Reprinted with permission from www.cleveland.com
If you haven't heard of the term "Ferguson effect," you may start hearing more of it, and when you do, it should chill you.
The term, which is derisive in nature, developed in part from the 2014 police shooting of Michael Brown in Ferguson, Missouri -- along with other controversial police actions since then where officers' actions have come under intense scrutiny and aggressive criticism.
What it has caused is a deep concern that officers would stop being proactive and instead become only reactive during a tour of duty -- which is essentially what the "Ferguson effect" is. What that basically means is that officers will answer their calls and take their reports but will be less likely to try and ferret out bad guys to the degree they had before.
FBI Director James Comey suggested that a spike in violent crime might be linked to police reluctance to be caught on video that goes viral.
Although touched on by some frank enough to address this possibility, others have argued that there is no evidence of such an effect despite crime spikes in major metropolitan areas.
That opinion may begin to change, though, in light of a recent national survey of police officers conducted by David Blake, who heads an independent law-enforcement consulting and training firm. In his survey, a significant percentage of the 500 front-line police personnel from around the country surveyed using an online Survey Monkey acknowledged that they have reduced their proactive efforts. Many also perceived an increase in criminal activity.
Even though the query involved a small sampling of cops and certainly requires further analysis and peer review, this exploratory effort may give us a glimpse into how officers are feeling right now. It is important because this preliminary research allows us to view this concern through the eyes of the officers -- and what they may be seeing should concern us.
That should not only trouble the upper echelons of police leadership but also our entire citizenry, because we need our officers to "shake the bushes" and search out trouble. If they don't, we will quickly find out how corrosive and far-reaching that criminal element is capable of being.
There is a scene in the 1986 cop movie "Running Scared" where an officer compares police officers to garbage men. Even though they must continually pick up trash every week, imagine what would happen if they just stopped picking up all the garbage.
It's hardly surprising that some may be demonstrating some caution if they think no one is going to support them anymore or that citizens mistrust them to the point where they are perceived as guilty until proven innocent. Adding a loss of confidence in their leadership, who they may suspect will throw them under the bus for political reasons or to satisfy the demands of angry mobs, will only exacerbate the problem further.
Then, trying to add more paperwork to a job that is already inundated with it may only cement the deal for some -- as the Chicago Police Department may have sensed when they required officers complete two-page forms for any stop they made. To little surprise, there was a reported decrease in stops. Spending more time to complete paperwork is less time spent trying to ferret out bad guys.
Jack Dunphy is a pseudonym for a southern California police officer who writes a blog in which he recently wrote in part about a moment when he and his partner spot some gang members, one of whom may be responsible for a murder, near an alleyway.They weigh the possibilities about what could happen if they get out of their cruiser -- possibilities that include having the gang members run away from them. And if they do that, the officers would have to chase them and might end up using force, to include deadly force, when they catch up to them. These actions, which aren't going to be pretty, may end up getting videotaped and go viral. That and the fact they will have their decisions second-guessed leads them to a discomforting conclusion, where 'Dunphy' writes, "So, as we are not fools, we drive on."
We depend on our men and women in blue to both "serve and protect," and part of that protection includes using their skills, intelligence, courage and inquisitiveness to find trouble and stop it in its tracks before it hurts us. I'm optimistic and confident that Northeast Ohio police officers are committed to that mission, but let's hope a "Ferguson effect" doesn't infect this area or get a long-term stronghold on us or we're all in trouble.
Tom Wetzel is a suburban police lieutenant in Greater Cleveland and an adjunct professor on community policing at Lakeland Community College.
