5 Ways to Improve Policing
By Rick McClatchy
There have been growing demands for reforms of police departments across the nation. I was part of a group of denominational leaders who worked with a professor who was a former policeman and now teaches criminal justice at the university level.
We met with him for several hours asking him all sorts of questions about what research has shown to be most productive things that police departments can do to improve. Most of our questions were directed toward larger police departments. However, we were reminded by the professor that many police departments are quite small and not all of these recommendations would be applicable. Also, these are recommendations related to taking a long-term approach to improving police behavior.
Here are the actions we discovered would be most helpful in improving police departments:
Gather and report data to the public related to use of force, officer misconduct, racial profiling and officer involved shootings. There is no way to know if things are improving unless a base line is established and then monitored to see how things are improving. This information must be made known regularly to elected officials and the public. This is a major tool for accountability and for improving police departments. There are outside organizations that can assist in this process, such as research universities. The cost is nominal.
Make diversity and de-escalation training mandatory for all officers, continually evaluate impact of training on tactical decisions, and make the findings public. Police need all the training they can get on how to de-escalate tense situations. It is important that evaluation of police behavior after the training be done. Otherwise, it could become just another box that is checked with no consequence. Also, it helps the police chief to evaluate what type of de-escalation training is most effective. Once again the results must be made public.
Adapt recruitment and promotion systems so that department demographics reflect city demographics. This is not an easy thing to do, but it is very important that police department look like their communities. For example, the city where I live has a white population of 25%, but the officers that are promoted to the detective level or above is 48%. This might reflect an intentional or unintentional racial bias, which needs to be examined.
Elimination of collective bargaining protections providing immunity for officers who have been disciplined for excessive use of force or racial discrimination. Prior to our conversation with the professor I had assumed that police disciplinary actions were ultimately under the supervision of the police chief. That is not always the case. Disciplinary procedures are frequently negotiated by the police union in the collective bargaining process. There is nothing wrong with police unions dealing with salary and benefits, but the policy dealing with disciplinary action should be established by elected leaders and supervised by the police chief. Police chiefs can have difficulty getting rid of poor-performing police officers because of collective bargaining agreements.
Increase funding of and advocacy for mental health care for police officers. Having police officers that are mentally healthy is extremely important, and cities would be wise to fund it and to encourage police officers to regularly use its services. The police culture can be a place where the image of being “tough” prevents police officers from getting the mental heath support that is needed. Their job can be very stressful, and often poor decisions are made by police officers with poor mental health issues.