ClickCease

Category: Police Early Intervention System

Mapping the Effectiveness of EIS

Posted on by Nicholas Frankel

At their core, early intervention systems have similarities with the philosophies that guide personnel development and human resources best practices commonly seen in the private sector. Their goal is to aid in evaluating an officer’s (employee) performance, identifying areas of improvement, and opportunities for support. However, in the case of law enforcement, the stakes are much higher as these performance issues relate directly to critical matters like agency readiness and maintaining the public’s trust.

Given that early intervention systems can significantly impact public trust and perception of policing, it stands that they should be held to a more rigorous standard than performance review technology used in much of the private sector. False negatives derived from faulty analysis are potentially costly, contributing to an agency’s exposure to the risk of a lawsuit or civil rights claim. What’s more, failure to provide adequate support in the case of a true positive can have a similar effect. This article explores the intersections of technology and human performance and how their relationship can assist, or hinder, a high-performing early intervention program.

Building the Tech

True/False PositivesThe first iterations of early intervention systems were relatively primitive compared to some of the more sophisticated systems in use today. Most notably, limitations in tech – processors, and data storage capacity posed challenges to complex and resource-intensive data analysis. These early systems also lacked the benefits of decades of research and on-the-ground experience, which are critical elements of an effective EIS. Given these limitations, most of those systems (and almost all today) relied on rules-based thresholds:

  • Department-level thresholds: There are standards set at the departmental level—for example, a certain number of complaints in a specified period.
  • Performance indicator ratios: As the name implies, these are a ratio between two different performance variables. Shifts worked versus complaints, for example.
  • Peer-officer average thresholds: a “like to like” comparison of officers in similar assignments or positions.

In the early 1990s, early intervention systems became increasingly common in best practice recommendations from the major professional and certification organizations. Then starting in 1997, federal consent decrees frequently mandated the use of EIS as a part of broader reform-minded measures. As EIS were more widely deployed, this added a more comprehensive sample size of users that researchers could use to study such a system’s efficacy and identify where they could be improved.

Those studying early intervention systems began to realize that the predictive ability of threshold-based systems was poor. One study found that a threshold-based system deployed in a major metro police department with more than 1,800 sworn officers incorrectly flagged hundreds of officers and failed to identify many others requiring intervention support. Even when additional variables were added to more rudimentary threshold-based systems, evidence showed they generally lacked the contextual analysis needed to perform as well as systems that incorporated predictive modeling. The same study found that when the department deployed a new, modeling-based EIS developed at the University of Chicago and now offered by Benchmark Analytics as First Sign® Early Intervention, there was a 20% reduction in false positives and a 75% increase in true positives, demonstrating the advantages of a more sophisticated, predictive EIS.

The Human Element

Early intervention systems are an excellent tool for supervisors and departmental leaders, but they are still a tool. They can be used to inform personnel decisions but are not intended to be the sole arbiter of these decisions. A well-constructed EIS can point to appropriate and evidence-based interventions, but ultimately that follow-through requires human interaction and support to be effective and lasting. These are a few practical and human factors that can contribute to or detract from an early intervention system’s success:

Accountability: Just as officers are held accountable for their actions on duty, supervisors are ultimately responsible for the quality of support they give to their reports. Interventions triggered by an EIS are almost always confidential as they can involve human resources issues, sometimes concerning mental health or sensitive matters. The private nature of these discussions risks inconsistency in intervention tactics, a major hurdle for effective intervention as it can lead to a perception of favoritism.

Budget and capital constraints: An EIS requires people to perform the intervention whether that is a referral, conversation, or other ongoing support. All of these require time, which has a cost. Agencies with access to more resources typically have more robust mental health and officer support systems. In contrast, agencies with more limited funding need to balance immediate and long-term funding needs. Officer mental health and wellness are essential facets of early intervention, and having the resources to maintain these support programs is a significant advantage in fielding an adequate EIS.

EIS design: Just as personal bias can affect intervention decisions, bias in design can lessen the effectiveness of an EIS. Technology is not inherently neutral and, without careful design, can consciously or unconsciously reflect the biases of its creators. While it is important to note there has been no research to suggest any evidence of this in early intervention systems, basing design decisions on evidence generated from peer-reviewed research can serve as a safeguard against unconscious bias in tech design.

Making the Technology Work

A new era of police reform has increased public interest in early intervention and made it a priority for professional organizations supporting the research and the academics involved in it. Data and experience are driving the newest iterations of these systems, and it is clear from these insights that incorporating research-based design into a predictive rather than threshold-based EIS is the most promising path for effective intervention. In partnership with a diversified research consortium, Benchmark Analytics uses peer-reviewed research-based design to build its EIS, First Sign®. Benchmark’s data scientists and engineers leverage the power of the world’s largest multi-jurisdictional officer performance database while incorporating iterative learning that uses cumulative analytics to get “smarter” and more efficient over time. This technology gives supervisors a more holistic picture of an officer’s performance, especially relative to others, and enables them to engage in more targeted and meaningful intervention.

The Logic Behind Data-Driven Early Intervention Systems

Posted on by Nicholas Frankel

Accountability and transparency are the “name of the game” in police reform. As much as that’s a contemporary topic of the reform dialog, it has its roots in the evolution of modern policing. As Sir Robert Peel put it, “The ability of the police to perform their duties is dependent upon public approval of police existence, actions, behavior and the ability of the police to secure and maintain public respect.”

EISProviding support to officers so that they may live up to those high ideals described by Peel is a crucial component of maintaining the public trust in policing. In an era of smartphone cameras and social media, agency leaders must utilize the most promising, evidence-based tools available to prevent misconduct and excessive use of force before it occurs and becomes an issue of public concern. Early intervention systems (EIS) emerged some 50 years ago and are an essential and effective means of demonstrating accountability by addressing performance issues. This article looks at how these systems have risen to prominence and how they’ve evolved to meet the needs of 21st century policing.

Early Intervention as Accountability

Thought leaders in law enforcement began to recognize the importance of early invention as far back as the early 1980s. The United States Commission on Civil Rights (USCCR) published a report in 1981 (republished in 2000) entitled Who is Guarding the Guardians? which took an in-depth look at official misconduct, community trust, and accountability in American law enforcement. Notably, the report detailed nascent efforts at systematically analyzing officer performance as a part of a performance-improving early intervention philosophy.

Building on the first early intervention recommendation from the USCCR, The International Association of Chiefs of Police (IACP) issued guidance for early intervention in 1989, citing them to control corruption and build integrity in policing. Later in 2001, both the Department of Justice (DOJ) and the Commission on Accreditation for Law Enforcement Agencies (CALEA) recommended them as a best practice, with CALEA stating, “[a] comprehensive Personnel Early Warning System is an essential component of good discipline in a well-managed law enforcement agency. The early identification of potential problem employees and a menu of remedial actions can increase agency accountability and offer employees a better opportunity to meet the agency’s values and mission statement.”

In addition to the recommendations from scholars, government entities, and accreditation organizations, early intervention systems are present in consent decrees. Since 1997, most consent decrees have required adopting an early intervention system to improve accountability and reduce citizen complaints.

Diving Deeper

Broadly speaking, an EIS seeks to identify potentially problematic patterns of officer behavior and offer them support before an adverse event occurs. Typically, these systems track disciplinary action rising to the level of suspension, excessive or repeated use of force, citizen complaints, and incidents that may be associated with drug or alcohol abuse. The underlying philosophy is to envision these factors as opportunities for support – additional training, coaching, mentorship, or other forms of professional and personal support. Furthermore, early intervention systems conclude that many if not most of these data points suggest knowable risk factors can be mitigated outside of the disciplinary process, leading to better outcomes for the officer, the agency, and ultimately the community.

There are different methodologies early intervention systems use to achieve these goals. At its most basic, early intervention can be rooted in the social interactions within a department, with supervisors recognizing changes in an officer’s pattern of behavior that could indicate an underlying issue. This methodology is evident in agencies with fewer sworn officers, where a smaller and consistent headcount can lead to close relationships. However, this approach is by its nature anecdotal and does readily lend itself towards data analysis or easy reproduction in other agencies.

More formal systems rely on analyzing a set of data points to determine when prescribed action is necessary. The systems analyze a limited set of indicators, usually expressed in the form of a threshold. Once that established threshold is reached, an officer is “flagged” and typically referred to a supervisor or internal affairs for additional support. Systems vary widely, but common thresholds include the number of use of force incidents in a given period, a pre-determined number of citizen complaints, or other data points.

A drawback of these systems is that they are limited by the number of data points they utilize in the analytical phase. Limited datasets can offer a somewhat narrow assessment of an officer’s activities while on duty, often not fully considering the nuance and context involved in an officer’s patrol. Once a threshold is reached, prescribed actions can lead to instances in which a supervisor’s best judgment or knowledge of circumstances is not incorporated into the analysis – leading to a false positive (or false negative) created by the system. This can lead to the perception among officers that it is “only a matter of time” before they are flagged and prescribed corrective actions that may not be useful or appropriate.

Reform-Minded Early Intervention

Benchmark Analytics’ First Sign® Early Intervention takes a different approach to early intervention compared to informal or threshold-based systems. Building on decades of knowledge and experience derived from generational iterations of early intervention systems and a research consortium dedicated to studying policing transparency and accountability, First Sign is the only EIS that uses a research-based statistical model that is preventative by design.

This means that First Sign does not simply analyze an officer’s performance in a vacuum but instead contextualizes it by using peer analysis, which leverages multiple data sources to present a more holistic picture of the officer and pinpoint where they can best be supported. These data points can be what time of day their shifts are, what areas they patrol, and their assigned unit. An example of this could be the difference between an officer assigned to a drug task force in a higher crime neighborhood at night is likely to have different performance data points than one patrolling a relatively quiet business district on a daytime shift. A threshold-based system doesn’t take this into account. It would instead assign the same thresholds to both officers which, lacking context, could present an inaccurate portrait of an officer’s behavior and potential for risky behavior.

