Author: WDC Marketing

“Why?” Is Not Always a Form of Disrespect

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“Why?” This is a one-word question that requests clarification, reasoning, or purpose of some thing or some request. Asking ‘why’ is a universally human concept. Aristotle pointed this out over 2,300 years ago when he said, “All human beings, by nature, desire to know.”1 It is also a truly American word. In the United States, the greatest country in the history of the planet, we have taken the question why to the next level.

During the American Revolution, General George Washington realized he needed help creating a professional army out of his rabble of untrained, undisciplined farmers and tradesmen. Benjamin Franklin contacted and recruited Baron Friedrich von Steuben from Europe to help. Baron von Steuben, who had joined the Prussian army at the age of 17, was a combat veteran with 30 years of military service in numerous wars across Europe. He had trained and led soldiers in many military campaigns against Russia, Poland, and France.2 If anyone knew how to train and lead soldiers, it was him. But then he met the Americans.

Baron von Steuben arrived at Valley Forge to begin training these new American recruits and quickly learned that the training techniques he used in Europe were ineffective here. When he gave orders, he immediately received pushback from the American soldiers who questioned everything he did. He was used to European soldiers who rarely questioned orders.3 Frustrated, von Steuben wrote in his personal diary the following entry.

In Europe, you say to your soldier, “Do this” and he does it. But I am obliged to say to the American, “This is why you ought to do this,” and only then does he do it.4

If he had been paying attention to recent world events, Baron von Steuben would not have been so surprised. These were the same people who asked, “Why do we have to pay a tax on tea we didn’t ask for?” and then dumped the tea into Boston Harbor. These were the same people who asked, “Why are we considered British citizens, pay taxes to Britain, but lack the right to elect leaders to 2 Parliament?” These were the same people who asked, “Why do we have to obey a king we have never met, who lives in a land we have never seen?” It was all of these “why” questions that brought about the creation of the United States of America. The practice of questioning authority is in our national DNA.

Want More Proof?

Are you still unconvinced? Look at the graphic below. This is a map of Google Analytics data showing the prevalence of people Googling the word ‘why.’ The shade of each country indicates how often people in that country have Googled the word ‘why.’ The darker the shade indicates the more people who have Googled the word ‘why’ in some context. Nobody tops the United States when it comes to asking, “Why?”

Source: Google Analytics

Think of your kids. How often do they ask why when you tell them to do something? Sometimes you might reply with, “Because I said so.” You might even say, “Because I’m your parent.” How well did that work for you? Did that type of response diffuse the situation and did your teenager respond with, “Oh, how stupid of me. I must have forgotten you were my parent.” Of course it didn’t work like that. Responses that don’t try to explain why do not work.

Think about your work life. Have you ever come to a roll call shift briefing and been given a brief memo or email from the command staff creating a major change in operational policy with no explanation for the change? Isn’t that frustrating? Didn’t it make you ask your sergeant or lieutenant, “Why the change? What is this all about?” Of course it did, because you’re an American. 3

It should be no surprise, therefore, that people you encounter on the street do the same. American people will often respond to requests you make as a law enforcement officer with the very American response of, “Why?” This is usually because they truly want to know the reasoning behind your request to see if your authority appears legitimate. It is also because it is in their DNA as Americans. Remember, we are the descendants of the people who went to war when they felt the authorities over them were acting without legitimacy. So why don’t we just quickly tell them?

How to Explain Why

In our Surviving Verbal Conflict© courses, we train public safety professionals to start off citizen interactions with a quick explanation of why the encounter is taking place. We train officers that, if safety permits, they should begin encounters with a ‘Meet & Greet’ – a quick introduction and explanation for the encounter. Here is an example. “Good evening sir, I’m Officer Dolan with the police department. The reason I’m here is that we received some calls about screaming coming from this apartment. Can I talk to you about that?” If you opened your door to a knock at 10:00 p.m. and found a police officer (or two) standing there, wouldn’t you want to know why they were there? Even if you had previously been arguing with your partner, and suspected that was the reason for the police presence, you would probably still want to confirm that this was why they had come. So why not just take care of the inevitable question right off of the bat?

What if you were driving along in your personal vehicle and a patrol car pulled you over? My guess is that your first thoughts would be, “Why am I getting pulled over?” I would argue that the typical citizen is no different. Even if the driver suspects the reason for the stop, you know full well that he or she is going to ask anyhow. It’s the American thing to do, so of course they will likely be unhappy if you begin the encounter with a “license and registration” demand. Worse yet is the guessing game. If an officer stopped me and asked, “Do you know why I stopped you?” my first New Yorker gut instinct would be to want to reply in a sarcastic tone, “Oh, so you think I’m clairvoyant? No, (expletive), I don’t know why you stopped me. Why don’t you just tell me?”

