Defining Reform

Anyone who hasn’t been living under a rock for the past year has heard the term “police reform” countless times coming out of their television set, the Internet, etc. Unfortunately, the term all too often comes alongside the phrase “defund the police.” Interestingly, the largest majority of people calling for defunding the police and/or police reform don’t know anything about doing law enforcement work. They see a person in uniform and assume that if the officer does anything a citizen doesn’t like then what the officer did is wrong.  “Reform” would change the officer’s behavior to something that would always make every citizen happy.  What a crock.

Back in October, Officer Media Group posted a survey online to ask people who actually know about law enforcement what could be done to reform law enforcement in light of the current demand. We asked thousands of command staff officers, trainers, Chiefs of Police and Sheriffs, as well as a large collection of citizens, what law enforcement reform would have to look like to actually be of any value. Bear in mind that not a single one of them indicated, “No reform is necessary.” Every one of them voiced the opinion that reform is evolutionary; that it should be on-going; that as society and values change, how law enforcement performs its collective duties should change – it should reform.

To make sure I was using the term “reform” correctly just to write this op-ed, I looked it up on Dictionary.com. “Reform” is defined as:

Noun: The improvement or amendment of what is wrong, corrupt, unsatisfactory, etc.

Verb: to change to a better state, form, etc.; improve by alteration, substitution, abolition, etc.

Looking at the examples given on Dictionary.com, most reform being discussed is the noun – as in social reform, spelling reform or… law enforcement reform. I take great challenge with that as it implies law enforcement is doing something wrong or is corrupt across the board as it exists today. Perhaps I’m a bit sensitive about how members of my chosen profession (for almost 40 years now) are being treated in the media, by politicians and many citizens. Perhaps the focus should be on the last piece of the noun definition: “unsatisfactory.”

Yes, law enforcement services can be unsatisfactory but it’s important to understand that satisfactory and unsatisfactory are not objective measures of performance. They are entirely subjective. Let me explain.

The man who has an open warrant, standing next to his broken down car on the side of the road does not want good law enforcement service. He does not want an officer or deputy to show up to assist him, check him for warrants and then arrest him when the open warrant is discovered. To him that would be unsatisfactory.

The elderly woman broken down on the side of the road would be delighted to see an officer or deputy show up and is likely to find any assistance they render to be satisfactory. Even if the officer checked her for open warrants (and the officer/deputy might), since she’s not wanted then no arrest is made.

The point is that the officer’s actions aren’t motivated by his desires, values, beliefs, etc. He shows up. He offers assistance and investigates the challenge. In the process he checks the person on scene for any open warrants. Where none exist, he renders aid and goes on his way. Where an open warrant does exist he performs his duty in affecting the arrest. If the person who has the open warrant resists arrest, then the officer uses that minimum force necessary to affect the arrest.

Note the phrase, “that minimum force necessary to affect the arrest.”  The level of force is NOT determined by the officer. The level of force is determined by the person being arrested and how much they do or don’t resist. The officer is only doing his lawful duty.

Many such incidents have made it onto your television screens in recent years. The mainstream media loves to show the public a 5 or 10 second video clip that paints the officer(s) in the worst possible light. What that tiny clip doesn’t show the public is context or perspective. The commentary that accompanies the brief video clips is always critical of the law enforcement officers on scene. Very quickly, with no knowledge of the background of the event, the context of the event, etc., based on this few seconds of video and the “reporters” critical commentary, the officer is convicted in the court of public opinion.

As a result of such media-driven hyper-sensationalized events, the general outlook on “reform” becomes one of restriction. It becomes a discussion of what “police powers” should be reduced or removed. Sometimes it becomes a discussion about extra training or changing focus from enforcement to assistance. What’s interesting is that no reform that requires additional services or training can be accomplished with reduced funding. In fact, virtually every type of reform – short of simply cutting manpower – requires an increase in funding. So defunding the police in the name of police reform is absolute idiocy.

In the survey we conducted, virtually every response (with the exception of the one requiring greater accountability from mainstream media) involved increasing training or services. Remember, this was a survey conducted among those who actually know how to perform law enforcement duties and what it costs to perform them. Out of 20 optional answers in our survey, eleven of them involved increases in training, education or services provided. None of that comes without a cost. Two options involved increasing racial and gender diversity within agencies. It may not be obvious, but that would have an attached cost as well. Let’s discuss why.

In the reported 2019 United States demographics, 50.8% of the U.S. population is female. Therefore it is possible to have every agency be half female. According to that same demographics report, only 13.4% of America’s population is black or African American. That means (roughly) one in every seven people. Keeping that in mind, to have an agency balanced to national demographics, 13.4% of each agency should be black. The same report says 18.5% of the national population is Hispanic. So roughly 1/5^th of all agencies should be Hispanic, right? Not so fast…

Those are national numbers. Obviously some communities have different racial balances and I believe most people would agree that an agency should reflect the racial balance of the community served. That said, agencies can’t control who applies for a job. In recent years, law enforcement agencies have faced big challenges in recruiting and retention, in part because of the attacks from the mainstream media and the growing negative public opinion of the profession.

