Given what I know now and have experienced over the past 60 years, here’s what I’d do as head of an urban, municipal police department in a city under 500,000 population that wishes to significantly improve their police services.
Ten necessary steps to totally improve policing in your city.
- Dismiss the current department and start over. I would encourage current employees to apply under the new standards and requirements. (Those not able to be rehired would be given generous severance.)
- All military ranks and uniforms would be eliminated and non-military uniforms and ranks instituted.
- All current police employees and applicants would be required to possess a baccalaureate degree. (Current employees being rehired would be given a 2-year grace period to complete their studies.)
- All police employees would be trained and refrained for a period of 36 months which would involve a highly supervised period of on-street coaching and strongly oriented toward the proper handling of emotionally distraught persons who may become violent.
- Use of force (especially deadly force) would comply with the EU standard of “absolute necessity.”
- Citizens receiving police services, voluntarily or involuntary, would be asked to evaluate the quality of their police contact after every interaction according to principles of Procedural Justice. (For example, see Open Policing.)
- An effective police agency in a free society has employees with high Emotional Intelligence and are reflective of the community served; therefore, the composition of the department will be 50% female and at least 20% will be men and women “of color.” All department leaders will be highly trained and required to practice Servant Leadership.
- Police staffing and operations will be neighborhood focused with citizen advisory councils in each area.
- Police employees will be required to live within the city,
- A specially trained police resource officer will be assigned to each high school and middle school.
Now who will begin this necessary conversation?
Improving Police: A Necessary Conversation 
Wow! I never thought of #1. BTW in Madison Aug. 21-25. When is good for you and Christine for lunch or dinner?
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I so appreciate the specific guidance and lived experience. I live in Mpls and plan to send this to my city council reps and friends who despair about policing but dont have any real plans to change the culture. Next we need a 10 point plan to decrease the amount of violent crime (again); especially social media inflamed gun violence among teens.
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Thanks, Carol… we must do something! So, we press on!
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Chief: I endorse your “rip the band-aid off” approach to re-imagining and re-constituting an urban police department. I proposed a similar idea for a city you and I know well, which shall remain nameless here, with one major exception. Specifically, I called for the discontinuance of said department, and its replacement with a “contact for services” with a competent outside agency, with all sorts of built-in performance metrics. I have a ‘white paper’ I wrote (which, not surprisingly, was not loved by most readers!) I’d be happy to share with you (I may already have done that —– I am getting old and somewhat forgetful!) if you would like.
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I’m even older, Paul. This was my “Swan song!”
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As you know David, I do like your thinking. But and there is always a but. I have seen some of these tried and fail and some would just be to heavy a lift in many departments, particularly with the average tenure of a chief being 2.5 to 3 years. Where there is no comment I agree wholeheartedly.
1. Dismiss the current department and start over. I would encourage current employees to apply under the new standards and requirements. (Those not able to be rehired would be given generous severance.) {Great idea but I just don’t see it happening in anything but a very small department with the right support from local politicians and the community.}
2. All military ranks and uniforms would be eliminated and non-military uniforms and ranks instituted. {I have seen this tried many times particularly back in the 70’s and in time the new ranks, that really changed in name only, reverted to the military ranks in time.}
3. All current police employees and applicants would be required to possess a baccalaureate degree. (Current employees being rehired would be given a 2-year grace period to complete their studies.) {I like this as an entry level requirement. For current personnel you may have to grandfather them in but make it a requirement for advancement or specific duty assignments}
4. All police employees would be trained and refrained for a period of 36 months which would involve a highly supervised period of on-street coaching and strongly oriented toward the proper handling of emotionally distraught persons who may become violent. {also, leadership training. Leadership is a real problem. Many leave or perform poorly due to poor leadership}
5. Use of force (especially deadly force) would comply with the EU standard of “absolute necessity.”
6. Citizens receiving police services, voluntarily or involuntary, would be asked to evaluate the quality of their police contact after every interaction according to principles of Procedural Justice.
7. An effective police agency in a free society has employees with high Emotional Intelligence and are reflective of the community served; therefore, the composition of the department will be 50% female and at least 20% will be men and women “of color.” All department leaders will be highly trained and required to practice Servant Leadership.
8. Police staffing and operations will be neighborhood focused with citizen advisory councils in each area.
9. Police employees will be required to live within the city, {This sounds good but is not always practical}
10. A specially trained police resource officer will be assigned to each high school and middle school. {Emphasis on specially trained. SRO programs have had mixed results. Why are they there? Are they actually successful in achieving their purpose? Are they contributing to the school to prison pipeline? These are all questions that need to be answered.}
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I might add tenure for the Chief. Without tenure I would have been long gone before my 20+ years of service! Tenure saved me to accomplish what I did!
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