Some people with cynical views of the police may think they already know why they are being stopped, such as believing it is because of their race. Asking the “Know why I stopped you?” question opens up an opportunity for these individuals to accuse you of racial profiling with their response. This is often negated if you simply explain from the start the legitimate reason for the stop. “Good afternoon sir, I’m Officer Dolan with the city police department. I stopped you because your rear license plate is missing.”

Conclusion

Keeping in mind that asking “Why?” is an American thing to do, we should take all reasonable steps to give a quick answer to demonstrate the legitimacy behind our requests and actions. Preemptively explain why when making requests, such as “Sir, for your safety and mine, would you please stay in the car” or “Folks, could everyone please back up so we can get the ambulance in here when it arrives?” When people do ask, don’t take it as an insult or a 4 challenge to your authority. Simply respond with a quick explanation that supports your legitimacy and lets you continue doing your job.

 

References

1 Aristotle (320 B.C.). Metaphysics. Athens, Greece.

2 Lockhart, P. (2008). The Drillmaster of Valley Forge: The Baron de Steuben and the Making of the American Army. Washington, DC: Smithsonian.

3 Ibid.

4 Ibid.

How Dangerous Are Domestic Violence Calls to Officer Safety?

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Domestic violence (DV) calls carry a reputation for being extremely dangerous for officers. Some academics and DV victim advocates, however, have challenged this reputation and have suggested that DV calls are rarely dangerous for officers. This research brief will examine the research on assaults on officers at DV calls. Specifically, it will examine the prevalence of officer assaults, the trend of officer deaths at DV calls over time, what factors predict these officer assaults, the characteristics of lethal force assaults on officers at DV calls, and the factors that predict an officer surviving a lethal force assault at a DV call.

Prevalence of Danger

In a 1970 U.S. Department of Justice report on family crisis intervention, the authors wrote that DV calls were the “most dangerous calls handled by the police.”1 They came to this conclusion after examining FBI Uniform Crime Reports data on officers killed in the line of duty while handling disturbance calls, not realizing this category also included gang fights, bar fights, neighbor disputes, suspicious persons, and a host of other potentially volatile situations. Once DV calls started being classified separately by the FBI in 1980, it was discovered that only 22% of the officer deaths from disturbances actually involved a DV situation.2

During the 1980s and 1990s, eleven research studies examined the true prevalence of physical assaults (not just murders) of officers at DV calls. These studies revealed two main facts. First, the frequency of officer assaults at DV calls varied dramatically from community to community, ranging from 2% to 28% of DV calls resulting in an officer’s assault. The average across the eleven jurisdictions of these studies was 9% of DV calls resulted in an officer’s assault.3 Second, in every one of these eleven studies, DV calls were not the most dangerous duty officers performed, especially after controlling for rate of exposure (i.e., number of assaults per calls handled). In every community studied, other types of duties – serving warrants, transporting prisoners, bar fights – resulted in far more officer assaults per call handled.4

While handling DV calls was not the most dangerous activity officers performed, DV calls clearly posed some danger to officers. Using FBI statistics, one study estimated that between 1980 and 2006 a total of 113,236 officer assaults occurred at DV calls in the U.S., and 160 officers died as a result of these assaults.5 This suggests an average of 4,194 officer assaults (and 6 officer murders) annually from DV calls. Assaults at DV calls are also very likely to result in an officer injury. Four studies examined officer assaults at DV calls and revealed 46% of officers assaulted at DV calls received an injury requiring medical treatment.6 In other words, while DV calls may not be the most dangerous duty that officers face, it is inaccurate to say these calls are by any means safe—and it is therefore vitally important to work to understand the factors that increase risks to officers.