First Sign may be predictive, but it is not prescriptive by nature. Instead, using the Case Action Response Engine (C.A.R.E.), it gives departmental leaders and supervisors a suite of tools and data analysis dashboards to understand an officer’s performance to facilitate thoughtful and effective intervention. It is non-disciplinary and non-punitive by design, leading to better alignment among all stakeholders – departmental leaders, supervisors, civic leaders and advocates, and officers – in building a more meaningful and lasting sense of buy-in.

Advancing reform

Though there are distinct differences in early intervention systems, they all seek to advance the reform dialog by providing law enforcement with a valuable tool to address off-track officer behavior before it manifests as misconduct, excessive use-of-force, or other actions that have a detrimental affect on community trust of police. First Sign distinguishes itself in the field by offering a reform-minded EIS that supports forward-thinking policy decisions designed to build and strengthen that community trust that is fundamental to 21st-century policing.

Officer Wellness in Practice

Posted on by Nicholas Frankel

In our previous article, we explored how researchers studying officer wellness are responding to a more urgent need to understand the psychological and physiological factors that impact an officer’s health and job performance. As research expands and the body of knowledge concerning officer wellness evolves, this newly gathered data is being put into practice. Departmental leaders are basing their decisions on this research when crafting policies and creating programs designed to support and enhance officer wellness.

The Law Enforcement Mental Health and Wellness Act of 2017 was passed to give policymakers and police leaders more information to make these decisions. A significant component of the act was the mandate that the U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) make recommendations to Congress for ways to boost officer wellness. This multifaceted mandate focused on providing recommendations in three areas to improve officer wellness: how to best support agencies, their officers, and mental health providers working with law enforcement agencies.

Officer Wellness in PracticeTo understand the broader picture of best practices in officer wellness, the DOJ produced case studies of several departments throughout the country. The resulting report, Law Enforcement Mental Health and Wellness Programs: Eleven Case Studies, utilized field interviews and site visits to document programs and support services currently in use. It emphasized a “continuum of mental health and wellness strategies, programs, and methodologies” that begin with the recruit and last through retirement. The strategies that the researchers investigated suggested significant efficacy in the departments that implemented them and have been held up as positive examples meriting further research.

The report looked at both common elements of these departments’ approaches to wellness and unique aspects of their efforts. Below are some notable examples from the case studies.

Indianapolis, IN

Leaders at the Indianapolis Metropolitan Police Department created what is now known as the Office of Professional Development and Wellness (OPDW) in 2010. The program emphasizes intensive peer-mentoring — provided by more than 100 experienced officers trained in peer support — that begins before an officer is sworn and lasts up to two years into their service. OPDW programs are specifically designed to help officers adapt to both the physical and mental demands of the job as well as provide ongoing support, connecting officers with mental health and counseling services. Leaders in the department credit the program with helping to change the agency’s culture by making it acceptable to talk about one’s personal and professional life and giving the mentor officers a sense of ownership of the department and in shaping its culture.

Bend, OR

The Bend Police Department began focusing resources on officer health and wellness in the early 2000s. The first major initiative was altering the shift schedule with sufficient overlap in shifts to give officers one hour a week of on-duty physical fitness programs. This early wellness effort eventually expanded into more comprehensive physical wellness programs for officers that, over time, correlated with a 40% decrease in on-the-job injuries. The department has employed an on-site psychologist since 2015 who is “embedded” with officers and engages in ride-alongs to build officer rapport and trust in an effort to “change the culture” around mental health in the department.

Dallas, TX

After a 2016 mass-casualty event affecting 14 officers, the Dallas Police Department greatly expanded its mental health services. It created the DPD Employee Support Program (ESP), which uses officer self-referrals and leaders’ referrals based on early intervention tactics. Referrals are confidential, regardless of source, and do not appear on an officer’s record with the goal of reducing the stigma of seeking support. Three staff psychologists provide services to support the research-based wellness needs of police officers and departments. These include pre-employment screening, family and marriage counseling, debriefing after critical incidents, and fostering peer-support networks. In 2018 DPD partnered with the Brain Health Brain Performance Institute at the University of Texas in Dallas to create a data-driven 12-hour mindfulness course to reduce stress, promote cognitive resilience, and improve focus.

Milwaukee, WI

In 2014 the Milwaukee Police Department began steps towards a substantial shift in the way they approached early intervention. Conducting focus groups with officers and drawing on research from the International Association of Chiefs of Police (IACP), they moved their early intervention program out of Internal Affairs to its Training Division and changed its focus to officer wellness. This was complemented by hiring a full-time psychologist to assist officers in general referrals and work-related trauma cases. Along with the shift in early intervention strategy and a staff psychologist, the department’s non-denominational chaplains are a key element of a three-pronged approach to officer wellness. The lead chaplain is a retired MPD officer, sits on the POST board, and has a stellar reputation among the officers. The chaplains are covered by laws similar to attorney-client privilege, therefore providing a highly trusted source of peer and trauma support that is, in many ways, unique to the MPD.

Tucson, AZ

The Tucson Police Department was one of the first departments in the country to have a unit devoted to officer wellness in mental health when it created the Behavioral Sciences Unit (BSU) in the early 1980s. It presently consists of a psychologist and two sergeants acting as peer support supervisors. Owing to the unit’s importance in the department, its funding has been protected even during major budget cutbacks. The BSU provides a very comprehensive line-up of services to officers that are proactive, focusing on resilience and coping strategies to mitigate stress. The BSU hosts “Family Day” as part of a recruit’s training, taking this focus a step forward by recognizing the demonstrated importance that family support plays. In these sessions, BSU staff members help families understand the potential effects of a career in law enforcement and, most importantly, the confidential support services available to them.

Officer Wellness and Early Intervention

All of these departments are united in emphasizing a proactive approach to monitoring and improving officer wellness. Early intervention, especially in the case of trauma and work-related stress, shows up in many examples as a critical strategy in this approach. Benchmark Analytics’ First Sign® stands alone in its capacity to comprehensively analyze officer performance data for off-track behavior, which can be an important indicator of mental or physical health challenges, family issues, or workplace stress.

These distinct examples show that by following the research, encouraging top-down buy-in, and a willingness to try new methods, departmental leaders have the potential to make a real impact on their officers’ wellness.

Our next article will focus on some of the more innovative ways departments are promoting officer wellness.

Police Reform and Escalating Misconduct Settlements

Posted on by Nicholas Frankel

A crucial element of the police reform discourse is the rising cost of police misconduct settlements and the impact they have on municipal budgets. Elected and agency officials must contend with these costs though taxpayers in most instances are subsidizing the funding used in settlements. There is ample reason for law enforcement personnel, lawmakers, and taxpayers to all be keenly interested in the cost of these settlements. What do misconduct settlements look like? What is being done to mitigate the costs of misconduct settlements? These are questions this article endeavors to answer.

Misconduct Settlements: A Nationwide Concern

Even tracking the overall costs of police misconduct settlements has proven a significant challenge for researchers. There is currently no national reporting database and municipalities’ approach to record-keeping can vary widely. On a national level, the data just doesn’t exist to present a broader picture of how much misconduct settlements cost taxpayers. In an effort to address this lack of data, in March of 2021, the Cost of Police Misconduct Act was introduced into Congress, which seeks to compel reporting to federal authorities. Whether or not this bill will be passed into law is presently unclear, but it does represent one of the most high-profile efforts to explicitly tie the costs of settlements with the pushes for reform.

Despite the lack of specific data, it is well-understood that the costs of misconduct settlements are quite substantial and create strain on city budgets. In a recent survey of 31 of the 50 cities with the highest police-to-civilian ratios in the country, available data shows settlements cost these municipalities more than $3 billion over the last decade. Though the dataset is incomplete, it illustrates the substantial figures municipalities are contending with in settling misconduct allegations. Until recently, these costs were not typically figured into municipal budgets for policing and related costs.

City Budgets Misconduct SettlementsFurther complicating matters is how municipalities pay for misconduct settlements. In general, many small to medium-sized cities carry some form of liability insurance or risk-pool while the largest cities are either self-insured or will issue bonds to cover settlements and their related costs. Both approaches have their drawbacks. Bonds accumulate interest and servicing fees while insurance typically is funded via property taxes or other public user fees. In either model, it is once again taxpayers that ultimately bear the cost.

These settlement costs appear to be trending upwards too. In a survey of ten cities, the Wall Street Journal found misconduct settlement amounts rose from $1 billion between 2010 and 2014 to $1.6 billion from 2015 to 2019. There is no one reason for this rise but it is generally thought that things like increasing public pressure in favor of reform efforts and the widespread use of smart phone cameras have contributed to this rise. Additionally, some agencies and municipal governments look towards a settlement as a way to avoid a drawn out and expensive court battle.

Agencies Respond

Law enforcement leaders, elected officials, and taxpayers all have an obvious interest in controlling misconduct settlement costs. These unplanned expenses can significantly impact municipal budgets and can force unexpected reallocation of funds. Agencies and municipal governments are employing a number of different methods to control these costs. Here are some of the most common and effective examples:

  • Additional training is a strategy agencies and municipalities are using to reduce the likelihood of an adverse event leading to a settlement. Training requirements are frequently a component of new reform legislation being passed at the state level. De-escalation training and coursework related to identifying and responding to mental health crises are becoming more prevalent as are new standards in use-of-force training. Effectively managing and tracking officer training is seen as a proactive tool aimed at preventing law enforcement encounters that end up in settlements.
  • In recent years, the companies that insure small to medium municipalities are responding to the growing cost of settlements by exerting more control over agencies’ operations. This insurance risk management oversight takes on many forms such as policy audits, use-of-force simulators, and even ride-alongs to observe officer behavior. In some cases, insurers can even influence staffing decisions. Other municipalities participate in risk pools in which they “share” risk. The Association of Government Risk Pools connects member cities and facilitates collaboration while providing best standards and education.
  • Improvements to data collection are furthering policymakers’ and agency leadership’s ability to base decisions on rigorous analysis of data. This encompasses everything from body-worn cameras and audio recording devices to Internal Affairs and Use-of-Force metrics that are tracked and monitored via software. With more comprehensive and smarter data collection, policymakers and agency heads can be more confident in their decision-making, knowing it is based on a holistic view of performance and personnel data.
  • Early Intervention Systems (EIS), are software suites designed to help agency leaders monitor officer behavior and, ideally, intervene before any issues arise. Benchmark Analytics’ First Sign® Early Intervention System is preventative by design and more sophisticated than other, trigger or threshold-based systems, allowing leaders to identify off-track officer behavior before it rises to a level of seriousness that could involve an out-of-policy incident.
  • Once an EIS has alerted an agency’s leadership to the potential for performance issues, it is up to them to implement corrective measures to get that officer back on track. This often involves additional support like further training and mentorship. Benchmark’s Case Action Response Engine® (C.A.R.E.) helps track not only that assigned interventions are being completed but that officer performance is in fact on a path to improvement.

