My first book, How to Rate Your Local Police, was published by the Police Executive Research Forum in 1983.
It was a great time in policing with the establishment of the Forum of few years earlier by my dear friend, Gary Hayes. The characteristics to evaluate police are just as important today as they were then — 30 years ago.
They need repeating and I list them in my new book as well.
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HOW TO RATE YOUR LOCAL POLICE
A. Leadership Characteristics
1. What kind of person is the chief?
- Does he/she have a clear vision?
- Is there a willingness to challenge the status quo?
- And a willingness to take risks, be innovative, build a coalition of support for change?
- Does the chief have self confidence?
- A track record of personal integrity?
- Does he or she have the respect of community and elected officials?
- And the ability to inspire and motivate?
2. What tone does the chief set for the agency?
- Does he/she have a coherent crime control strategy?
- A concrete crime prevention strategy?
- Does the chief defend the rights of unpopular groups?
- And see that police services are delivered equally to the community?
3. Does the chief articulate the policies of the agency clearly and understandably?
- Does he/she speak out and take stands?
- And an articulate a spokesperson on crime control and public safety?
- Does he or she advise the community on personal security?
- And preserve guarantees of due process?
- Does the chief stand up and defend minority rights?
- Assure protection for the weak and injured?
- Is he or she an able manager in a complex bureaucracy?
- Does the chief act as a guardian of the rule of law?
B. Policy Characteristics
- Does the police agency have a clear sense of its objectives?
- Are there written policies for all operational practices?
- Does the police agency select the finest individuals to be police officers?
- Does the police agency provide high quality training for its officers in an adult learning style?
- Does the police agency reinforce the minimum requirements for a good police officer: effectiveness, integrity, civility and courtesy, and physically fit?
- Does the police agency guide, train, and supervise police officers in the proper use of physical force?
- Is the police agency willing to investigate and discipline officers engaging in misconduct?
C. Organizational Characteristics
- Do police officers in the agency respect individual rights?
- Does the police agency address crime and order problems by using all community resources?
- Does the police agency cooperate and coordinate with neighboring law enforcement agencies and with other agencies in the criminal justice system?
- Does the police agency communicate well with the public?
- Does the police agency work adequately with local news media?
David C. Couper. How to Rate Your Local Police. Washington, DC: Police Executive Research Forum, 1983.
Improving Police: A Necessary Conversation 
How about these questions
Police Chief Leadership Characteristics
Doe the police chief firmly believe in the US Constitution and the Bill of Rights?
Does he/she has a track record of sending innocent people to prison due to withholding information that would exonerate that person and/or manufacturing evidence to send the person to prison. In Germany, if a cop withholds or manufacture evidence, he/she loses their job and goes to prison for 1 to 2 years.
Would he/she fight to get an innocent person free from prison if was discover that person was not person who committed the action even if it meant fighting his own department, the DA’s office and the judge?
Would he reform police training so innocent people who tried to help and cooperate with the police would not get railroad to jail/prison by police officers.
Would he establish a unit dedicate to dealing with white collar corporate crime even if it meant aliening big corporations, the Chamber of Commerce, and rich people. It is about time chiefs take white collar corporate crime as seriously as street crime.
Would he reform police training so that the police officers would be force to tell the drivers at traffic that they can refuse the police to search the person and their vehicles.at traffic stops? The same thing for people who live in homes, apartments, etc?
Would he/she reform police training where the cops can no longer using lying as an excuse for police misconduct, violating of people rights, aliening the public, etc. Just because the courts stated that the police can lied doesn’t mean giving the police blanket immunity. Cops hate it when people lied to them but then they are stupid and dumb when they can’t figure out why the community hates them when they lied..
Policy Characteristics
Would he/she write policies where the officers now have to tell people of their rights such as refusal to a search of the person, vehicle, home, etc.
Would he/she write policies where the police now have to give people their Miranda rights and what charges are being brought again them?
If a police officer seriously violate policies and procedures, would the police not hesitate to arrest and send the cop to prison to the full extent of the law? One example was Boward County and Miami-Dade police deliberately firing non-lethal weapons at peaceful protesters when there was no justification for it or firing the weapons deliberately at people’s heads in order to hurt the people. Non-lethal weapons are suppose to reduce the threat of violence not to escalate violence especially when it is the police that are being violent for no reason.
Would the Chief provide training to police officers where they meet different racial, ethnic, religious, political, and social groups on a continuous basis so police get to know the people. Most cops don’t live in mufti-ethnic areas or in an area dominate by an ethnic, racial, group, and the only time they see such groups is at a scene of a crime.
Organizational Characteristics
Would the chief make it clear that an officer has to live in the community in that he/she services? Trouble is you have cops that live outside the community such as San Francisco because the cost of living is high. Even if the cost of living is reasonable, cops would avoid living in certain neighborhoods because gang violence and being prejudices against different groups.
Does the police hold regular community seminars to help the people understand their rights with the help of the ACLU and other civil rights organizations?. Most of us think we know our rights when we don’t and the cops don’t know want us to know our rights let alone exercise them.
Does the police have some kind of organizational structure where the police have to patrol the beat on foot? It would give the cops some physical exercise plus he/she would be force to interact with the community and be on their best behavior especially with video cameras now being widespread in America.
Does the police have a unit that is dedicate to fighting corruption in the business world that is not subject to interference from the US Chamber of Commerce, rich people, business people, corporations, and the politicians at the city, county, state and federal levels?
Does the police have an intelligence branch where its members are rigorously trained that they do not spy dissents, protesters organizations that are exercising their rights under the Constitution peacefully and are no threat to the security of the USA and the intelligence branch is being used to fight crime and organizations that are a threat to the USA,
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Good work there, Gunther. Thanks for going to a deeper level…
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Thank you sir.
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Another police chief leadership characteristics , policy, and organizational structure is rigiously drilling the US Constitution and the Bill of Rights not only at the academy, but also at regular seminars with law professors and civil rights organizations with real case laws that would back up the US Constitution and Bill of Rights.
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“If a police officer seriously violate policies and procedures, would the police not hesitate to arrest and send the cop to prison to the full extent of the law?”
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Leadership Characteristics
Does the police chief have a track record of arresting people based on the unwritten rule of “contempt of cop” or also known as P.O.P. or “Pissing Off the Police and continues to do so.
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Reblogged this on clarkcountycriminalcops.
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