Predicting Assaults at DV Calls

A 2011 study examined 3,078 DV calls handled by the Minneapolis, Milwaukee, and Miami-Dade police departments. Of these calls, 117 calls (3.8%) resulted in an officer assault. That was an average of an officer assault incident for every 26 DV calls handled. A number of characteristics about the batterer and the DV situation were examined and five characteristics were found to predict whether or not an officer assault occurred.7

If the batterer was unemployed, had damaged property in the incident, shared a residence with the DV victim, was drunk, and displayed a hostile demeanor toward the officers when they arrived, there was a 1 in 4 chance that the DV batterer would assault the officers. The more of these characteristics that were present at the call, the more likely an officer assault was to occur. In situations where none of these characteristics were present (i.e., batterer was employed, sober, lived apart from victim, had not damaged property, and did not display a hostile demeanor with officers), the odds of attacking the officers was less than 1 in 2,000.8

Lethal Force Assaults on Officers

Another study in 2008 examined firearms assaults against officers at DV calls to determine the characteristics of these calls, and what could increase chances of survival. Examining a national sample of 143 officer-involved shootings at DV calls revealed that firearms assaults at DV calls differed from other types of officer-involved shooting incidents. According to FBI data, the “typical” firearms assault against a law enforcement officer most often involves a younger male assailant (usually age 15 to 35) with a lengthy criminal record. The assailant generally uses a handgun and most often opens fire at the point of arrest or bodily search. In most of the shooting incidents, the officer and assailant were less than 15 feet from each other when the shootout began.9

Firearms assaults on officers at DV calls, on the other hand, have different characteristics. DV shootouts are more likely to involve an older male assailant (in his 30s, 40s, or older) with or without a prior criminal record and armed with a rifle or shotgun. Half of these firearms assaults at DV calls occurred very shortly after the officers’ arrival, with the assailant firing from the front door of the residence or laying in ambush at some outside location. In the majority of these firearms assaults, the officers had not yet entered the residence or made contact with the batterer when the batterer opened fire. Half of these shootings began at a distance of greater than 50 feet.10

When examining what factors were associated with officers surviving the incident, the strongest predictors were wearing body armor, distance between to the shooter, cover and concealment, and returning fire. Of the 225 officers fired upon in this study, 14% were killed, 43% received bullet wounds and survived, while the remaining 43% of officers survived without serious injury.11

Conclusion

In summary, the research on officer assaults at DV calls reveals a paradox. While DV calls are not the most dangerous duty officers perform, and the majority of such calls do not result in an assault on officers, about 5%-10% of such calls do. The likelihood of an officer assault is greatest when the batterer is unemployed, intoxicated, resides with the DV victim, has just damaged property, and displays a hostile demeanor when officers arrive. An assault on officers is least likely (but not impossible) when all of these elements are absent. If an assault on officers does occur, officers involved have about a 50/50 chance of sustaining an injury requiring medical treatment. If the assault involves a firearm, it is most likely to occur as the officers first approach the scene or shortly after their arrival. The assailant is likely to be laying in ambush inside or outside the residence, utilize a long gun (rifle or shotgun), and open fire from many feet away. Officers have a 50/50 chance of being hit by the assailant’s gunfire but are most likely to survive the encounter if they wear body armor, maintain distance from the shooter, utilize cover and concealment, and return controlled, accurate fire.

 

References

1 Bard, M. (1970). Training Police as Specialists in Family Crisis Intervention. Washington, DC: U.S. Government Printing Office.

2 Johnson, R. R. (2008). Assessing the true dangerousness of domestic violence calls. Law Enforcement Executive Forum, 8(5), 19-29.

3 Ibid.

4 Ibid.

5 Ibid.

6 Ibid.

7 Johnson, R. R. (2011). Predicting officer physical assaults at domestic violence calls. Journal of Family Violence, 26, 163-169.

8 Ibid.

9 Johnson, R. R. (2008). Officer firearm assaults at domestic violence calls: a descriptive analysis. Police Journal: Theory, Practice, and Principles, 81(1), 25-45.

10 Ibid.

11 Johnson, R. R. (2007). Surviving firearm assaults at domestic violence calls. Law Enforcement Executive Forum, 7(6), 155-167.

Helping Domestic Violence Victims

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Domestic violence (DV) calls pose a number of physical safety and legal liability risks for law enforcement officers. These calls involve crimes between people with complex relationship issues that can make investigating these crimes very difficult for officers. In fact, one study that surveyed patrol officers from 13 different municipal police departments in the Chicago metro area revealed that, despite the physical dangers associated with DV calls, officers’ greatest frustrations with handling these calls were associated with DV victims. Approximately 38% of surveyed officers indicated that dealing with victim behaviors was their greatest frustration about handling DV calls. Specifically, officers expressed frustration over victim behaviors such as refusing to cooperate with their investigation, recanting statements, refusing to testify, or refusing to end the relationship with the batterer.1 These are valid frustrations for officers, as DV victims are more likely to display these behaviors than are victims of other crimes.2

Understanding Victims of Domestic Violence

There has been extensive research about why DV victims tend to stay in their abusive relationships and often fail to cooperate with the investigation and prosecution of their batterer. No matter whether the DV victim is black, white, or Hispanic, male or female, straight or gay, the reasons for these behaviors tend to be similar – and there are many.

