Once Again: How to Improve Police

Questions to Ask — Answers to Seek

For the past 12 years I have written this blog with the auspicious title of “Improving Police.” Maybe it should have been titled as a question yet to be answered – Can police be improved? The idea for the blog came about after I published “Arrested Development;” a book in which I sought to answer the question, “How do police improve?” The book is somewhat historical (how we got to where we are today), autobiographical (describing the trials of being a reform-minded leader), and proscriptive (the methods we used to significantly and statistically improve policing in a midwest city).

As I have mentioned before, while the blogsite more than 1,500 posts, over 750,000 views, and followed by a thousand or more (including followers from many other countries). However, I have to report that i have not generated the dialogue in which I hoped would occur. I have often wondered why through the years, is it because police practitioners are wary of posting their beliefs and feelings? Do practitioners not see the problems I do? I remain confused to this day.

Nevertheless, I have taken another bold step in this post to identify the questions which I believe both police officers and citizens should be asking and pursuing. Many of the ansers to these 12 questions reside with these pages.

This blogsite will most likely turn out to be my legacy after sixty years of study, practice. and observation of policing in America.

Now on the cusp of another fractious presidential election, there is a role for our nation’s police to be icons, good examples, of how our constitutional democracy and its values work! How the rule of law, fairness, justice, peace, and restraint is practiced in our towns and cities.

Here are twelves questions I believe need to be asked and answered:

1. What can be done to reduce the number of persons killed by police each year (since 2015 when the actual number has been counted by journalists, generally speaking, the numbers have varied little at around 1,000 persons each year – and about 1/3 of them young men of color and only about ½ of that number involving a firearm)?
2. Why can’t police be trained to use methods other than shooting at “center mass?  [the location of a person’s heart and lungs]?
3. Our nation prides itself on technology, why can’t we develop better technologies to restrain dangerous suspects without taking their lives?
4. Why can’t police use other ways to restrain persons with clubs and knives (like that which are being used in some Asian countries}? [For example, see this video.]
5. Why does police training have to be so much like a military “boot camp?” Is there any evidence supporting the use of a more academic approach to teaching a person to be a police officer? Don’t police drive away many candidates who would make outstanding police officers by maintaining a teaching style that demeans the students?
6. Why don’t police require a 4-year college education and, like police in many European countries and, after graduation, undergo years of closely supervised practice?
7. Research tells us that most of the work of policing is not arresting resisting persons but more problem-solving and building solid and trustworthy relations with community members. Why isn’t Procedural Justice a required policing practice and job evaluation tool?
8. Countries that have joined the European Union must agree to the deadly force standard their police will use it only when it is an “absolute necessity.” Why cannot our police adopt this standard which is consistent with the Police Executive Research Forum’s “Guiding Principles of Use of Force.”
9. What can be done to hold police to be more accountable? What about requiring police to intervene when a colleague may be operating illegally or contrary to police department policy?
10. As a citizen, how would one go about evaluating police practices in their town or city? Are there certain qualities a citizen should look for? [For example, see “How to Rate Your Local Police.”] What role does “democratic values” play within our nation’s police?
11. What ever happened to the Task Force on 21^st Century Policing. The report of a high-powered group of police, community leaders, and academicians issued in 2015?
12.  There appears to be a general lack of understanding of the police function within its ranks, why does this occur? Why is there such disagreement between the functions of “warrior” and that of a guardian-peacekeeper? [Read this discussion.]

The point is that not only should citizens be asking these question, but these should be the questions police themselves should be asking. It is a matter of professional competence to seek to improve what one does.

If you search this blog site, you will find answers to each of these questions and, perhaps, a few more answers to questions you should be asking.

Years ago, we in Madison came to the realization that to effectively police a free, diverse, and democratic society requires police who are smart with high emotional Intelligence, well-trained, and deeply connected to the communities they serve and to continuous improvement of all that they do.

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P.S. Comment from colleague Chief Larry Hesser:

“I just read your latest blog. I remember this study. As an assistant director of training and as a police chief for 29 years, I was a proponent of low stress basic training [see this study which reported “The results indicate that non-stress trained officers displayed a higher level of performance proficiency in the field, a higher level of job satisfaction, and higher level of performance acceptability by persons served.”] As a chief back in the day, I read your ‘How to Rate Your Local Police’ and provided a copy to the mayor and council, the local news media, and members of the department. I was committed to the philosophy throughout my career and 20 years of teaching the West Point Leadership Model. What I have personally observed throughout policing in America is the lack of personal courage and commitment to stand for what is just and right in servicing all peoples. I have been a student of your ideas of reform throughout my 39 years of police service. I was one of the first 13 ‘agents’ hired by the Lakewood Department of Public Safety in 1970. The difference between power and force is compassion. Keep up the fight.”

More from Chief Hesser:

“I have personal experience with all of your 12 questions as I followed your lead through out my career. I’d like to respond to all 12 of your questions but I have trouble typing since I’ve been diagnosed with ALS. I want to thank you for all you have taught me through out my career. You have no idea the influence you had on me. I took all that you advocated and brought it into practice in small and medium sized cities. My 20 years of teaching leadership across the country was a real experience because of the interaction with all ranks using a problem solving approach ‘what’s happening, why is it happening, what are you going to do about it, and how are you going to know you were successful in solving the problem.’ Cops aren’t lazy, they just don’t now the importance about problem solving nor how to do it thinking on their feet.”