STATUS QUO IS NOT THE ANSWER. DEFINITE CHANGES NEED TO BE UNDERTAKEN. I AM SUGGESTING EIGHT CHANGES AND UPGRADES TO OUR LOCAL POLICE DEPARTMENTS. ADD YOUR OWN. PASS THEM ON. GET CONVERSATION MOVING.
STATUS QUO IS NOT THE ANSWER. DEFINITE CHANGES NEED TO BE UNDERTAKEN. I AM SUGGESTING EIGHT CHANGES AND UPGRADES TO OUR LOCAL POLICE DEPARTMENTS. ADD YOUR OWN. PASS THEM ON. GET CONVERSATION MOVING.
Hello there. And thanks for joining me on the podcast today. This is a, another part in this series on the psychology of politics. My most recent podcast spend time on the history policing and how we generated a policing system back in 1829 through the brilliance of a man in London, by the name of sir Robert peel, anybody in policing has read the work and the works of a Robert peel, and certainly understand his basic idea about policing. So if you miss it, I recommend you go back one podcast, pick up that podcast relative to the history of policing and where we are today. And some of the ideas that are still prevalent and still valid today, as we look at the policing problem across the country. Now, what I'd like to do today is enjoying you in our conversation, encourage you to understand some of the issues that are going on in the police department. Some of the ways that the police can improve their services, prove their image and improve their community relationships and pass it on part of conversation with your friends and with others. The idea is to join the conversation, but also to push the conversation along, to open up the conversation and to engage other people in doing engage your community in conversation. And should you ever have opportunity to be part of a forum or attend a forum on policing in your community, go and participate, and I'll give you some ideas that you might want to share if you do that. So pleasing is a critical issue in our community. It's a necessary service. It's one that we have invested enormous amount of money and effort and time and creative thought and how to make a police department functional and valid and successful and relevant. And part of the community integrated into the part of the community system comer part of the community value system. So what I'd like to do today is to just identify several ideas that a police department might want to consider should consider. Now, these ideas are not necessarily brand new. Some of them have been on the market for a while. Some have been put before police departments for awhile, but this may be a time to renew the discussion and to renew the thinking on how to be an effective police officer or how to develop an effective police system within your community. What does it take to have an effective, positive, valid, and effective police department functioning in your community? Well, let me give you a series of ideas that can just generate more discussion and generate some, a feeling and generate some ideas that might be able to be incorporated and improve the policing departments in your area, in your state. Here's number one, please, men, a police officer is responsible to develop not only a system to protect the community, but also a system to develop Goodwill and good relationship within that community. In other words, it might be important for a police do stop somebody on the street and commend them for positive driving skills for handling a particular situation might be important for a policeman to stop by the school rooms and just talk to kids of all grade levels, not just the younger grade level. In other words, build some relationship, particularly at the high school level, maybe important for police officers to be expected to stop by the local coffee shop and have a coffee and interact with the other people in that coffee shop, there was be a person be a human part of the community. Be part of the system of growth and development and education and relationships within a community. Public relations is a job that police officers have to do for themselves. You can't hire that out. You can't turn that over to somebody else. Police officer must develop his own public relations and they have to be trained in how to do that and be encouraged to do it. It'd be mentored in how to do it so that it flows well. And the community becomes part of the police department. Police department becomes part of the community. There's an integration there. So in other words, number one, public relations police officer is expected to develop positive relationships in many, many different ways. And I've just given you a couple. Here's another one, continuing education, every professional attorneys, accountants, school teachers, psychologist, marriage, family counselors on down the line. Professionals are expected to participate in continuing education, formal continuing education, independent continuing education. So I would advocate that maybe a police department should belt the whole police force of the nation, certainly for any given state, cause it's always on a state to state basis, a state to have a program of continuing education for the police officers. In other words, yes, they would go to school on nights and weekends and uh, days off and so on and take a class subjects, relevant policing. So continuing education in the same way that doctors and everybody else have to get their community education unit. I have to, as a psychologist for just being in 36 hours every two years continuing education, I would recommend that for police officers as well, keep them upgraded, keep them knowledgeable, keep them understanding and keep them alert and keep them on top of the issues that are going on in the community and going on in police development across the country. So continuing education, number two, here's number three, a tenure system. You know, school teachers have a tenure system. They teach for about three to five years, and then they are up for tenure they're evaluated and they have to have all their credentials put forth in their record of teaching is put forth and they are evaluated for entering entrance into a tenure status, which means then that they have permanent employment given any problem that would be developed. That would certainly be cause for them to be terminated. But basically they have the blessing of their colleagues and have the system in which they operate. So for police, yeah, let's start a continuing education program for them. Then let's set up a tenure system so that they have to present, present their credentials and then have those credentials evaluated and then be either terminated given one year more work or maintain full employment. So a tenure