Elected officials, taxpayers, and agency leaders all have a vested interest in seeing the costs of misconduct settlements minimized. Data collection and analysis pertaining to officer performance are vital parts of the conversation around reducing the overall costs of misconduct settlements. By using new research-based software tools to better understand this wealth of data, agency leaders are empowering themselves to make the decisions necessary to ensure police funding is wisely spent on things like agency growth and training — and ultimately reducing the likelihood of problematic behavior that can potentially contribute to the rising cost of misconduct.

A Year of Change: A Look at State-Driven Police Reform Efforts

Posted on by Nicholas Frankel

It would be an understatement to say that in the last 12 months the world has changed in ways no one could have predicted. A global pandemic disrupted social norms, healthcare infrastructure and economic stability. Add to that a series of high-profile law enforcement incidents that ultimately resulted in renewed calls for police reform — and it’s easy to see how historians will look back at this year as a pivotal moment for change in the face of challenge and adversity.

One of the outcomes was an unusually active legislative environment, with states from coast to coast focused on enhanced as well as new police reform legislation. During this tenure of rapid change that continues today, it’s important to step back and look at the big picture in state-level policing reforms — to more thoroughly understand them in a broader context. According to a recent analysis by The Washington Post more than 2,000 policing-related bills have been introduced across the country since June of 2020. By unpacking and understanding the broad aims of these bills, departments and their leaders can better anticipate potential reform efforts that affect them and implement more effective change management strategies in response.

state-driven police reformTypically, most states have a pre-determined legislative period, with some not even meeting on an annual basis. In the last 12 months, 23 of them held special legislative sessions outside of their normal legislative periods. While many of these sessions were called to tackle the impacts of the pandemic and provide special funding for first responders, it also gave lawmakers the opportunity to address urgent calls for police reform specific to use of force as well as accountability and transparency.

Newly compiled numbers from the National Conference of State Legislatures show that almost half of the states enacted some form of legislation that changed the way police operate. These reform efforts covered everything from physical interactions during arrests to record-keeping and compliance. In addition to these 24, several more states passed oversight reforms, calling for commissions or other groups to study ways to improve standards and transparency.

Two of the most common types of reform have been those addressing the use of neck-restraints, or chokeholds, and those mandating an officer’s duty to report or intervene. 18 states and the District of Columbia passed laws limiting the use of neck restraints with ten states banning them outright. Other legislation passed in 12 states requires officers to report and, in many cases, attempt to intervene to prevent out-of-policy instances of force by a fellow officer. Further, some states have enacted broader, more comprehensive reform measures — for example:

  • Colorado Governor Polis signed into law a broad accountability bill titled Enhance Law Enforcement Integrity, where agencies will be required – among other things – to report all details of all use of force incidents that result in death or serious bodily injury; track all instances when a peace officer resigned under investigation for violation of policy; and maintain a database on officer de-certifications
  • Governor Sununu of New Hampshire signed an executive order establishing the state’s Commission on Law Enforcement Accountability, Community, and Transparency. Benchmark Analytics was selected to develop and implement a state capture of employment, training, and disciplinary history as well as certification across 200+ statewide law enforcement agencies.
  • Washington state Governor Inslee recently signed a dozen police accountability bills into law, notably including the creation of a statewide database of police use of force incidents, through the Washington State Office of the Attorney General.
  • New York, where Governor Cuomo issued an executive order that every law enforcement agency in the state adopt a reform plan by April 1, 2021. Titled New York State Police Reform and Reinvention Collaborative, the order requires that agencies develop clear policies specific to Use of Force and Early Intervention.
  • In Virginia, Governor Northam signed sweeping legislation comprised of a dozen bills covering everything from use of force and tactics to crisis intervention protocol, all areas requiring additional training and certification for officers.
  • The state of Utah passed several law enforcement bills signed into law by Governor Cox, including requiring Utah agencies to meet the FBI’s standards for reporting use of force — as well as setting up a panel to consider and make recommendations on data collection.
  • After the passage and signing of the Minnesota Police Accountability Act of 2020, Benchmark Analytics partnered with Minnesota POST to implement a statewide portal to capture internal affairs misconduct complaints across 400+ of the state’s law enforcement agencies.

Additionally, some states are mandating the reporting of incident data to both state and federal agencies. These reporting requirements as part of oversight trends are generally aimed at increasing the dataset available to the communities that agencies serve — as well as policymakers, researchers and data scientists. One of the thoughts behind these new requirements is that, with a larger dataset to study, it will better enable evidence-based decision-making at multiple levels of government and law enforcement.

Most observers see these legislative actions as the beginning, rather than conclusion of a process towards meaningful change in the way law enforcement agencies track and manage their forces. Comprehensive personnel management systems can make a substantial difference in the ease of which this data is monitored internally and reported out to various agencies and oversight bodies.

The Benchmark Management System (BMS), for example, features reporting tools designed to simplify data retrieval and review, putting incident-based data for individual officers, comparative stats for units, and a host of other data analysis features in one, simple-to-implement tool. This not only allows leaders to ensure accurate and timely milestone reporting to satisfy the requirements of any new legislation mandates, but day in and day out it empowers them to monitor performance data in real time, giving them an up-to-the-minute picture of the officers under their command. BMS also includes a next-generation Training Management System to help agencies track and manage any additional requirements and certifications as a result of new reform standards.

Law enforcement agencies are experiencing a time of rapid change in the way they do their work. New legislation will undoubtedly continue to shape not only law enforcement practices, but also training and the way data is managed and reported. By having a deeper understanding of not just the mandates of new legislation but the trends they represent, law enforcement agencies and their leaders can better rise to the occasion, ensuring their officers are well-equipped to navigate these changes.

Our next article will be looking at the role that state POST organizations are expected to play in these latest reform efforts.

Our Work in Progress and Reflections on Policing in the Past

Posted on by Amy Vracar

The following is part 2 of 2 in our IACP Leadership Series conversation between Benchmark CEO Ron Huberman and Thomas Eicher, Executive Director of the Office of Public Integrity and Accountability, New Jersey Office of the Attorney General. In this entry, Mr. Eicher discusses new polices his state is implementing to improve transparency and accountability, moving toward a more effective, evidence-based early intervention system — as well as sharing his thoughts on various policing reforms over time and the need to look at the criminal justice system as a whole.

RH: Tom, let’s continue our discussion on police reform policies being initiated or expanded upon in your state of New Jersey. Your novel concept of tracking and reviewing use-of-force incidents statewide by assigning a county prosecutor to work with every agency is breakthrough. What else are you implementing?

TE: Sure. The other thing we looked at was transparency, and we issued an updated body-worn camera policy that requires disclosure to the public within the completion of the initial investigation, typically 20 days for a police-involved shooting. We have expanded that to not only body-worn cameras, but dash cams and private cameras that might inform the public what really happened during a particular incident.

We issued an amended policy about impeachment material for officers. Even though it’s been the law for a long time, we had not had a statewide policy that really set out in any detail the requirements to track and make available to defense counsel and defendants impeachment material about the officers who were testifying. We put that in place. We, again, pushed that on the county prosecutors a bit to put them at the frontline to gather that information and
make it available.

We thought these two updates were important reforms to strengthen public trust and heighten transparency. We also continued and emphasized our resiliency program where we looked at trying to help officers who needed assistance because of a problem in their life – such as a drug or alcohol issue –making it easier for them to reach out and get help without incurring disciplinary action.

Finally, and this is a work in progress, we are looking at how we can improve the early warning system directive that we have, and move it more towards an early intervention system — improving the capacity, either on a statewide level or within the individual departments, and the ability to implement this updated system in a way that really facilitates training, as opposed to discipline; or interventions early rather than later so that you don’t have to wait until something really goes off the rails. And importantly, using data rather than hunches about what actually is effective — as well as what you should be measuring and looking at.

That’s true for all we’re talking about . . . I think that the focus on using the data that’s available is really key. It’s what makes this multi-dimensional reform effort somewhat different than some of the earlier reforms that didn’t have that ability to gather and analyze the data — and help use that data to inform policies.

RH: You know what’s interesting, Tom? It’s that is precisely what I’ve advocated for in terms of what I’ve seen. In the ’50s we had the professional model policing: 911 came to take everything over, and everyone’s in uniform and random patrol — and it’s really what is even today the bedrock of policing. Through the ’70s, we started to see problem-oriented policing, which was followed by community policing. Community policing was concurrently overlaid with predictive policing,  joined by Compstat policing in the ‘90s, leading us up to this point in time.

What’s different to me at this point in time – and that you’ve articulated as well – is the fact that for the first time in the history of law enforcement, we have data and research to actually say, “We no longer have to rely on the hunch and the goodwill of a street supervisor. We can systematize an understanding of a pattern and practice of problematic behavior in the early stages — before we have horrific incidents that really crush our profession every time they happen.”

Tom, let me just tap into your experience. You were a federal prosecutor for 30 years, with much work in civil rights crimes. Has there been a trend you can identify? Were there things that you were much more likely to prosecute 30 years ago and 20 years ago than today? And more to the point, if you will, what is the nature of problematic conduct in civil rights violations today versus 30 years ago — or is it really the same show?

TE: I think it’s pretty similar, honestly. But there has been a trend. The original cases I was involved with were more corruption cases. Police cases where drugs were stolen, money was stolen, drugs were planted, officers were on the take. Now, that was in Philadelphia; not to give them a bad name, but I was a prosecutor in the city at the time. We also saw that in New Jersey when I moved over here.