Financial Dependence on the Batterer – Many victims are financially or socially dependent upon the batterer. The home is likely in the batterer’s name, meaning the victim must move to a new address if the relationship ends. Because many batterers are very adept at pressuring their victims out of the workforce (saying things like, “You are a bad mother if you work”), for the relationship to end the victim has to find a job and a new place to live, often while also caring for children. Who will pay for the day care? Who will provide transportation if the family vehicles are in the batterer’s name? While the victim tries to find a job and apartment, the batterer may be harassing the victim, stalking her, and calling her new place of employment trying to get her fired. Experiencing physical abuse is very frightening and painful, but so are the realities of breaking free from the economic hold of the batterer.

Social Dependence on the Batterer – Batterers are also skilled at isolating their victims from friends and family. Without family and friends for support, it is easier for the abuse victim to begin to believe the verbal messages the batterer communicates. The victim may begin to believe that she or he truly is stupid, ugly, worthless, and deserving of abuse as no one else is communicating anything different. In such situations of social isolation, the victim is entirely dependent on the batterer for childcare. The victim may fear there is no one to vouch for their parenting in any child custody dispute due to no longer associating with anyone outside of the batterer and batterer’s friends and family.

Religious, Family, or Cultural Norms – The victim may have grown up with religious or cultural norms that divorce is a sin, or that a woman must always be subservient to her husband even when he is abusive. There may be family or church / mosque pressure to keep the family together. Heterosexual male victims of DV may feel pressure to “be a man” and endure their female partner’s abuse, or fear ridicule over even reporting abuse by a female. Gay victims may not have disclosed their sexual orientation to friends, coworkers, or family yet and fear making the abuse public would expose their lifestyle to everyone. The victim may hold beliefs that a less-than perfect two-parent home is still better than a single-parent one. The victim may have grown up in a family where DV is the norm so that, while unpleasant, DV may be perceived as an accepted part of married life.

Legal Dangers and Repercussions – Leaving the batterer carries many legal liabilities for the victim. The victim will have to fight the batterer in civil court over property rights. The victim may be in danger of losing sole custody of the children to the violent abuser. If this happens, the abuser may hurt, or even kill, the children, or at least try to turn them against the victim. The victim has to pay expensive legal fees for these court proceedings and may lose significant financial assets, such as the house, vehicles, and savings. If the victim has had any criminal activity (such as drug use), the victim fears the batterer will turn them in to the police. Even if the victim has not engaged in crime, the batterer may threaten that he or she will lie to the police to have the victim arrested.

Physical Dangers of Leaving – The sad reality is that DV victims are at their greatest risk of being murdered in the first couple years after they leave their abusers. One study of DV victims in North Carolina found that incidents of violence increased 58% after the victims asked the police to arrest their batterer.3 Other studies found 60% of women murdered by an intimate partner were murdered after leaving the abusive relationship.4 Furthermore, stalking only occurs after the victim leaves the batterer, and 30% of DV stalking victims (male and female) are eventually assaulted by their former batterer.5 Leaving the batterer usually does not end the abuse, harassment, and living in fear. Leaving the batterer or assisting the police may be the most dangerous things the victim can do.

What Can Officers Do To Change Things?

First, it is important to acknowledge that lack of victim cooperation in DV cases is just part of the job. The reasons listed above demonstrate that these victims have valid reasons for not wanting to anger the batterer further by leaving the relationship or assisting with the batterer’s prosecution. Therefore, officers should not be surprised when DV victims behave in this manner. Research, however, has revealed that there are things law enforcement officers can do to increase the victim’s safety and eventually bring a safe ending to the abusive relationship.

Build a Case without Victim Testimonial Evidence – Murderers are successfully prosecuted without the willing cooperation of the deceased victim. The same can happen with DV cases if officers begin their investigations with the mindset that victims are unlikely to be cooperative in the investigation. One nationwide study revealed that 78% of calls to the police reporting DV came from someone other than the victim, such as a neighbor, coworker, friend, or family member.6 This means that in the majority of DV cases there are witnesses other than the victim who are willing to contact the police. Do a brief canvas of people in the area who may have heard or seen something this time, or in previous occurrences of abuse, to get witness statements. If EMS responded, get copies of these medical reports as they are evidence as to what the paramedics witnessed.

