When Seconds Count - The Police Are Only Minutes Away

When seconds count, police officers are only minutes away. Officers being out of position, or unable, to immediately respond to emergency calls should generate concern for any community, regardless of their crime rates. Let us examine this concept a little more in-depth. These types of situation can be caused by several reasons. However, for this blog we will look at two situations.

First, the platoon is unable to respond because a lack of engagement, or ability, prevails through the shift. Direct supervisors have the greatest impact on an individual’s success throughout out the individual officers career. Supervisors should ask the officers his or goals and begin to develop the individual towards fulfilling those goals. Little victories slowly add up to create an atmosphere for engaged and knowledgeable shifts.  However, the problem may not be disengagement or ability. The problem may stem from a policing philosophy which is not supported by the actual structure of the organization. You may not have enough cars or offices to accomplish your new goals. likewise, the officers may not beleive in your new philosophy. Officers are hired to ago out and arrest law breakers. Most organizations operational structures are designed to support that mission. If you change philosophys you must also obtain buy-in from the officers who have to go out an implement the new idea.

When you add intelligent policing, advanced community policing, private sector/police partnerships, then the demands on the organization grow. It no longer focuses on “you call - we hall” crime and punishment practices. With the new philosophies you need more equipment and a new bread of officer. No longer can you simply train someone to go to a call, determine if an arrest is to be made, and resolve the issue and move on. Officers now go to community meetings where they forge relationships with community leaders. They get involved in the actual building of communities. This requires a different mindset, a more liberal point of view, where an “arrest is a failure of society and its community” prevails. In this scheme, officers become very connected with the life cycle of communities and its inhabitants. They try to change the individual’s habits and perspectives before they commit serious trouble. This holistic approach is very good in theory and romanticizes the “man walking the beat and knowing his community” style of policing.

Now for reality, our personnel units are not good enough to select people who fit that mold. They, they are interested in getting people to apply rather than preselecting people who will “fit” the philosophy of an agency. Therefore, as people get hired, trained, and sent to their units they have an expectation in their mind what “policing” is about. When they find out their agency wants in-depth community relations they may begin to feel frustration, anger, and later disengage because the though they were here to “lock people up” and save the communities be removing the criminals. With lower engagement, they will take longer on calls and have slower responses. Also, for changing police strategies after someone is hired requires a lot of preplanning to get buy-in from the street officers. The command staffs may expound a new practice, but if the street officer refuses to follow along it will not get done. The command staffs must overcome the “what’s in it for me” mindset inherent in human nature. If the agency does not prepare the ground before building the new “touchy-feely” philosophy then it is doomed to fail. Entire shifts can then become disengaged and thus slower response times. The entire department must be “willing and able to participate” for the scheme to be successful.

Even if an entire work force realizes the benefits of the new philosophy and is excited about becoming a part of the process you will have to obtain more officers, vehicles, and other equipment. By shifting from the enforcement of laws to community policing philosophies the offices will necessarily have to spend more time on each call to determine underlying problems, making calls and referrals and as a last resort making an arrest. This takes more time per call and thus you will need more officers on the street to keep individual response times down to an acceptable rate. With the need in additional personnel and equipment budgets will have to increase in the face of slow economic conditions. Politicians will then be forced to determine what their priorities are in government services. Are they willing to add to police budgets and cut other departments? Are they willing to accept slower police response times in order to take credit for a new philosophy where police are guidance counselors?

The problems and rewards of changing philosophies of policing are many. The cultures of the community and police agencies must evolve to accept the changes and expectations of different police styles. Unfortunately, if done in a haphazard fashion where, “somehow this will work out, I just don’t know how right now” implementation strategies are undertaken then time lags will develop. Employee engagement will drop, and when seconds count, the police are only minutes away.