And then, whether it was because of focus or difference in conduct, the use of force over the last five to 10 years has become much more of a focal point. I think the public’s understanding of what is reasonable force for police to use has evolved. I think there was an era when the public’s attitude was, “Hey, if they committed a crime, they brought it on themselves and the police should do whatever they need to do to take care of this person.” They really didn’t care what happened to him. I think that’s changed.

I think even people who have committed crimes are being seen more as a person. And even though they deserve whatever punishment the system will result in. It shouldn’t be at the hands of the officers. I think the public’s definition of reasonable force, which is always at the bedrock of even the constitutional law, has changed. I think it’s evolved. I think the public is expecting and asking for more restraint when it can be safely done.

I think that’s a change. I think that’s different. One of the challenges in prosecuting civil rights cases – especially those for people incarcerated and I did a number of those – is that a lot of jurors at that point were like, “Hey, they must’ve done something or they wouldn’t have been in jail in the first place. And so therefore, they don’t have any rights.”

Of course, that’s not the law, but that’s a very difficult climate to bring those cases into. I think the public sentiment has changed, in part maybe, because so many people know someone who’s been incarcerated or know somebody else who knows somebody. It’s not the stigma it used to be. I think there is a more humanizing of people, and an expectation that police will deal with effectively, but fairly, with everyone they interact with.

RH: No, it’s interesting. What do you think has brought the public around? Do you have a sense of why there’s been such a shift in how it’s perceived?

TE: I think it’s an accumulation of the incidents that we’ve seen. And I think it’s the starkness of the George Floyd situation. It’s also a recognition that there is a general perception – and we can argue about whether it’s true or not – but there’s a general public consensus, I would say for the most part, that law enforcement does not always act equally with every citizen. That there is different enforcement based on race — or based on assumptions about people.

I think that the public, for the most part, is sympathetic to that. I believe that’s a big change. And I think it goes beyond the community that’s being most directly affected — and has now broadened to others who were not part of that community, but feel that changes have to be made to make sure it’s not happening. So, I think that’s a big difference. I also believe that police are open — they want to do a good job. My experience has been that police don’t want to be the bad guys.

There are some bad apples, of course, but most police want to do a job effectively, want to do it fairly, and want to see themselves in that light . . .and I think they should. We have to give police the tools, the policies, and the training to do it. I think we didn’t do that.

To just anticipate a little bit of your question or what you mentioned about community policing, I think the Compstat model overran community policing. By focusing on data to see where crime hotspots were, and then deploying resources in that way, what it did is it tended to be almost a self-fulfilling prophecy. Less affluent neighborhoods, which in the major cities tended to be more minority, got much more attention from the police. So, then there were more arrests . . . and those arrests lead to more arrests. I think while it suppressed crime, it also created a really negative interaction with the community that I think has to be undone — through the community policing aspects of where you’re interacting, not just in a bad context, but in a normal everyday context.

The data that led the Compstat reform was effective in a way, but it undermined that community relationship in a way as well. I’ll give you an example: I won’t say the name of the case, but it involved the investigation of a fatal police encounter. The citizens that I spoke with about it said, “the police are always here harassing us. They’re in our neighborhood and they’re just always trying to catch us on some little things so they can stop us, try to search us, and see if they can find something.” I said, “All right. I understand that perspective.”

I talked to the police officer and I said, “What were you doing?” “We were on directed patrol”, he replied. “What does that mean?”, I asked. “We were in a neighborhood, a high crime neighborhood trying to catch them doing something like running a stop sign, so we could stop them and try to catch them with something”, he responded. They were both talking about exactly the same thing. The police thought it was highly effective law enforcement, and the neighborhood thought it was a means of oppression and being picked on.

It was interesting to see that the very same description of it almost leading to very different conclusions. I think both of them have some merit, but I believe if you’re only focusing in on one, and not the other, you’re going to lose the big picture. I think that’s what happened with Compstat.

RH: What’s so interesting, in my personal experience when I was a Chicago police officer, CAPS – which was the big Chicago police community initiative in the mid-’90s – was a major focus concurrent with Chicago’s version of Compstat. These initiatives were living concurrently — or trying to live concurrently. I think both had different success outcomes and both negated each other at some level.

What worries me a little bit about the current chapter of police reform, Tom, is the defund the police movement which I’m going to argue is not about funding per se, but just people being punitive by being in support of taking money away from the police. There’s an argument to be made that we should ask the question, “Who is the best person or group to deal with what situation?” I don’t think anyone’s going to pretend a police officer’s mental health training impacts a situation the way a mental health worker’s experience does. But to the degree that we peel the police away from humanizing interactions – giving that job away to other people – and leaving the police only to deal with crimes alone, we’re going to lose a certain humanity in all of this that could cause its own issues.

Tom, I’m going to close up with just a few questions. All of us who care a lot about the profession of policing and want to see it continually professionalized and elevated, we worry about democracy. Stick with me for a minute. There’s a whole body of political science that advises, “To the degree that people have faith in the systems of justice.” It’s not just the police . . . but police, courts, due process, etc. I believe when there’s a high level of public confidence, you see very stable democracies.

When you have a low level of faith in the systems of justice, you tend to see very weak democracies. If you look at South America, where there’s unbelievably low levels of confidence in systems of justice, you see democracies turn all the time. Very unstable governments. Well in the United States, much more so recently, folks’ faith in the systems of justice is deteriorating at a rapid pace. If you believe the work – you could say that’s a proxy to the health of our society, we should all be extremely worried about these reform efforts and building the trust.

Tom, what do you think we need to do to restore faith in policing, make it the honorable profession that it should be, and in many cases is, to the average American?

TE: I think that’s a really interesting question and it’s not one that a lot of people are focusing on right now. Part of it is, we require the police to do everything. We release people from the large mental health institutions and put them on the street — and the police are the first respondents, so that’s one.

Second, police also are saddled in some ways with the overall criminal justice system. Here’s what I mean by that; maybe I shouldn’t say this, but in one of the police departments that I’m involved in looking at, what we found was that African Americans had much more higher rates of arrest than Caucasians — and that’s obviously troubling. When we dug down a little more, what we found was, a lot of that difference can be explained by bench warrants out for individuals. They’re pulled over for speeding and they have a bench warrant. Well, if they have a bench warrant, the officer is going to arrest that person. They can’t ignore that warrant; It’s there, they’ve got to enforce it. What I mean is police are doing their job, but that can result in a lot of negative feelings by the community.

What do we have to do? We have to step back as we’re policing and not just focus on policing, but look at the criminal justice system at large. Is it really appropriate to have so many bench warrants for basically economic failures? You didn’t pay a fine, you didn’t pay the restoration fee on your driver’s license, you committed a crime, and now we’re going to tack financial penalties on top of it. So, a lot of that, as we saw on Ferguson [Missouri], is underlying a lot of the discontent with the police. The police are the face of that system that’s really, at some level, arguably oppressive to the people.

Not that they didn’t incur the fine, not they didn’t double-park or over run their meter — but the cumulative effect of it is, it creates this enormous negative energy between the people and the government. I think we have to step back. There have been those efforts by the Chief Justice in New Jersey and others to look at, “Is this the right way to do it? Should we be arresting somebody for an old parking ticket from a couple of years ago? Are there better ways to resolve that?” So, I think that’s part of what we have to do, is we have to help the police by taking a look at the big picture, at the whole criminal justice system, to see if we can do it in a more efficient and better way — and a more humane way. I think we can.

We’ve seen that in some of the re-entry efforts around the country that – once somebody’s served their time – it’s in everyone’s interest to see them succeed and to knock down barriers to that success. That’s just good common sense, because if you don’t do it, you’re going to end up with another person cycling through the system. I really do think what we have to do is not limit our focus to the police, but broaden it to the criminal justice system as a whole. And that requires some really fundamental discussions about what direction we want to go.

RH: Yes, I know. I’m so glad you brought that up, because I agree. There’s a big picture piece here and the micro-focus on police ultimately will not solve this problem; it’s bigger than that. We’re grateful for your service to our country as a prosecutor within the State of New Jersey — and everything that you do to elevate policing.

This interview from October 2020 has been edited for clarity.

 

The Importance of Establishing Tone — and a Transformative Way to Approach Use of Force Statewide

Posted on by Amy Vracar

The following is part 1 of 2 in our IACP Leadership Series conversation between Benchmark CEO Ron Huberman and Thomas Eicher, Executive Director of the Office of Public Integrity and Accountability, New Jersey Office of the Attorney General. In this entry, Mr. Eicher shares his belief in the importance of police chiefs setting the appropriate tone, expectations and sense of professionalism with the officers in their department — including the novel concept of assigning a county prosecutor to work with every agency.

RH: Tom, we’ve been talking to other leaders in the field about a variety of topics related to police reform. Let me start by asking a really broad question: Do you feel, at this moment in police reform in American history, that this is different in terms of the historical reforms that have occurred in policing — is this a pivotal point in time, or is it just another chapter?

TE: I do think it’s pivotal, and I think it’s different because it’s more broad-based. The prior reforms that I’ve been involved with and seen have been in response to specific incidents, and they’ve been top-down. But this one is really from the bottom up. This is really broad-based, involving large segments of the country: young, old, black and white are all engaged — and all want to see a difference. In my discussions with police officers and chiefs, I think they get it. However, police can be defensive – and considering some of the things that are being said – I think police take issue with the criticism . . . and rightly so.

I believe everyone I’ve talked to understands that – right or wrong – police have to respond to the public sentiment, because without public support they’re not going to be able to do their jobs. I think it is a challenging time because I feel some of the rhetoric is really out there. But I think police have to understand that this is their opportunity to be part of that process because change is going to happen. One of the concerns that I have is that as well-meaning as it is, people from the outside who don’t have an in-depth understanding of law enforcement, or background in the field, can try to come up with simple solutions — but the issues are more complicated than that.

RH: I agree. And I certainly worry about some of the past reforms because at times, from my perspective, they have seemed to dehumanize the police. Meaning they have not taken into full account all the day-to-day “stuff” that enable police officers to engage in thoughtful ways. Tom, let’s say that you were to wake up tomorrow, you’re a police chief — and you were giving yourself advice from someone who’s accountable for public integrity in the state of New Jersey: what would be the top thing you would advise a police chief must get right?

