant and unionist tradition tended to closely identify with the RUC during the height of our Troubles, while Catholics and nationalists often took a much more suspicious stance.
An enormous amount of determined work by committed individuals across the board eventually changed attitudes and helped to create the PSNI as a new and broadly based institution.
It is inevitable that issues over policing will continue to emerge but there is considerable general confidence in the ability of our administrators to resolve them in a fair and appropriate way.
While there are very few areas in which the US could learn from our example, there is increasing evidence that policing reform could well be one of them.
A series of disturbing developments over recent months could only cause growing alarm over the relationship between police officers and black citizens in many states.
Some remain contentious but the implications of this series of high profile episodes involving injury and loss of life must deeply concern the authorities.
The latest is the case of Sandra Bland, who was found dead in a Texas prison cell after she was the victim of a disturbingly aggressive arrest over a trivial suggestion that she did not signal before changing lanes while driving along a main road.
Ms Bland, a 28 year old black woman who worked for a university, was pulled over and confronted by a white police officer in an incident which was at least partly captured on video.
He displayed a completely intimidating attitude to her from the start, inexplicably threatened her with the use of a Tazer, produced an incredibly dubious allegation of assault and managed to have her remanded into custody.
Ms Bland should never have been behind bars, particularly as a person who previously suffered from depression, and allegedly took her own life in her cell three days later on July 13, although her family has demanded a separate post mortem.
Concern over the circumstances surrounding her death has since steadily increased, and the overwhelming feeling at her weekend funeral was that some form of official intervention is urgently required.
An independent commission, chaired by the Conservative politician Chris Patten, ultimately paved the way for a new policing era in Northern Ireland. It may well be that a similarly radical approach is needed in the US.
