One way to improve public relations: Mind the little things

Not too long ago, a sheriff I know and respect announced that his department would cease their decades-old practice of unlocking car doors after hours. These courtesy calls grew out of their responding to children or pets inadvertently locked inside vehicles. The sheriff explained that it was expensive to send an officer to unlock a vehicle and, by doing so, affected calls for service. I spoke to him about this decision—the math didn’t add up to me.

He believed it counterproductive to send an officer to unlock a vehicle, thereby taking him or her out of service and making them unable to respond to “violent calls.” I responded that even if an officer had been dispatched to unlock a vehicle, that officer would still be available for violent and regular calls for service. If there were competing calls for service, that should and would be dispatch’s first priority. Courtesy car unlocks should only be performed when things are slow and the officer in that sector wasn’t busy.

Now for a confession: I hated calls like these—public relations in a uniform. But I believe the recent spate of bad press and rapid disintegration of respect for law enforcement has changed many things and agencies should embrace any service or action that brings them into positive contact with the public they serve. I’m not saying that uniformed officers should trudge over to someone’s house to unload their groceries or baby-sit their kids; I’m saying that unlocking a car door for a couple of high school girls stranded in a dark parking lot late at night is an action that can and will have positive repercussions for the agency well into the future.

The aforementioned sheriff calculated that each year his agency completed a little less than 2,000 unlocks. With the more computerized cars, this would most likely decrease, not to mention officers would be unable to unlock computerized systems. It’s worth noting, for those who keep their eye on the liability end of things, that the owners have always had to sign a damage waiver prior to the vehicle being unlocked.

Using the sheriff’s numbers and my calculations, the department would have direct contact with a minimum of 20,000 individuals a year simply by unlocking cars. And those 20,000 people would leave the encounter with a positive impression of that department. Further, they would tell their families and friends about their interaction with that agency, thus expanding the good publicity many times over. You can’t buy that kind of good will.

Another important point: Most ordinary citizens are law-abiding. They rarely have contact with local LEOs because they don’t have a need for it. These are the citizens most likely to react negatively when a law enforcement agency asks for more money in the budget.

The moral is that you don’t have to unlock cars. But if you have a program or practice that produces a valuable service to ordinary, law-abiding citizens, that, my friend, is an opportunity. It provides a valuable service to that huge portion of your jurisdiction’s taxpayers who rarely, if ever, come in professional contact with your agency. I see it as a positive in every way, shape and form.

Not everyone will agree. Policing evolves with the passage of each day. But if your agency has the opportunity to touch the lives of its citizens and leave them with a great impression of your agency, then…
take it.