TE: I think it’s really not one thing because everything interacts. One thing I would say is, the chief has to set the tone for the department. It’s not a policy, or a practice even, it’s really just that the tone of the department has to be set by the chief, along with the expectations. What I would also say is that police officers need to understand themselves as professionals. They’re there to serve the public — not get down in the fray with the people that are breaking a law, but rise above it.

Obviously, police have to use force at times, they have to use force to do their jobs, but chiefs should be expecting more of the officers under their command. How do you do that? I think you set the tone with it, you be clear about what your expectations are . . . you develop written policies that set forth those expectations, you provide the training to implement the policies, and then you hold people accountable. Not that you’re going to create a sacrificial lamb, but if you intercede early – before things go really off the rails – then you can avoid those really bad incidents.

I think setting the right tone, letting your officers know you appreciate them and you have their back . . . but you’re going to demand and expect a level of professional engagement. It’s little things; like in some of my work, I’ve noticed the officers who are quick to swear or confront a potentially dangerous person are also those who are slipping over the line at times. I think the right tone and approach is part of the professionalism. I believe it goes across the board that the message to the officers has to be — you don’t stoop down to the level of some of the persons who may have committed a crime, but you rise above it and you expect more of yourself. The appropriate tone from the top is really critical.

RH: I’m in total agreement when it comes to early intervention and getting in front of inappropriate behavior. Tom, let’s talk about your role a little and what you see as the role of the state. Certainly, from my perspective as an observer of police policy and reform, the state of New Jersey is in front – almost more than any other state that we’ve seen – as part of the attorney general’s excellence in policing initiative. Can you share the basic framework of that initiative, as well as the logic behind that framework? How did your team come up with it? I think it’s such a compelling story for the country in terms of what you’re doing in New Jersey.

TE: Sure. Not to make it too personal, but I was a federal prosecutor for over 30 years. One of the things I did as a federal prosecutor was investigate and prosecute civil rights violations, including those propagated by police. When the Attorney General asked me to come work with him, I said I would do it as long as I got to be involved in police reform. Because what I realized was trying to change the relationship between the police and the community through occasionally prosecuting a really bad apple, it’s not going to really create the kind of reform that I thought needed to happen.

I agreed to come and set up this unit and run it for the Attorney General — I didn’t have to convince him. He was completely on board and said, “Let’s look at the big picture and see what we need to do.” This was before George Floyd, since I got here in 2018 and worked through the end 2019, we put together a series of reforms. We were convinced – and I am as well today – that it’s not one thing. There’s no silver bullet. It’s a series of things.

What does that include? It includes a functioning Internal Affairs and IA disciplinary process. We issued some new guidance and got the county prosecutors involved. They’re typically called district attorneys in many jurisdictions — more involved in reviewing police departments and what the police departments are doing. It requires more collecting of data about various outcomes, so that the public and county prosecutors in our office can look at data collected and say, “Why is it that nobody’s ever held accountable for a civilian complaint? Why are none of your excessive force complaints ever found to be justified?”

That piece of it – improving the Internal Affairs process – is absolutely critical because you don’t want to wait until something really, really bad happens that requires you to look at a criminal prosecution. Therefore, we also looked at that as well. Every police shooting in New Jersey is investigated — and we have the luxury, unlike most states, that New Jersey’s Attorney General is the chief law enforcement officer for the state and can issue directives and policies that apply to every law enforcement officer in the state. That’s a very robust power.

He’s also not elected . . .so that also gives him the freedom, as long as he has the support of the Governor, to institute policies without regard to the election blocks. We looked at that. It’s one of the things we did across the board: we investigate every fatal shooting and review every non-fatal police shooting in the state of New Jersey. Our office does that. It gives us an across-the-board look at what’s happening — it uncovers the circumstances under which things go off the rails and things go bad.

RH: What would you say are the pros and the cons of charging the county prosecutor with reviewing things such as a pattern of IA in a local jurisdiction? It’s certainly not a common model . . . where it’s outside of a specific incident. How are you finding that it’s working? Would you recommend other states consider it?

TE: Because of the COVID-19 crisis, although we issued the policy in December of 2019, it didn’t go into effect until August of this year. Then we had to train up all 21 county prosecutors in New Jersey, so it’s early in the implementation phase. So I can’t really tell you how well it’s working at this point — we have 550 individual police departments in New Jersey. For us, to try to monitor and audit on a large scale would be impossible. It’s even hard for the county prosecutors, some of whom have over 70 municipalities in their jurisdiction. We’ve asked them to at least take a look at it. The idea is if you know somebody’s looking over your shoulder, you’re going to be more likely to take it seriously for fear that you’re going to be called on the carpet.

One of the things we’re looking at doing in our new use of force policy is requiring that every chief sign off on an annual report to the prosecutor’s office about the use of force by their department and requiring them to analyze and sign off on every use of force at some level. By requiring that they focus on it, it hopefully will encourage that the chiefs realize this is important. There are a lot of important things, but this is very important. It’s got to be looked at.

I believe the IA process is challenging, in part, for some reasons that folks have noted recently in the news: that even if the chief imposes discipline, it’s then subject to arbitration as well as appeal to the courts. This process can undermine the certainty of the discipline. We need to find a balance that allows the chief to exercise reasonable discipline, subject to due process, but does so in a way that’s swifter and more predictable. Right now, I think that’s one of the gaps we have in our system.

RH: If I understand it right, you guys [New Jersey] are one of the only five states in the country who don’t have a decertification process today. Is that correct?

TE: That’s correct.

RH: Not saying it’s super effective, but that it is not a tool if someone hops around or if there are other problems. It’s not available as a tool today to try to get in front of some issues.

TE: That’s exactly right. We have a Police Training Commission that does the initial training of officers. One of the things that was part of the excellence in policing was to have them make a decision about whether they recommend a licensing. And earlier this summer, they did come out unanimously in favor of a licensing or certification regime that would involve decertification as well.

What that’s going to do is put a floor on the process, and allow a statewide look at setting minimum standards — not only to become a police officer. In the past, there has not been even psychological testing that was required before somebody could go to the police academy. With this change, minimum standards would be there, which is important.

It would also likely require continuing education and training, keeping up with use of force policies, along with other policies that the Attorney General issues.

It will create a mechanism to weed out the really bad apples. One of the things we did in the Internal Affairs reforms we put in place last December was to require every department that hires a police officer from another department to check the Internal Affairs records for that officer. Now, they’re not required to act on them. They could look at the records and say, “Gee, this person has five sustained uses of force, but I’m going to hire him anyway.” But that’s where the licensing comes in as a backstop if you see a pattern. Once it’s set up, it will enable a really robust licensing or certification regime.

RH: It sounds like we will all be watching how effective it is by having the county prosecutor play that new role, right? It could be a model for the nation. I’m sure we’ll learn the pros and cons to each piece of this reform, but sounds like you’re moving the ball forward.

Let me get a chance, Tom, to share some of those other reforms that you guys are doing at the state level?

TE: Sure. One of the things we’re doing is requiring that every use of force incident is reported in a statewide portal. Every time a police officer uses force in New Jersey, they’re required to fill out a detailed account through an online system. The report is then shared with the attorney general’s office, the chief of the officer’s department, and with the county prosecutor. We will have a system that’s tracking detailed information about all uses of force across the state.

We will learn when are they occurring…what are the circumstances under which they’re occurring? What’s the type of force used? Which force ends up resulting in injuries? What’s the resistance level that the force is being used against? These reports will provide a detailed picture that’s going to allow the chiefs to look at use of force among officers. Importantly, in larger departments, chiefs can look at trends that may not be apparent just from anecdotal review. It also allows the county prosecutors to look at those departments and say, “Why is it that these two similarly situated departments have wildly different amounts of force being used within their jurisdiction?”

All this tracking data will allow the county prosecutor to sit down with each chief and talk about what’s happening in their department: What are the reasons for use of force actions . . . there may be good reasons or there may not be. I think this process is really exciting — it’s going to lead to not only more effective reform, but by the same principle, if you know what you’re doing is going to be reported and reviewed, you’re going to be more careful about it. You’re going to be more thoughtful about actions taken.

Police officers, I hope, will always use force when it’s required and necessary for their protection and for the public’s protection. But I think they’ll be more judicious and conscious about it if they know they have to fill out a detailed report, and someone’s going to be looking at that report to see if it met the policies and procedures set forth by the department.

RH: Yes, that would be very consistent with the work that we’ve seen in the research across the country. Where we can’t speak to whether measurement changes behavior, we can certainly speak to the fact that what you described earlier rings true with national research — which is this confluence of what you brought up about . . . I’m going to call it ‘broken windows theory’. If it’s the officers who are swearing who may also be more likely to be involved in using force earlier than called for, our research shows that if you are struggling in one area, you’re going to be struggling in multiple areas — it’s usually not isolated.

Being able to look at use of force patterns could be part of understanding how all factors work together. It makes tons of sense and congratulations. You guys [New Jersey] are, from our research of all 50 states, the first state to not only require but actually have it executed statewide. Benchmark is lucky to be part of the story and we’re happy to be able to serve where we can.

Don’t miss Part 2 in our post Our Work in Progress and Reflections on Policing in the Past, where Mr. Eicher discusses new polices his state is implementing to improve transparency and accountability, moving toward a more effective, evidence-based early intervention system — as well as sharing his thoughts on various policing reforms over time and the need to look at the criminal justice system as a whole.

This interview from October 2020 has been edited for clarity.

Understanding Agency Culture and its Impact on Reform

Posted on by Amy Vracar

The following is part 2 of 2 in our IACP Leadership Series conversation between Benchmark CEO Ron Huberman and Chuck Wexler, Executive Director of the Police Executive Research Forum (PERF). In this entry, Mr. Wexler shares his thoughts on agency culture, reviewing use of force incidents captured on camera from other agencies to collaborate on generating new policies and procedures for desired outcomes . . . as well as the need to invest in the future of policing in meaningful ways rather than defunding the police.