Take photos of any evidence, such as the appearance of the victim and offender, injuries, damaged property, and crying children so the prosecutor, judge, and jury can see what you saw. One study in multiple counties in Indiana found that, compared to DV cases without photographic evidence, DV cases with photographic evidence were 129% more likely to result in a guilty plea by the batterer, 76% more likely to result in a conviction if the case went to trial, and 205% more likely to result in a sentence of incarceration.7

A study by the Phoenix Police Department found that the use of body-worn cameras also improved DV case outcomes. Compared to DV cases without video evidence, DV cases with body-worn camera video evidence were 45% more likely to be prosecuted, 267% more likely to result in a guilty plea by the batterer, and 389% more likely to result in a conviction if the case went to trial.8

Keep Arresting the Batterer – A number of studies have examined the impact of arrest on further acts of domestic violence. While each study produced different results, the overall finding from all of the studies combined indicated that arrest alone (even without prosecution) reduces the likelihood of future offending by 11% over the first six months after arrest.9 Other studies have revealed that on the first arrest of the batterer, only about 25% of victims cooperate with the prosecution, but with each subsequent arrest of the batterer, victim support for prosecution increases by about 55% on average.10 Furthermore, each arrest of the batterer increases the likelihood that the victim will leave the relationship by almost 20%.11 Mandatory arrest policies for DV have been shown to reduce DV homicides by 35%.12 Arresting and prosecuting the batterer communicates to batterers that their crimes are no longer hidden and the criminal justice system is working to punish them if the abuse continues. It also communicates to victims that what they have been experiencing is unacceptable, and temporary removal of the batterer gives victims time to see life without the batterer and his or her violence.

Connect Victims with Services – As described earlier, many of the barriers to leaving an abusive relationship are financial and social. Connecting DV victims with support services through women’s shelters or other victim advocate organizations increases the victim’s likelihood of survival and escaping the relationship. Heterosexual female DV victims who are willing to go to a battered women’s shelter are more likely to cooperate with prosecution and leave the relationship than are women who do not seek services.13 Unfortunately such services tend to be lacking or nonexistent for gay and male victims of DV.

Surveil the Most Dangerous Batterers – Many law enforcement agencies now utilize threat assessment surveys as a required part of their DV investigations. These threat assessment tools help agencies determine the level of threat for short-term future violence posed by the batterer based on the batterer’s background and behavior. These tools help law enforcement agencies determine which batterer’s are at highest risk of seriously harming their victim after bonding out.14 Perhaps, when resources permit, the one or two highest risk batterers could be placed under covert surveillance, or their victims placed under counter-surveillance, in order to catch the abuser violating the order of protection, attempting to commit new acts of violence, and prevent a homicide.

Conclusion

Domestic violence still results in almost 2,000 murders each year, and remains the most common violent crime encountered by the police.15 While these cases, and the victim behaviors encountered in these cases, can be very complex and even frustrating, there is hope. Through good police investigative work, consistent and repeated enforcement of the law, and unyielding efforts to get the victim to accept help, domestic violence can successfully be reduced.

 

References

1 Johnson, R. R. (2004). Police officer frustrations about handling domestic violence calls. Police Journal, 77, 207-219.

2 Buzawa, E. S., Buzawa, C. G., & Stark, E. D. (2017). Responding to Domestic Violence, Fifth Edition. Los Angeles, CA: Sage.

3 Hirschel, D. & Hutchison, I. W. (2003). The voices of domestic violence victims: predictors of victim preference for arrest and the relationship between preference for arrest and recidivism. Crime and Delinquency, 49, 313-336.

4 Buzawa, Buzawa, & Stark (2017).

5 Ibid.

6 Felson, R. B., Messner, S. F., Hoskin, A. W., & Deane, G. (2002). Reasons for reporting and not reporting domestic violence to the police. Criminology, 40, 617-647.

7 Garcia, C. A. (2003). Digital photographic evidence and the adjudication of domestic violence cases. Journal of Criminal Justice, 31, 579-587.

8 Katz, C. M., Choate, D. E., Ready, J. R., Nuno, L., Kurtenbach, M., & Johnson, K. (2014). Evaluating the Impact of Officer Worn Body Cameras in the Phoenix Police Department. Phoenix, AZ: Arizona State University.

9 Maxwell, C. D., Garner, J. H., & Fagan, J. A. (2002). The preventive effects of arrest on intimate partner violence: Research, policy and theory. Criminology and Public Policy, 2, 51-80.

10 Hirschel & Hutchison (2003); Kingsnorth, R. F., & Macintosh, R. C. (2004). Domestic violence: predictors of victim support for official action. Justice Quarterly, 21, 301-328.

