Three (3) essential steps in changing the culture of a police department.

Some police departments are steeped in tradition and comprised of several generations of employees with common family ties.  The department might have been operating for years with practices contrary to even its own written policies and procedures.  Marginal officers may have been avoided by supervisors and managers and allowed to remain a cancer within the agency.  Malignant officers may have been successful in eluding termination by effective discipline challenges or simply moving on to another unsuspecting agency.  There are some successful steps that might change history for this type of police agency and effectively change the culture of the agency.

Develop a cadre of concerned officers.  In all police departments problem employees are the minority.  But the majority of the officers who do the right thing will remain silent by a belief that management is inept in successfully disciplining these malignant officers.  There also is a realistic belief that the retaliation of coming forward will target them…the good officers who stand up and break the “Code of Silence.”  It’s this majority of well meaning, professional and dedicated officers who have to be encouraged and supported to come forward and band together to create a new base for the department.  These officers know the ones who are abusing their oath of office and tarnishing the reputation of the agency.  These officers need to stand up and say they will no longer idly stand by and keep their mouths shut or avoid and evade being forced to confront the misdeeds of the few malignant officers in the agency.  But these good officers need to believe that the Chief or Sheriff will support them and provide the required commitment to change the past and get rid of the few malignant officers.

Many chiefs of police lately have been bemoaning the trend to throw them out of office earlier than in past years.  They contend it’s because of crime increases.  That’s really absurd.  For years we’ve taken the credit when crime went down and pointed the finger at societal issues when it went up.  Countless cases have demonstrated that the pressure on troops has lead to the manipulation of crime stats.  The real task for chiefs and sheriffs, however, is to inspire their troops to do good, professional work.  As former management guru Peter Drucker contended, managers spent 80 percent of their time with the 20 percent non-performers rather than the bulk of their time with the performers.  When is the last time you saw your chief or sheriff in a patrol car with an officer during the graveyard shift?  How many of you can recall when any chief or sheriff rewarded an employee who blew the whistle on police misconduct or corruption?  Chiefs and sheriffs seem more secure when no one makes ‘waves’ and brings an agency’s warts out in the open.

The chief or sheriff doesn’t make the image of the police department.  The uniformed officers in the community, the plainclothes crime impact teams, and the investigators who conduct the menial tasks of follow-up work on minor crimes create this image in the eyes of the community.  Why should a citizen come forward with information about criminal behavior, when we can’t even encourage our own officers to come forward and help root out misconduct? 

Fill your station(s) with members from the community.  “To know us is to love us,” many have found to be true when community members are brought into the department and have the ability to interact with police employees.  Some of the more common techniques are Citizen Police Academies, community oriented committees, Senior Volunteers, and a layered Reserve/Auxiliary program.  Other recent successful inroads have been made by the community collaborations in programs such as the one in Cincinnati.  Bringing in a cross section of members of your community will allow them to see the policing operation first hand and their presence can create a subduing atmosphere within the day-to-day operations of the police agency.  When the local police station becomes “my station,” they will become a positive force to support this cultural change.

I recall a couple of unique uses of senior volunteers.  In one agency these dedicated volunteers were use to conduct call backs to victims of crimes that really had no leads for follow-up.  The victim didn’t know these weren’t investigators.  They were simply identified as working the detective bureau and were concerned about the victim’s loss and whether there might be any further information they had which could be added to the investigative reports.  To the victim it meant the agency cared, even for their lost porch plant or vandalized fence.  Another agency was using an retired IT person to develop and maintain its intelligence computer system.  Of course, many agencies use these types of volunteers in the property and evidence room.  We’ve seen other being used to enforce “handicap” parking provisions.  Our tasks are not so secret that we can’t effectively use vetted volunteers.

Cut the consequence of past employment practices.  Reading the large volume of police employment cases that seemingly always seem to go against the police department discipline decisions says we’re doing something wrong.  Most of these focus on two failures.  The first is that we don’t adequately articulate our ‘rational reasoning’ for the discipline decision.  This task takes time and effort, but seems to be the essential key to success.  It paints a good picture for anyone beyond the agency who might be evaluating your discipline decision during an appeal.  Too often we act in haste when dealing with an inexcusable or egregious act of misconduct.  In these extreme cases where the probable disciplinary action will be termination it’s time to pump the brakes, use administrative leave until you’re ready to finalize this extreme action, take time to organize and articulate your rational reasoning.  Resist any effort to make your paperwork “short and sweet.”  Arbitration and court decisions frequently expound on this rational reasoning when their rulings are supportive of the agency. 

The second failure is our lack of consistency in our discipline and the failure to upgrade or create written policies that reflect the current challenges we’re facing with our current employees.  It’s important to determine the common areas of police discipline and develop specific written policies and in-service training to introduce these changes to each and every member of the community.  The employees need to be put on notice that there are new provisions/rules in place and the agency won’t be guided by past conduct and disciplinary decisions.  As an example, sexual misconduct is a known potential area of police impropriety.  Relying on a generic misconduct charge of conduct unbecoming, moral turpitude or “idling and loafing” is no longer adequate.  Create realistic training and specific policies that fully describe the misconduct act.  Your agency has to monitor rates of discipline to ensure that there is some orderly consistency to these decisions.  These actions can effectively cut the cord from past practices and create a new playing field for your employees, agency and those who may be tasked with evaluating the employee’s appeal.