RH: Chuck, I’d like to go a little bit deeper dive on culture…and for those of you who don’t know, Chuck publishes interviews six days a week (through PERF). I would say it’s pretty compelling…and for those who don’t subscribe to that email, I have found it super important as a way to hear the voices of other folks and what they’re struggling with…and I think your decades of experience helps in synthesizing that information.

You had a column that you published in your email, that you said to me got the most response — and I found it very compelling. It was about Monday morning quarterbacking. Can you give us a quick summary, Chuck, of what you advocated for and why it’s such a sea change from what’s occurring today in American policing?

Chuck: Well, the area that I find the most fascinating and has the most opportunity for change and reform is the one that’s least talked about — and that’s culture…the culture of an organization. I’ve gone into literally hundreds of police departments in the country, as you have Ron, and you walk into a department and you can feel what kind of culture it is. And there’s not just one culture in a police department, there’s the 11th District culture…there’s detective culture, and so on. The point is that culture, in so many ways, drives policy and action.

Like you, I think America has been exhausted from the videos that are seen, whether it’s in Kenosha, or it’s Rochester or George Floyd or it’s Ferguson…it’s exhausting. I began to think about this and I began to think about culture. You know, we teach ICAT, which is Integrated Communication Assessment Tactics, which is going to change policing. When we were in that class with people, we would show them videos because my folks view videos every single day. We’ve been doing this for five years on every officer-involved shooting. We have a Google search engine that’s picking them up, looking at them, analyzing them…and that’s how we develop our training. When you show these videos to a class of police, the first thing they do is they fold their arms, they cock their head about 45 degrees, and someone raises their hand and says, “You weren’t there. We shouldn’t be commenting on it.” We all look at him; we know it’s at that moment they’re in charge of the informal culture in that room.

You have to work through that issue with them. For people who are such tough guys, they can be very sensitive about criticism, and so forth. They want to protect each other — understood. However, today, what we know is with 18,000 police departments and all these videos, if you don’t take that video, and you don’t use that video in your own department and say, “What would happen if we had this situation?” You’re wasting an opportunity.

The idea is this terrible thing happened, like Rochester, for example. You look at that situation, and you say to yourself, “Okay, it’s three o’clock in the morning, we get this call, we have this naked person, we think he’s on PCP…how would we handle that in our city?” My point is that we need to be doing Monday morning quarterbacking and policing because that’s the way the field is going to change. It’s not going to change if we say we can’t talk about that because we weren’t there. That’s the old thinking.

The new thinking is, “This is a terrible thing that happened. How can we learn about that so that maybe a terrible thing won’t happen to our community? And it’s okay…maybe we don’t have the answers.” I’ve even said, take that video from Rochester, and go into a community and bring stakeholders together and show them the video and say, “What should we do in our community? Should the police own this or should a social service agency? Are they available at three o’clock in the morning? Would you like to come with us to that call?”

There’s a way to take these tragedies and use them in a way that’s helpful to your own community so that people get a sense, first of all, how your own department would perform. Sometimes you’ll find out it’s almost like how the NTSB does it with airplanes when they crash…they try to figure it out. This is different. This is much lower risk because you’re not doing your own department. I still believe in that. Chris Magnus in Tucson is doing a magnificent good job but this is a way in which every day you can be teaching your department and learning where you have gaps. “Would we do this? Do we have policy on this? No, we don’t. Oh, okay.” So, I think that’s how policing is going to change. That’s all culture. We have to write this policy. We have to train this way, but what happens in the real world, does that make sense?

RH: To me, it makes a ton of sense. The challenge to do that is you have to make it safe for people and it’s a hard thing to do. Chuck, you know them but a lot of people probably don’t — in my many jobs in life, I was the CEO of the Chicago Transit Authority. I had a few derailments while I was the CEO and the NTSB came out, and the train operator was in the room, the Union was in the room, I was in the room, the NTSB was in the room and it was designed in a way that was safe. We were all just trying to figure out what went wrong in the system so that we could ultimately fix it and make it less likely to happen in the future…and it was wildly effective because we would always end up with action items.

CW: It’s interesting because when you are doing it on your own, there are some risks involved. Let’s face it, it’s like, you can uncover, “Oh, my God, we didn’t do this,” but it is what it is because someone’s going to find out so it’s better to find out right away. What I’m talking about in some ways is very low risk because it happened in someone else’s jurisdiction. You’re trying to learn from it. It’s almost like a very low-risk, high-outcome kind of thing where you have the value of sitting around with your colleagues and say, “What if five officers respond to that?” You’ve seen that in Chicago, right? You can have five people respond and one of those officers somehow knows that the other four are doing something wrong, but he or she doesn’t know how to deal with it — “What do I say? What do I do? This doesn’t feel right”.

RH: I think one of the most befuddling, challenging things for folks to wrap their head around, is this idea of de-fund the police. I think that’s the case because no one really understands what it is. It’s more of a response or an outcry. Two questions, Chuck. One is, what do you think de-fund the police actually means? Why do you think this has become a thing in certain cities in the US?

CW: Well, it’s interesting. I’m just going to go back to Ferguson; if you look at that period, what did reform look like? Basically, it was about implicit bias training…and it was about body-worn cameras…it was about de-escalation. It was about those kinds of things…about training…it was about technology. Now with the George Floyd moment, I don’t think anyone expected that the response to this terrible incident would be how do we take resources away from the police department. It was counterintuitive. It almost felt like people were angry that we can’t fix the police, so let’s reduce the police. Let’s have other people do what the police should be doing.

We did a survey and we saw that about 48% of the police departments somehow have reduced their budget. Unfortunately, it had some impact. Now, I don’t know if that’s because of what’s happening with COVID-19, and the economy and taxes. I think some of that is there. I actually think what’s happening now is cooler heads are prevailing in most places, like in New Jersey and places where people say, “You know what, we need good police.”

The reality is, if you want to fix the police, it takes an investment. You have to invest in the police to fix the police. You look at Seattle. Seattle spent $100 million over five years to put in reforms. I think in terms of training, in terms of technology, in terms of technical assistance, those are relatively small pieces of a police department budget — 90% or 95% is personnel. If you have to cut a police department’s budget, you’re going to wind up either having to cut a class or not hire a class. Look, in New York, they went from $6 billion to $5 billion and in LA, they cut a quarter of a billion dollars. That’s huge…and you’re really impacting the future generations of that police department.

If you’re trying to change the culture, a big part of that is bringing new people in. I think that cooler heads are starting to prevail. It just seems to me counterintuitive if you’re trying to fix the police. Because if you’re trying to avoid that George Floyd situation or any of these situations, it means ultimately finding ways to get the police to respond differently. That requires attention, technology, training, hiring new people, and diversifying your workforce.

RH: Chuck, having run many large organizations like yourself, I can tell you, they only win when you invest in people in a meaningful way. When there is a death spiral of budget and cuts, the impact on morale is I think the exact opposite of what folks who are advocating for this would want to see happen. Rather than raising the standard, raising the expectation of conduct, investing in the training and the technology to achieve it, we’re seeing the opposite in some places.

CW: The only thing I have to measure this against was 2007 and 2008, when we had the great recession, and we did all sorts of reports on that period of time. It was really interesting because we run the Senior Management Institute for Police —you’ve been there, you know about it. What I found interesting was that departments, even though they had to cut back on hiring, they were sending people to SMIP. I remember talking to some people like Chuck Ramsey, and so forth, and I said, “You’re having to do this stuff.” And he said, “Well, you know what, we have to invest in the future.”

It was like you have to invest in people. I think those were the really great managers that recognized, I might have to cut here, but I want to make sure I’m sending my people. I want to make sure that we continue to move forward…even if we can’t hire new officers. I want to make sure I invest in my workforce.

RH: Chuck, we’re grateful for what you do. We’re grateful for the Police Executive Research Forum. For those folks who aren’t super familiar with it, it’s policeforum.org. I can tell you certainly as someone who has been involved or watching or participating in this profession for a long time, I’ve always found the work that you and your organization have done have helped lead the way throughout a lot of difficult times. Thank you very much. We appreciate it.

This interview has been edited for clarity.

Committing Your Agency to Honorable Police Practices

Posted on by Amy Vracar

The following is part 1 of 2 in our IACP Leadership Series conversation between Benchmark CEO Ron Huberman and Chuck Wexler, Executive Director of the Police Executive Research Forum (PERF). In this entry, Mr. Wexler shares his thoughts on the role of policing in addressing and adjusting to COVID-19, as well as the importance of building the right team reflective of values committed to honorable police practices.

RH: Chuck, we’re very grateful for the work that you do in policing. Let me start with a very broad question: Can you tell us a little bit about the current chapter of police reform? I don’t think back in February anyone would have predicted the impact of COVID-19 and certainly, I don’t think people would have predicted that police reform would have shot to the very top of what is on the minds of Americans and politicians in cities. What do you make of it?

CW: Well, I think it’s hard to talk about police reform outside of the context of COVID-19. I just think that you’ve had this combustible mixture from March to the period we’re in now in October. I think that’s important because we’re at an incredible point in American history – actually in world history. We wrote a publication back in 2007 on the pandemic and I thought when we were writing it, “Well, this will never happen.” We talked about quarantines…we talked about social distancing…the delivery of vaccines…the role of the police…what if people don’t want to social distance…what if people don’t want a quarantine…how to manage the economy, and all of those things.

Again, we wrote that back in 2007, almost 14 years ago. Then this thing hits and the police have been in the middle, insofar as being that response unit to all things that have happened as a result of the pandemic and the role that they’ve played in terms of social distancing; how they themselves have had to change during the pandemic, in terms of staffing…in terms of delivery of services…in terms of outsourcing things. Some departments have been devastated. Now, the NYPD has had 46 members of the department who have died, thousands who’ve gotten infected…while there are other departments around the country who have hardly been infected.

Then we’re into the second wave now. One of the things – and you would appreciate this – that’s so good about policing is the ability to adapt to any kind of emergency situation. You take the Yonkers Police Department and the police commissioner there — he realized in one of his areas of the city that his officers were getting infected…so he put them in one-officer cars.

