cayugafalls

cayugafalls's Journal

August 1, 2020

The Shame of Life

July 31, 2020

Crazy (Cover) by Daniela Andrade

July 30, 2020

Exit Music (For a Film) - Radiohead

July 27, 2020

Rebuild, Retrain, Rethink the Police. Reframing the message.

Early on I was a proponent of defund the police. As I defended my position, I found myself coming back to 3 core principles each time and decided that I was not a proponent of defund the police and I have wanted to try and reframe the message. I'll preface this all by saying, I am not an expert in police reform, I am just a concerned citizen. There are others, significantly more informed than myself, who have worked on Reform, Restructuring and Rebuilding the Police and LEAs for quite some time and I pulled some of their ideas to write this outline. I hope it has some merit and is considered for what it is, a discussion tool.

The message hinges on 3 core principles. Rebuild the police. Retrain all police. Rethink community policing.

Rebuild from the ground up.
This is the most difficult piece of the puzzle. Policing in America has undergone 3 separate rebuilding/restructuring phases (see link). The United States has a very complex policing system that is actually a combination of decentralized, centralized and Community Problem Solving or COPS.

https://www.flsheriffs.org/uploads/DecentralizationProsAndConsByTAman.pdf

Some form of decentralization is most likely the best option as it makes for a more nimble and easily managed workforce, however strict enforcement of the Commander's Intent (CI is the overall mission statement that allows for decentralized leaders and personnel to operate and make decisions that follow the commander's intent for the mission as set forth in the CI) needs to be enforced and the initial Commander's Intent needs to follow community guidelines. I would like to suggest an overarching guidepost over the Commander's Intent with the Community's Mission Statement, to better align with the current trend towards a more community centric approach to policing, while still maintaining the needed structure to handle the complexity of modern departmental structure. Using this method, during large scale missions, such as crowd control, the Commander would use the guidelines set forth in the Community's Mission Statement to help formulate the CI for the mission. The CMS would be highly scrutinized and developed by the individual communities with input from all sectors of an oversight council composed of community leaders and social scientists/workers. The CMS should be revisited each year to see if updates to the mandate need to be made.

The CMS needs to be further studied with the goal to be a more compassionate and community oriented approach, while addressing the need for an easily identifiable mandate to police compassionately with a solid focus on deescalation. Large cities will be the hardest systems to redefine as they police many different communities and will require much thought in regards to rebuilding/restructuring as well as redefining how the CMS is enacted at every level.

Funding of police departments should be looked at as well. Somehow, funding needs to be taken out of the equation. A problem that exists is that in some areas, is either not enough funding or improper funding goals exist and that leads to taxation by policing to supplement police budgets. Strict fiduciary controls on Police objectives and operational parameters will reduce the need to have police patrols set up ticket mills and other revenue generators that do nothing more than exacerbate community frustrations. Gone should be the days of police that have ticket quotas. I do not have all the answers for this or other problems, this should act as merely a jump off point for discussion.

Retrain all police using latest techniques on deescalation and compassionate policing.

This component is fairly straight forward and should be easier to implement than the first piece. Instead of focusing on creating warriors who are fighting an enemy to be put down, focus should be on learning the CMS and its core principles to help guide officers during missions as they implement their CI, situational deescalation and compassionate policing wherever possible. Of course in areas where there is high violent crime other training may be required, however, by analyzing the circumstances surrounding those areas, perhaps other answers within the community can be found to reduce crime. Supporting social services, funding infrastructure, job programs and housing initiatives, supporting local schools and education programs, funding after school services for youths, etc., these areas can see a marked decrease in reliance on criminal activity for sustenance (this area has overlap with Rebuild/Rethink policing). Yearly re-training in any updates to the CMS and the latest deescalation techniques and compassionate policing policies should be mandatory. Re-certification should be part of the process.

Rethink community policing and the interaction with the people.

We need to rethink how police interact with the community and the people they police. Far in the past, foot patrols gave the police presence in the communities and police were often members of the communities they policed. However, that did present some problems in that police were easily corrupted by their friends and local political leaders. There needs to be a new paradigm in local policing policies and working in conjunction with local social services to better interact with the community. New 911 guidelines to better disperse calls to appropriate social service agencies or add social service agents to police calls to assist officers in their duty are some ideas, but nothing concrete at this point in time. There is overlap with Rebuild/Retrain the Police in that compassionate policing and deescalation techniques are valuable assets when dealing with non-traditional emergencies and planning for these during the core fiduciary restructuring of the police departments would be key to success along with rethinking how to develop a living cohesive community based CMS.

Well, this is a working thesis and not fully fleshed out by any means. Again, let me restate, I do not have all the answers for this or other problems, this OP is only meant to act as merely a jump off point for discussion and possible help in reframing the message. Thank you for taking the time to read this little screed, hopefully it will lead to some more discussion.

Be well, cayugafalls.