11 Stroshine, M. S., & Robinson, A. L. (2003). The decision to end abusive relationships: the role of offender characteristics. Criminal Justice and Behavior, 30, 97-117.

12 Iyengar, R. (2009). Does the certainty of arrest reduce domestic violence? Evidence from mandatory and recommended arrest laws. Journal of Public Economics, 93, 85-98.

13 Fleury-Steiner, R. E., Bybee, D., Sullivan, C. M., Belknap, J., & Melton, H. C. (2006). Contextual factors impacting bettered women’s intentions to reuse the criminal justice system. Journal of Community Psychology, 34, 327-342.

14 Hilton, N. Z., Harris, G. T., Rice, M. E., Houghton, R. E., & Eke, E. W. (2008). An indepth actuarial assessment for wife assault recidivism: the Domestic Violence Risk Appraisal Guide. Law and Human Behavior, 32, 150-163; Trujillo, M. P., & Ross, S. (2008). Police response to domestic violence: making decisions about risk and risk management. Journal of Interpersonal Violence, 23, 454-473.

15 Buzawa, Buzawa, & Stark (2017).

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Dolan Consulting Training Members Of The Indianapolis Metropolitan Police Department

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Dolan Consulting trained members of the Indianapolis Metropolitan Police Department on verbal de-escalation from September 5-8, 2017. The Train The Trainer Course helps participants become teachers of verbal de-escalation techniques and gives them the tools they need to teach others how to defuse potentially volatile situations.

Performance Evaluations—Are They Helping Us or Hurting Us?

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Why are we conducting performance evaluations and how are they making the agency better? These are fundamental questions for agencies that require standardized performance evaluations. Without clearly answering these questions, supervisors are often put in the position of pursuing the “path of least resistance” when it comes to conducting performance evaluations. This path is understandably tempting for supervisors, but it often results in serious agency problems relating to legal liability in discipline and promotions—not to mention officer morale.

The “text book” answers to these aforementioned questions are straightforward:

Why are we conducting performance evaluations? We conduct these evaluations to ensure that supervisors give subordinates detailed feedback regarding their current performance, areas of needed improvement, and reasonable supervisor expectations.

How are they making the agency better? The agency is made better by this process as supervisors and subordinates are “on the same page,” expectations are clear and performance issues do not result from employees’ ignorance of expectations or ways to accomplish agency goals.

Unfortunately, for too many public safety agencies, the honest answers are: we do them because we are required to do them/we’ve always done them, and as far as making the agency better—your guess is as good as mine.

It would be bad enough if these evaluation systems simply failed to produce positive results in the form of detailed and documented feedback on performance strengths and weaknesses. Even worse, however, is the fact that broken performance evaluations actually damage agencies across the country by (1) giving inaccurately positive documentation to officers that is later used to reverse important disciplinary decisions in court or in arbitration and (2) giving standard “meets expectations” evaluations to officers whose performance merits much greater recognition.

Broken Performance Evaluation Systems—One of a Toxic Employee’s Best Friends

It is hardly a secret within public safety agencies that there are a small group of problem people who wreak havoc inside the agency and cause the lion’s share of stress and liability year after year. These individuals become much more difficult to deal with in an effective and legally defensible way when they are awarded “meets expectations” or even “exceeds expectations” with every performance evaluation.

Making difficult personnel decisions—from discipline to promotions to terminations—is essential for public safety leaders looking to meet their obligations to the communities that they serve. But when problem employees are given positive performance evaluations as standard operating procedure, personnel decisions become much more difficult to defend in court or in arbitration.

When agencies are arguing that a personnel decision was not arbitrary or discriminatory, their arguments are often contradicted by the agency’s own evaluations. Chiefs and sheriffs across the country are frequently placed in the painfully awkward position of asserting that the agency’s performance evaluations don’t mean what they purport to mean. The officer in question has been a problem for years and the court or arbitrator should not be swayed by performance evaluations that are incompatible with reality. Put more simply: inaccurate evaluations force agency leaders to argue against their own documentation.

Do Broken Performance Evaluation Systems Short Change High Performers?

Inaccurate performance evaluations in which supervisors are simply “circling down the middle” of the performance rating scale tend to underrate the hard work of many employees in the same way that they minimize the severity of problem behavior. This makes it much more difficult for agency leaders to discipline a high-level performer for an isolated mistake in a manner that is less severe than the discipline given to a problem employee who regularly engages in misconduct. Similarly, the promotional process is made more challenging when differences in past performances (one below standards and the other above) are not reflected in performance evaluations.