People would say, “Why is that so significant?” Well, you have union agreements. You would never be able to put officers in one-response unit cars in any normal service. Everybody understood, like in New York and then Detroit, officers were infecting each other. Then in terms of dispatch and response, like in Detroit, you had

a dispatcher who got sick and actually, I believe, died. They had to close down the dispatch center and open up another just like that.

Policing was just getting into that groove — it’s almost like having a hurricane or 9/11 or Boston bomber situation, which is like a one-day thing. But what happens when that one-day event happens day after day after day. You have 12-hour shifts. And you have police command that are separated, like Dermot Shea, the police commissioner of New York and his first deputy — they’re never in the same room…they’re in different places. And you have mayors and police chiefs both getting it.

RH: If COVID had not occurred, what would have been the fallout from the George Floyd event, and how would that have impacted American policing versus how it actually did?

Chuck: That’s a really good question because COVID had this impact that people really don’t understand yet. Historians are going to look back at this period and try to figure out what was going on. Because you have this dynamic in which people are staying at home quarantining themselves, and we saw some crimes get lower, while other crimes increased. When the George Floyd incident happened, it was horrible. I mean, it was just devastating.

It reminded me to some degree of the Rodney King incident in terms of the visceral image of someone being beaten, or in this case, who subsequently died. But I wonder what happened when the demonstrations occurred across the country — they were demonstrations unlike anything we’ve seen since the ’60s, both in terms of the number, the degree, and so forth — I wonder if, to what degree the pandemic had on people in terms of getting out of their house, finally being outside expressing themselves…because I’ve also seen an increase in shootings and murders across the country.

I’ve been asking people about that, what impact does the pandemic have on relationships in terms of drug dealing, gang activity, and so forth? Some of that is about things that were happening to people, and that small things might lead to larger things very quickly. Gun sales went way up. So, I don’t know. What do you think?

RH: Chuck, it’s hard to say because I think that before George Floyd, there was a cumulative fatigue occurring in the public around police incidents. It was cumulative, Chuck, in my opinion, not because there has been any fundamental shift in policing, but because video cameras are so ubiquitous in every part of society, that events that historically would not have been that visceral video image, now are. I think much like you, Chuck, I think it’s hard to opine on or know the impact of COVID on the public outcry. But I think it’s very safe to say that long before George Floyd, there was a cumulative exhaustion happening, because the images of all police – and it goes to 800,000 police officers in the United States – and one event, ultimately reflected on everyone, over and over again, which is a complicated dynamic.

CW: I think that’s a really good point. I think that – and you know this because you were involved in Chicago at the time when I thought you were crazy when you installed all these cameras in Chicago ­– I thought, “Oh, my God, that will never work”. But it had a dramatic impact on people, neighborhoods, rather than people wanting them taken away and people thinking, “Oh, my God, big brother, this is surveillance.” They had exactly the opposite reaction. They actually felt safer walking around. I know you were really responsible for implementing that.

It’s interesting because we wrote the guidelines of body-worn cameras for the Justice Department. I remember writing the introduction to that, and basically saying that this is going to change things in ways we don’t know. When all these departments started adopting body-worn cameras, say five or six years ago around the time of Ferguson — what people thought was going to happen with body-worn cameras didn’t really happen. They thought body-worn cameras would prevent these incidents from happening. What body-worn cameras have done is actually captured footage and scenes that the American people don’t usually see. And you had all of these other cameras out there from citizens. What hasn’t changed, quite frankly, is the body-worn cameras haven’t changed how you handle some of these situations, they just record them. Now they may have changed or impacted other things – how you treat people – but at the end of the day, unless you change training and policy and culture, all you’re doing is recording it. It’s just a small footnote of how technology can sometimes have an impact but doesn’t always have the impact you expect.

RH: Yes, isn’t that true, Chuck? Let me ask you this, because you just touched on training and policy and culture. Chuck, you wake up tomorrow and you’re no longer the executive director of PERF, but you are a police chief of a major city. You’re putting your game plan together to figure out what would be your pathway. And, I would argue too, Chuck – and I think you’d likely agree – that whether it’s Chicago or Baltimore or New York or LA or Philadelphia…all of the large cities and midsize cities alike are struggling with the same issues of what we like to say is, restoring the honor of the badge, building back public trust and faith in the police. What would be some of the things that would be on the top of your list for your city, as a chief, to think about or implement to begin down that road?

Chuck: It’s a series of things in no particular order. I’m a big proponent, as I know you are, of Good to Great by Jim Collins. He’s someone I have a lot of respect for and I’ve done a lot of work with him. I think part of it is building your own team, getting the right people on the bus…the right people in the right seats. That management team is really important, how that is reflective of your values. When I look at situations police departments get into, I look at how that command staff communicates with each other. If something happens at two o’clock in the morning that’s a bad issue, how long does it take for that police chief to know what actually happened? In really well-run organizations, that can be very quick. In today’s society, communication is so important. You see police chiefs who handle these incidents really well.

In essence, the first part of the answer is, I want to get a command staff that is reflective of my values, which should be their values. Do they have – honesty, transparency, community sensitivity, responsiveness – all of those things. What’s going to be my relationship with the community? How am I going to manage that? Then look at the internal organization — so key indicators. Where do we stand on a whole set of factors? Where do we stand in terms of policy, high-risk situations? How are we going to handle that? What kind of organization, what kind of feedback loop do we have? If we screw up, how are we going to handle screw-ups? We know how to handle success. How do we handle failure?

RH: Let me challenge you on how to handle failure. I’m going to ask you to tell a story, Chuck, that you shared with me that has resonated with me almost more than any other police chief story that I’ve heard. It’s the idea of what do we do when we screw up? I would say, my opinion Chuck, is American policing has gotten dramatically better. We release tape, we call on the family, we get in front of it. We meet with community, we apologize. By the way, those are just dramatic shifts from even a year ago — the idea that a chief prior to a full investigation would say anything other than we need to let the investigation occur, is lost on the public. To those of us who’ve been deeply involved in policing, it’s a massive shift.

The story that I want to ask you about, Chuck, is a story related to not what you do when you mess up, but rather how do you try to limit the mess-ups before they occur? How do you get in front of that deeply problematic use of force event that will always look terrible on TV? When you and I had this conversation a year ago at IACP, we were sitting there in Chicago, not knowing about COVID-19, when you told me a story about John Timoney in Miami and what he did. Do you mind sharing that story of Chief Timoney and the dramatic impact he had on Miami?

CW: John Timoney is one of my heroes…a renaissance man who was also a street cop and very worldly. Any kind of use of force insights I have I owe to him to the greater degree. He came to the United States as an Irish immigrant with his brother. Basically, he worked his way up through the NYPD. He was there in that Camelot period of time when Bill Bratton became police commissioner in the early ’90s. He had a meteoric rise…he was like a one-star and he was made a four-star…a legendary person in the NYPD because he had the big picture. He was very smart. He was very well-regarded by his peers.

Bratton saw this in him and promoted him. He was a major part of the Bratton team. I would say he was one of the three or four key people. So, he does that, and then he becomes Philadelphia Police Commissioner, where he made some major changes. Then he comes to Miami, where he was also president of PERF. He and I really knew each other for 20 years. He’s really good at diagnosing issues. The one thing he understood better than anyone was use of force.

So, Miami had a major Justice Department investigation…a memorandum of agreement or consent decree, basically, because Miami had been involved in a pattern of use of force cases. But he had these good people around him and he had to identify how to deal with use of force.

He did a series of things. He changed the use of force policies, he brought many of the lessons from New York — don’t shoot at cars, firearms discharge review. Then he recognized that a number of officers were involved in a series of use of force incidents. He actually looked at that himself, and he identified the officers that had been involved in these use of force situations. He basically took them off the street and put them in places where they couldn’t cause harm.

In some ways, it was like he had this intuitive early warning system in which basically, using his good judgment, he looked into these situations: “Wait a second, look at these guys. They’ve been involved in a series.” He identified them and took them off the street. Then something unusual happened. Miami went 21 months without an officer-involved shooting. It was remarkable. He used to pride himself on that; he’d say, “Chuck, got another month, another month.” Importantly, crime went down, use of force off the charts. He then went back to the Justice Department and said, “Look what we’ve done.” They sent him a letter saying, “You are now in compliance.” It was really an amazing story.

RH: Chuck, right before he came, there had been a large number of officer-involved shootings.

CW: There had been a series of them. He inherited a department that had a series of abuse instances and the Justice Department investigated and he comes into that and on his own, he does it. But here is the postscript to this story: This is like an experiment, a real experiment. So, then he leaves…another police chief comes in, let’s call him the “un-Timoney”. He comes in, he takes those officers, puts them back on the street, and the shootings start to go way up and the Justice Department comes back. True story.

RH: Chuck, this is what so deeply resonated with me when you and I were meeting and you shared that story with me. What resonated is that that is exactly what Benchmark as a research organization does and sees — is that you have a small group of officers who are repetitively using dramatically higher levels of force more often. And ultimately, the argument that I make over and over again whenever I get the audience of Chiefs, is that it’s a noble thing and that everyone can be Timoney, in my opinion. Because if you do nothing else, but in a non-punitive, non-disciplinary way, find a better fit for those officers where we know they have a pattern of force that gets used over and over again, is just an easy button, if you will, to try to get in front of what are incredibly complicated incidents.

Timoney is now my hero as well. I was lucky enough when I was a young police officer in the Chicago Police to have met him. He was a legend back then and hearing him talk about the profession and about force was super compelling.

Don’t miss Part 2 of this conversation, where Mr. Wexler discusses generating new policies and procedures for desired outcomes and the need to invest in the future of policing.

This interview has been edited for clarity.

Investing in a Police Force that’s Poised for Leadership

Posted on by Amy Vracar

The following is part 2 of 2 in our IACP Leadership Series conversation between Benchmark CEO Ron Huberman and the legendary Chuck Ramsey, former Chief of Police, Washington, DC; former Police Commissioner of Philadelphia; and Co-Chair of the Task Force on 21st Century Policing. In this entry, Mr. Ramsey underscores the importance of knowing one’s community as well as the importance of creating a culture that reflects what is expected and will not be tolerated.

