Why Can’t My Police Department Improve?

The title of this blog is a question I hear quite often. In trying answer that question, I try to demonstrate how most police departments can set themselves on a path called “continuous improvement.” That idea was strongly present in two books I wrote on the subject — How to Rate Your Local Police and Arrested Development: A Veteran Police Chief Sounds of About Racism, Corruption, and the Seven Steps Necessary to Improve Our Nation’s Police. Additionally, I have written this blog since 2011 (1500+ posts) and in which I continue to comment and offer advice; especially after a questionable police shooting.

So “continuous improvement” should not be an unfamiliar concept in American life because it is what we do in terms of our economy and what good citizens do in their personal, relational, and economic lives — we seek to continuously improve.

So why it is difficult for police? I may have overlooked an eighth step in improving police — and that step would be about the responsibility of elected officials and enable them to weather the “slings and arrows” that are sure to come when anyone (even experienced retired cops like me) suggests that police should in anyway change.

When change or improvement in publicly voiced, In almost every instance, there is a ground-swell of resistance from the police union to “concerned citizens.” All the reasons are laid out as to why the change should not be implemented. The resistance comes as fiscal responsibility (“We can’t afford longer police training or educated cops” and “This proposal will raise our taxes”). It also will raise up the issue of community safety and latent [racial] fear in the community (“Don’t put handcuffs on our police” and “Back our Blue!”}.

But behind all this are politicians. And most of them simply don’t want to agitate the police; particularly when police union members are increasingly becoming active in local politics.

If you’re worried about your police and how they might treat your teenager. Or worried about how police use physical force in your city; like the using choke holds, shooting at fleeing vehicles, and covering up misconduct, maybe it’s time that you start expecting your elected officials to take action, for example, on the recommendations of a very fine national commission called the Task Force on 21st Century Policing.

Read this report and then demand your elected officials work with community members and police representatives to help the police in their community be a 21st century police department committed to continuously improve. And while we’re at it, has your police department signed The 30×30 Pledge? if not, they should. It will be a major step toward continuous improvement.

Yes, this will be difficult — but not impossible. We did it in Madison, Wisconsin. You can do it in your city. Follow the Seven Steps — and the Eighth Step as well!