In seeking to promote or otherwise advance high-level performers, agency leaders should be aware of the problems posed by documentation that indicates that all agency employees are essentially the same. The overwhelming majority of the agency may recognize the difference between the high-level performers and the problem employees, but if it’s not in writing it didn’t happen. Even worse—the agency may be cementing a false narrative in the form of inaccurate performance evaluations that aren’t taken seriously throughout the agency. Often times, performance evaluations don’t seem to mean anything until they are part of a heated debate in costly litigation or arbitration.

To minimize the damage done by broken performance evaluation systems, agency leaders would be well-served to (1) decide if performance evaluations are a net positive for their agency in the first place, (2) create performance evaluation systems that are closely related to agency priorities, and (3) train all supervisors sufficiently on the practicalities of the evaluation system so that these evaluations reflect reality and are detailed enough to give employees notice of areas for improvement and the means of improving. If all of the agency supervisors are not on the same page when it comes to performance evaluations, it is nearly impossible to see how the pitfalls discussed here can be avoided.

Remember the People between the Dots

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Criminologists have documented that as young law enforcement officers progress through their careers, there is a tendency to develop cynical views toward the general public. The public primarily calls the police when things have gone wrong and, therefore, officers are overexposed to negative events and to bad citizen behavior. As a result, officers can often begin to lump all citizens together and view them all in a negative manner that reflects their experiences with those in the community prone to criminality, dishonesty and violence.1

Intelligence-led policing strategies may have also exacerbated this phenomenon as an unanticipated side effect of these policing strategies. Intelligence-led policing, sometimes referred to as “putting cops on dots,” emphasizes proactively deploying law enforcement officers to high crime locations at peak times for criminal offending. The aim of this strategy is deterring crime before it occurs. It is indisputable that intelligence-led policing strategies have been very successful at reducing actual crime.2 One negative side effect, however, is that since officers are deployed directly to locations where criminal offenders operate at times when these offenders are most likely to engage in crime, officers increase their exposure to the bad guys. Additionally, the fact that crime hot spots tend to be clustered nearby each other in specific neighborhoods makes it very easy for officers to stereotype everyone found in the area as a criminal.

This phenomenon can be reversed, however, if officers take proactive steps to familiarize themselves with the law-abiding citizens that frequently live in between these hot spot locations. Between these hot spot dots live many law-abiding people who suffer the effects of the crimes occurring nearby. These unfortunate people live in fear of the criminal element within their neighborhood, frequently become victims of crime and disorder, and are sometimes subjected to police stops and searches because officers have difficulty differentiating between the criminal and the law-abiding residents of the neighborhood.

They Are There

Some extremely cynical officers may argue that there are very few law-abiding people living within the most high-crime neighborhoods, especially on blocks with multiple crime hot spots. The evidence, however, suggests otherwise. Consider, for example, Beat 1011 in Chicago. This small patrol beat is composed of about 50 blocks, is less than a square half mile in area, and is estimated to have a population of around 6,000 residents. According to the Chicago Sun Times, Beat 1011 has the highest violent crime rate in Chicago for the first half of 2017.3 According to statistics from the Chicago Police Department, 1,815 criminal offenses were reported within this beat during 2016, and 4,537 calls for police services were generated from this beat. In the first six months of 2017, gunfire in Beat 1011 produced 10 murders and 19 non-fatal gunshot victims. This is an example of a neighborhood experiencing some of the most extreme amounts of crime imaginable, and it would be easy to think that everyone in this beat is a criminal – but that would be incorrect.

The photo below is a Google Earth image of the largest portion of Beat 1011. Superimposed over this photo are red dots that indicate the addresses of all of the crimes reported to the police in this area for a period of two-and-a-half years. At first glance the seriousness of the crime problem is obvious, but a closer examination reveals that the crime is concentrated at specific addresses – hot spots. There are numerous homes visible that have not been the scene of a crime of any sort over the last three years, despite the high level of overall neighborhood crime.

Crime Report Map

While almost every block has at least one crime hot spot, there are many, many homes and apartments between the dots where no crimes have been reported. Even at the red dot locations, there are still law-abiding people. One example is an incident that occurred within this beat in 2016 when a 59-year-old woman, flanked by her 25-year-old daughter and 19-year-old nephew, attempted to get a group of gang members to leave her porch. Gunfire erupted, the woman’s windows were shot out, and she was wounded after being hit in the head by a bullet.4 Not in a financial position to be able to sell her home and buy a new one, she must remain living amidst this neighborhood. She wishes someone would help make her block safer.