RH: Chuck, let’s say you wake up tomorrow, and you look around and you have a uniform on and you’re a chief again in a major city in America. I think certainly from my dialogue with chiefs across the country – and you talk to chiefs every day – it’s probably never been harder to be a police chief — but here you are. You got a large police force. You have all the challenges that every city has, whether it’s Chicago or Baltimore or Philly or DC or you name it. What do you do? How do you start to lead in the current environment? It might be the same playbook, but what is on your list of  ‘I have got to get these things right from the start’?

CR: First of all, let me just say that I think the tougher job than being a police chief in today’s environment is being a police officer in today’s environment. At least as a police chief, you have some way of influencing the current and the future. Whereas as a police officer, you’re at the whim of whatever it is that’s going on. I just want to just say that because it’s tough, very tough for the men and women that are out there trying to do the job the best they can. I think it starts with communication, both internal and external. I think it starts there.

I think it’s important to have those lines of communication with people, even those people whose opinion and whose views may be totally – in fact, it’s even more important – totally opposite from what you believe and what you feel. You have to at least try to establish lines of communication. Take a serious look at where you are and what it is that you’re doing as an agency, and you might need to have someone from the outside come in and take a critical look because when you’re a part of it, you’re so close to it, you don’t always see it. What are we doing? How are we managing our personnel? Do we really know what’s going on out there? Are we really stepping in?

Let’s take early intervention for an example. If an officer has a history of engaging in certain kind of misconduct…and it may not be use of force. Could be verbal. Could be anything, but it’s not consistent with policy. Do we know who they are? I’ve often said the good news is you can identify them; the bad news is you’ve identified them now you’ve got to do something with it. The key is, now that we know, what do we have in place to change the behavior of the individual? Because police agencies are primarily punishment-driven and giving a person three days off doesn’t necessarily change behavior. What is it that we’re going to do if that’s really the goal?

Early intervention, having an information system or personnel management system that will identify individuals at your earliest possible point…put in place those mechanisms to be able to intervene early on and say, ‘Hey, we just don’t do that’. Do it in a way in which it goes beyond just that one officer but the other officers too — because to me, real change in a police department isn’t going to come from whoever’s sitting on top or a software. It’s going to be when the culture of the organization itself will not tolerate certain behaviors that are out of the norm because that’s not what the agency stands for. It’s not what the culture stands for, but you have to use these tools to get you there. That’s the ultimate goal. That’s the kind of thing I’d be focused on right now.

Learn from those that have experience. Learn from Minneapolis. Learn from these other cities. Even back in the days when we were more concerned with terrorist attacks…if it occurred somewhere else, I would ask my people, ‘Okay, if that happened here, how would we handle it? What are our resources? What are our capabilities? What can we do? Do we actually know what we can do, and more importantly, what we’re incapable of doing’? You have to do that sort of thing. If that officer was a problem, how come they didn’t identify him? If he was a member of our department, would we have identified him? If we had identified him, what we would have done with him?

RH: The one thing that just struck me so much when I came back to Benchmark after running the Chicago Public School System…I spent an inordinate amount of time asking the question, “How do we make our teachers more effective?” We had some phenomenal talent, unbelievably great teachers. We had some teachers who struggled. Ultimately, the idea was never let’s be punitive…let’s go be disciplinary with the teachers who are struggling. The collective question of the organization was, ‘How do we invest in these teachers to become effective’? In the world of policing in the year 2020, in the history of humankind, if you were to say show me an evidence base of interventions that help police be better…that enabled them to do what is an incredibly hard job more effectively — it doesn’t exist. I’m excited to say, we’re trying in partnership with our academic partners and others to develop it, but we’ve got a long way to go in the profession in supporting the frontline in that way. These are super important things you’ve always talked about.

Regarding culture — something that I’ve heard you talk about over and over again with tremendous passion is the role of that frontline supervision…your street sergeants and others. Can you talk about what you did and what you would do as a chief to get that supervision? The command staff is easier. You’re not talking about 500 people. You’re talking about folks you can directly talk to. But when you start getting down to lieutenants and sergeants who are ultimately in charge for all practical purposes more than almost anyone else, how do you win over those ranks in terms of your vision, your values, where you want the culture to go?

CR: There are a couple things. You point out a critical rank in the department. That’s that first line supervisor. That’s that sergeant. Because I remember, when I was a young police officer, I cared more about who my sergeant was than I cared about who the district commander was because I had to deal with the sergeant every day. District commander was pretty much a picture on the wall. If I was unlucky, I’d be walking down the hall at the same time he was, and you turn your head so he didn’t pay any attention to you. We’ve got to invest in our people in terms of their training and education, and there’s just not enough of it.

Some departments have pre-service training, let’s say, for sergeants. They put them through all the things — your roles, your responsibilities, and so forth. Some go so far as to even have an FTO system for new sergeants where they match them up with veteran sergeants for a period of time to learn what’s going on. I think all those things are important, but there’s a basic flaw in the system of policing in our promotional system.

The only way you can make more money in the average police agency is through the promotional process, which means that you’ve got people who are smart enough to pass a multiple-choice exam, but they have no interest in leading others. They have no interest in supervising, but they need more money. How do you carve out those folks and have people that truly are committed to leadership, truly are committed to that? You mentioned that at the top it’s easier – maybe in some ways but in other ways not so much – because we don’t do anything in policing to develop the next generation of leaders, or at least not enough. We have 18,000 police departments. Do you honestly think you’ve got 18,000 good police chiefs and sheriffs? I know we don’t. Until we really address the issue of really grooming people and preparing them, not only for the current role that they’re going to be in but get them ready for the next step.

When I went to DC, and I’ve seen it in other agencies, they didn’t even have a good job description for any rank above police officer, entry-level. We had to create one for sergeant, create one for lieutenant, create one for captain. In the Washington DC police department, they did not have it. What was the knowledge, skills, and ability needed for this rank, assuming that you have all that when you make the new rank, but what’s different? What is it that you need? How do we prepare you in advance? Not wait until you get there and then find out you can’t handle it. Now we got to try to bury you somewhere. What do we do in order to try to prepare you? It’s complicated. It’s complex, but it’s fixable. It’s going to really take an effort to really get serious about leadership development in police agencies, and don’t wait until somebody makes sergeant. From the time a person comes in and you know this person has their eye on not staying at that level forever, what are we doing to enhance their abilities?

RH: One of the things I think we make very hard on ourselves is we let the lawyers have too much of a voice because ultimately, what has happened is promotional exams in too many places have been reduced to what you said, which is a multiple-choice exam. A multiple-choice exam doesn’t identify ethics. It doesn’t identify leadership. You can usually answer policy right. You might be able to answer situational awareness questions right, but test taking and leadership are two completely different pieces. If you don’t make sergeant, you’re not going to make chief.

One of the research projects that we have going on at Benchmark with our partners is this — because we have people’s performance data, how do they actually do as the police. Can they navigate with good de-escalation skills? Can they navigate where they have good activity? Do they navigate in a way where there is powerful community engagement and the like? Can we use that data where the baseline for promotion becomes your performance on the job where there’s never a promotional exam? Because we have everything we need to know who’s the leader today, and let’s use that information as a way to understand promotion versus a one-time high stakes exam that ultimately may or may not pay off for folks.

CR: The other thing, if I could just add one thing. Most systems are geared toward identifying people who aren’t doing things right as opposed to identifying people who are doing things right and then going back and digging a little deeper to find out what are those characteristics…what are those traits…what are those things about people who are able to successfully de-escalate situations? People who really show good leadership — what is it about them that distinguishes them from the person who’s one of our frequent fliers, who’s always into something that they got no business being in?

You could say some of this is recruitment and hiring and all that, but it’s more than that once you’re on the job, I think. I think if we focus more on that and at least make that a big part of the picture…because when you really stop and think about it, what would a good 21st-century police officer look like? What are those skills and abilities? What are those talents that they need to bring to the table? We need to be building that image, and I think if we did that and if we had a system that could actually help us do that, that would be absolutely remarkable.

RH: Here’s what I would tell you, Chuck. This is my thesis on it. I can tell you as a research organization – and for those who don’t know, we were born out of research done at the University of Chicago – is I would argue we know that today, meaning we have ways that we can assess what is the community’s perception, community engagement for someone. We know their activity level. We know how they use force. We know whether they get citizen complaints. We know if they’re effective depending on the job they’re in, if they’re effective preliminary investigators. We see it because we can baseline.

We know, here’s what the average officer does. Here’s what someone does, and if they do it in a way where folks don’t get hurt and they’re able to still be an effective police officer, there is a pathway to say we can find the best and brightest among us and find a way that we put them on a trajectory to great leadership. Because ultimately, I’m agreeing with you, Chuck, every time you said it. Today is Chuck Ramsey’s greatest hits that I’ve heard over many, many years of being someone who has followed you, is we can change the equation. Because, as you’ve said, those frontline supervisors, if we pick the right ones, every officer in their command is ultimately going to get to the right place because ultimately, it’s their watch. Everyone else is a picture on the wall.

CR: That opens the door for better education of police chiefs to know what that 21st-century cop should look like. What are the skills and abilities? Because that drives your recruiting…because if you know that, then that’s who you go after. If you look at many police departments, we say we want people who are community-oriented. We want people who have good de-escalation skills. We want diversity. We list all this stuff. Play the recruitment video of that same department. What are they showing? SWAT knocking down the door…helicopters…boats going down the river or lake. It’s all the Type A personality stuff. Who do you think you’re going to get to apply?

It’s not that you don’t need some people who can do that stuff because you do, but is that what an average police officer does on a regular basis? No. We have that information. We know it, but we got to share it and make sure that everybody is aware because that drives so much if we really want to change. Because who you hire today is who you’re stuck with for the next 30 years. You better make a good decision upfront because if all you’re relying on is being able to fire somebody or discipline him for the next 30 years, is that really what you want to do? I don’t think so.

RH: We are grateful for your service to our nation. We’re grateful for what you’ve done for policing. We’re certainly grateful for your role here at Benchmark. We appreciate your time and your ability to share all that great expertise and experience you built over all those years. Thank you, Chuck.

This interview has been edited for clarity.