Improve Police Training, Use of Force, and the Blue Subculture

What needs to be done to improve our nation’s police? I have reviewed three recent articles which, in my opinion, address what needs to be done. And soon. This is not new knowledge — or new thinking — in the field of policing. Every top police leader should know the context of these articles and have an idea about what needs to be done.

But why is this knowledge not put into practice? Therein lies the problem.

Here’s the first article:

What I Learned at the Police Academy

Officers are trained to see the world as a violent place—and then to act accordingly.

 By Samantha J. Simon, Atlantic Magazine, August 7, 2024.

Journalist Samantha Simon, did not secretly go undercover to get this story. All the trainers and recruits in the four police academies she participated in knew who she was and what she was doing. She wrote, “I observed and participated in the academy training myself, which meant that, alongside the cadets, I woke up early, sat through hours of dense lectures, ran miles in formation, learned basic drill commands, did push-ups, lifted weights, shot guns, and learned how to punch, kick, use pressure points, apply handcuffs, and take someone to the ground. (All of the academies knew that I was there as a researcher, and I introduced myself as such when meeting cadets and officers.)”

Further, “I had a front-row seat to academy training, and what I saw was cause for concern. As I later wrote in my book, Before the Badge, violence was everywhere I looked. The result, I found, was that many of those who made it into the institution, through the training, and out onto patrol were competent in, and eager to use, violence…”

Here are two more key excerpts:

“Each time the name of a new victim of police violence enters the public lexicon—Michael Brown, Sandra Bland, Eric Garner, Philando Castile, Breonna Taylor, George Floyd, and now Sonya Massey—there are questions about the officer’s response. How could that officer have mistaken a cellphone for a weapon? Why did that officer shoot someone who was running away? Did that officer really have to shoot so many times? One answer to all these questions is that officers are trained to see the world as threatening and to respond accordingly…”

She concludes, “By the time the cadets reached graduation, they had spent hundreds of hours hearing that they are at war, that the ‘bad guys’ should be identified through profiling, and that gaining competence in violence is the only way to survive. Cadets’ bodies are physically conditioned to assume that everyone is armed, to act swiftly and decisively, and to shoot as soon as they perceive a deadly threat. Given this training, it is not hard to understand why some police officers end up shooting unarmed civilians who run away, turn around suddenly, or reach into their pocket to grab a phone or wallet; that is what they were trained to do…”

You can find many of my posts on this blog addressed this problem of violence. Still today, about ½ of all police agencies train new hires in a local or state training academy that is more like a military “boot camp” with marching, some saluting, and many “Yes, sirs!” It is called “stress training,” but what it turns out to be is a very disrespectful and demeaning atmosphere to train a police officer.

What is needed instead is a training curriculum more along the lines of a college classroom. Stress training is not necessarily bad as long as it is job-related. However, most of the induced stress has little to do with the day-to-day work of a police officer. The objective of police training should be to teach peacekeeping, de-escalation, and teamwork with the community. In these “stress” academies, newly recruited police are yelled at… demeaned… and frightened.

Only the worst can come out of this kind of experience. Instead, their training should teach them to always respect others and embrace the ethic of “sanctity of life” while learning to function as guardians, peacekeepers and civic helpers.

I have told police chiefs they need to know what is going on in the places where they train their new officers. Sadly, few police chiefs take the time to do this. If they really observed what was going on they would change it as I, along with other police leaders, did years ago. Many of the ways we train police today is liability in the making.

What Simon has observed is an important look into why so many citizens are killed by police each year. Many police academies train students to be “warriors” in a war against crime and the “bad guys.” When the full understanding that police are guardians and not warriors, police training will improve. Proper police training teachings new officers to be cautious, respectful, to manage conflict, and protect lives,

I also learned over the years that if a life had to be unavoidably taken by one of my officers, it most always meant I lost the officer at the same time. Having to take a life impacts the mental and physical health of one who must do it. We must remember this.

If we care for our police we will do everything possible to let them know what we, their leaders, and the public expect and to care for them if it happens. We expect our police to protect life (all lives) because all lives are sacred. And that understanding should be clearly evident in every police training curriculum and practice.

Simon is right. Police recruit’s bodies are physically conditioned to assume that everyone is armed, to act swiftly and decisively, and to shoot as soon as they perceive a deadly threat. That needs to ratcheted-down!

Read her entire article HERE.

And here’s more on this. Now from a contemporary colleague, Sue Rahr, former city cop, also an elected sheriff in King County, Washington, and head of the statewide police training academy for a number of years.

How a Violent Police Subculture is Protected

In this 2021 article she said, “We, America’s law-enforcement leaders, have to change. I understand the motivation of police leaders who believe they are protecting the ‘good’ men and women who join this profession with honorable intentions. I was one of them. But ignorance and good intentions don’t justify or eliminate the actual harm caused by misguided actions. I cringe when police leaders describe officers like Derek Chauvin as ‘bad apples’ or ‘rogue cops,’ as if their behavior is a surprise. How can anyone be surprised? And nothing would have changed without the public exposure of the video showing George Floyd’s death. This is what happens in a culture that accepts, rationalizes, and makes excuses for indefensible behavior and prioritizes group loyalty over speaking out…”

She went on, “This past weekend, as I watched the videos of Tyre Nichols being beaten to death, I asked myself, Why does this keep happening? But I know the answer: It’s police culture—rooted in a tribal mentality, built on a false myth of a war between good and evil, fed by political indifference to the real drivers of violence in our communities. We continue to use police to maintain order as a substitute for equality and adequate social services. It will take a generation of courageous leaders to change this culture, to reject this myth, and to truly promote a mission of service—a mission that won’t drive officers to lose their humanity.”

And for a trifecta today, I call attention to a 2020 article by two college professors and a deputy police chief. Their focus, along with both mine and Sue Rahr’s, is the perplexing matter of an oppressive subculture in need of reform.

Fixing Police: Peer Intervention

“Perhaps most important, agencies need to create a culture that understands and values the importance of peer support and intervention. Officers, like everyone else, behave the way they think their colleagues and co-workers expect them to behave. Few things are more important to weeding out misconduct and creating a professional culture than peers sending the message that misbehavior is simply not acceptable. Agencies must put professionalism, including peer intervention, at the center of police culture…

 As to the needed reform, they offer this, “Meaningful police reform is possible, but it will require a coordinated effort from federal, state, and local government. It will require sustained pressure from the public to push elected officials to take action. This will not be straightforward, nor will it be fast… [I]t should be patently obvious that the country has no patience for the same old apologetic and half-hearted attempts at reform that we have seen previously… [A]ll of us, deserve better…”

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Now all we need to begin is the will, courage, competency from those who lead our nation’s police. It won’t, and can’t, come from the police union, elected officials, or community leaders – it must come from inside the heart of policing itself — its leaders — who, themselves, should know by now (post-Ferguson)what needs to be done, but fear doing it. None of these recommendations should be new or unfamiliar to them.

Now it must be done… and done together with those who are served.

Hopefully…