When an agency advertises openings they have to accept whatever applications they get. Then they have to put each applicant through the entire background investigation and hiring process. Some applicants will be disqualified because of criminal histories or habitual drug use. Some applicants will be disqualified due to physical disabilities that would prevent them from performing all aspects of the job. From the pool of applicants that can legally qualify for the position(s) available, the most desirable applicants are desired, so all of them will be subjected to a series of tests – written and physical – to determine which applicants are most qualified. Each applicant will also be subjected to a lie-detector test and a psychological exam, one to verify their honesty and one to verify their mental/emotional stability.

Now let’s say there are ten job openings and three hundred applicants. The agency spends quite a bit of money processing the applicants and, in the end, is left with 40 that are qualified. It can’t hire all forty, so it will select the top ten – those who performed best on written exams, physical tests and who presented themselves professionally in oral interviews. Here’s the most important part: At no point is anyone disqualified because of their race, gender, religion, sexual orientation, etc. They CAN (and have been) disqualified due to their age (too young OR too old). From that remaining pool of 40 applicants the agency would love to hire the top ten most qualified – but they often can’t. Thanks to equal opportunity laws, they will be required to hire a mixed demographic of applicants based on race and gender. Note that not a single law protects Caucasian males. To insure a minimum minority balance, the agency will select the top candidates that are female, black and/or Hispanic and then, if there are any openings left to fill, the top ranking Caucasian males.

Having read through all of that, do you think any hiring reform is necessary? We obviously can’t lower funding as it applies to the hiring and background investigation process. We’d end up hiring criminals or some folks who are suicidal/homicidal and we definitely don’t want to give them weapons, right?

Once hired, those cadets have to complete the requisite academy and field training programs. One of the options on our survey required increasing the length of the basic police academy. Such would cost extra funding for training. Another option required increased field training time. Such would cost extra funding in paid hours. Some required additional training in diversity, mental challenges, emotional challenges, etc. Such would cost extra funding in the training budget. Are we seeing a connection yet?

Other options involved refocusing on Community Oriented Police programs (COPs) and putting more officers on foot patrol. Both would require additional funding. One option required investing more money into less-lethal technology research and development. While those funds wouldn’t come (necessarily) from law enforcement agencies, someone would have to pay for it, so I’m guessing it would be hidden in the form of extra tax dollars collected.

One of the more interesting options (in my opinion) was to “redefine ‘law enforcement’ into ‘peace keeping’ for performance expectations. This was accompanied by increasing officer discretion in all misdemeanor criminal cases.

I’ve been in law enforcement my entire adult life in one form or another. While I grew up believing that law enforcement professionals focused on peace keeping, my career has shown that there is quite often a larger focus on law enforcement. There is a distinct difference. As an example I’d give you the common early morning traffic stop.

It’s 3a.m. and there’s next to no one on the road. Here comes that one car exceeding the speed limit by 15 miles per hour. It’s the only car on the road but it’s speeding. The officer or deputy makes the traffic stop and…

Does he write the ticket? Does he give a warning?

Law enforcement focus would require him to write the citation. Further, since the state depends on revenue from the fines for the violation, the officer is “encouraged” to write the citation and has to explain why he didn’t if he doesn’t. Many agencies consider the number of citations written as part of the performance evaluation process so the officer is further discouraged from giving warnings; his career advancement is attached to “being productive” – or generating citations and reports.

Peace keeping focus might mean checking to make sure the driver is fully awake and coherent, aware of the fact that they were speeding and what that increased speed means to their survival rate / injury risk should they have an accident. But since they’re the only car on the road, they aren’t being a danger to anyone (at that moment) except themselves, so a warning is issued. The only inconvenience that citizen driver has experienced is a few minutes of lost time. BUT… the state has lost potential revenue and the officer might have to explain why he didn’t write that citation. During the stop he’s still going to have checked the driver’s license and made sure there were no open warrants for the driver. In other words, a traffic stop with no record of the stop is highly unlikely if not impossible.

But what would “law enforcement reform” proponents want or expect? Our challenge is that almost every person has different expectations and desires. Reform, all too easily, can become an entirely subjective desire and not based on reasonable realistic changes that would ultimately result in effective empathetic professional performance.

We, as the law enforcement community, need to proactively engage our communities. We need to make sure our community leaders understand what’s really going on and not let them just accept what the media saturates them with. We need to make sure they understand that we’d LOVE to see reform – but that there is a cost attached. Budget increases in certain line items are required to make reforms and we certainly can’t afford to lose budget in any other line items. True valuable reform has a cost and that cost involves increasing training budgets, increasing salary/pay budgets and increasing equipment budgets.

Are you making that argument? Are you engaging your community in an effective manner?