system is certainly a necessary step along the way of improving our police department along with continuing education and putting down the responsibility for the police to develop human relations within the community. Here's another one which I call the mentoring system. You know, please are generally mentored for about six months or a year once they come on the force. So they come out of school, they get a job and they're assigned a mentor, somebody to shadow them, somebody to help them, somebody to consult with somebody to guide them. But that stops usually at the one year point sometimes before that, I would recommend that the mentoring system go on forever. There always be a mentoring system. You're always be somebody that is your buddy, so to speak or somebody that you can consultants. I mean, that looks over your work. And somebody that understands what you're doing, a senior member of your police department is your mentor. And after you worked perhaps 10 years now, you can be a mentor to somebody else. So a mentoring system, I think would be a very excellent thing for police, particularly these younger policeman and not just a one year, but in the first 10 years to make sure they're doing things right to make sure they're doing things that are positive for the community. Make sure they're doing things that would enhance the police department in their community. Then also that they do the job writing and have somebody that they can talk to. Sure. They have a captain and ensure they have a commander and sure they have people in the hierarchy of the police department, but a mentor on it. Somebody who's on the street with him, some moves in the car with somebody who is on the calls with them to help them debrief that. And immediately after a particular event, I mean, I can teach them what are the teaching points of every call? What are the teaching points of every involvement? So mentoring is another option. Here's another one. What I call an independent review, every three to five years on a random basis, the chief of the police department would randomly select five, 10 or 20 of the policemen and please women for an independent review. And, um, they would be evaluated on all the standards of policing, all their performance that they've engaged in their community relations effort and, uh, how they've handled different calls. And so on. In other words, the track record of their work would be reviewed independently by an independent board. So every year three or four or five, uh, police officers are selected for review. And that would go on every single year. So there's always this review going on within the department and it's done randomly. So nobody knows who's going to be evaluated in particular year. And it could start after the first year could start after the second year could start after the third year, but let's do an independent review of police officers just to assure that they are not only maintaining the standard, but they're improving those standards and they're living up to those standards, but they're living beyond those standards in a very positive kind of way. So, um, we have community education, independent review. We have a mentoring system, we have a tenure system. Yeah. And we have positive human community relationships being necessary. And then I would like to see a three tier police department. You have cheer number one, that would be community service police officers that are devoted full time to serve the interests and the needs and the problems of the community in a human contact manner to help the community, to serve with the community and various projects, to bring the police into the projects that are going on within the community, they would visit churches. They would visit a school. You know, they would visit homes for the elderly. They would visit the senior centers of our country and our cities. And so on. Bring the police into the mainstream of life of a community, call that community service. They would respond to calls where might be just domestic in nature so that they can assist couples and families that are having trouble. That'd be your number one, your number two would be a domestic. What we call domestic force. These are the ones that have to deal with child abuse and have to do with elder abuse and have to do with a marital abuse, parent abuse and, and so on. And the families and just the, the relationships that take place within family life and, uh, be devoted to that, be specialists in that area. So they can handle that in a, that whole SWAT of action, Liberty and crime and misbehavior. It takes place at the family level at the end human level of the home family. And then third tier would be what I call the criminal force. And these are the ones that would deal with the day to day crimes that take place and the awful crimes that take place in the community and do the investigations and do the work for the courts to bring justice to people who have committed serious crimes. Right now we expect a given police officer to deal in all three of these areas. And often there are not, they can do one, but maybe not the other or maybe two and not the other, but police officers could have specializations community service or of domestic service or criminal service in the forest and in the community. In other words, we would be having specialists serve us in the community in these three different areas of a specialization. So it's possible to improve our police force. It's possible to improve what's going on in our communities at the police level. And here are just a few suggestions. I urge you to think about urge you to discuss them with your family. I urge you to pass them on in your community, pass them on to people that, you know, pass them onto police officers that you know, in your family and in your community, have this discussion with them, encourage those in a position of authority and decision making to consider these kinds of ideas, send this podcast onto somebody else who is in a position of decision making and authority, perhaps that can be handled very well. So thanks for joining me today. And I recommend that you go to my website, www books by hedberg.com pick up the book. They're the psychology missive. It's a book devoted to law enforcement officer to guide them in their choice of a career and to help them in their marriages and to help them in their service to their community and so on. So it's a nice little book for officers and, um, families, police officers. So www books by hedberg.com and it's called the psychology missive.
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