Another example of the level of law-abiding people within these neighborhoods comes from a study presented this year at an economics conference at the University of Chicago. This interesting study involved intentionally making a delivery error of a letter to 180 impoverished addresses and 180 wealthy addresses in one large city, to see who was more likely to return the letter to the post office. The letter was made to look like it had been mailed to a young man by his grandfather and contained either $15 or $60 in cash, or a gift card. The note and the envelope were thin enough that one could see there was cash or a credit card-like object inside when held up to the light.5

The letter, addressed to someone else, was intentionally delivered to 180 residential addresses in a neighborhood with a median household income of $25,000, and another 180 addresses in a neighborhood with a median household income of $2.5 million. To give perspective on these two neighborhoods, the median household income of the entire city was about $52,000 and the median home value was about $300,000. While the researchers did not report the crime statistics of these two neighborhoods, one can easily assume that the poor neighborhood (at less than half the city average household income) experienced significantly more crime, especially when compared to the neighborhood of millionaires.6

The researchers found that 80% of the letters delivered in the rich neighborhood were returned to the post office or forwarded to the rightful addressee. Approximately 40% of the letters in the poor neighborhood were returned to the rightful addressee. While this is far below the rate for the wealthy neighborhood, its significance should not be overlooked. Four out of every ten people in this very poor neighborhood, people who could desperately use an additional $15 or $60, did the right thing and returned the letter to the correct addressee.7

Over the last half century, criminologists have demonstrated that the overwhelming majority of crimes and calls for police services (about 80%) occur at a very small proportion of addresses (about 5%).8 Further research has revealed that the primary thing that makes these hot spot locations concentrations for crime and disorder is that they are commonly frequented by the small number of individuals that generate the vast majority of crime.9 One study in Toledo, Ohio revealed that 347 individuals (0.1% of the city’s population) accounted for all robbery, aggravated assault, and burglary arrests in the city over a three-year period. Additionally, only 1.5% of all Toledo residents were cited or arrested for any traffic or criminal offense over a three-year period, suggesting that 98.5% of the city’s population routinely avoids police enforcement contacts.10 Research indicates that the criminal element in any community is relatively small, but very active, making it appear as though a whole neighborhood is crime infested.

Reaching the People between the Dots

Even in Chicago’s Beat 1011 there is time between calls and enforcement action to reach out and get to know the law-abiding folks that live between the dots. Beat 1011 had 4,537 calls for service in 2016, which is 12.4 calls for service per day, or about one call every other hour. This means that even in this highest of crime beats there is still time to spend 30 minutes or so every shift getting to know a law-abiding citizen or two on that beat.

Ten studies have found that proactive, non-enforcement, contacts with average citizens reduces fear of crime and increases public satisfaction with the police.11 These contacts are not public relations fluff, but rather real police work activities focused on maintaining order, detecting crime, and making citizens feel safe.12 In Houston, for example, police targeted a couple of high crime blocks and required patrol officers to stop twice during their shift to meet residents at their homes, or business people at their stores or offices. During these brief contacts (usually less than 10 minutes), the officer introduced him or herself, said the purpose of the visit was simply to get acquainted and learn whether there were any problems in the area the citizen felt the police should know about. The officer then left a business card. Neighborhood citizen satisfaction surveys that were conducted before and after officers were ordered to make these contacts revealed that fear of crime fell substantially in the neighborhoods targeted, and citizen satisfaction with the police rose.13

The Portland Bureau of Police in Oregon has mated this strategy with its intelligence-led policing efforts. The computer-aided dispatch system assigns officers to conduct these non-enforcement contacts at specific crime hot spot locations at specific hot crime times. If officers see illegal activity while at the hot spot, they take appropriate legal action. If they do not see illegal activity, they use that time to talk with people in the area and get to know them better.

Additionally, researchers in one large city surveyed 977 residents of public housing apartments. The survey contained questions about a variety of different city services, but included questions about fear of crime, satisfaction with the police. These residents were surveyed about how often they saw police cars, foot patrols, or had informal face-to-face contact with police officers. The residents who reported having had informal face-to-face contact with the police in the last six months had the lowest fear of crime and the highest satisfaction with the police.14

Regardless of the picture the mainstream media tries to portray, the evidence strongly indicates that most of the people living between the dots want help and appreciate police protection. They do not appreciate being stopped and treated like a suspect because of where they live, but they want the police to address the crime on their block. They live in fear and need your help, but most do not know you by name, and it is likely you do not know them either. Maybe it is time to have some out-of-car experiences and get to know the people living between the dots.

 

References

1 Brown, M. K. (1988). Working the Street: Police Discretion and the Dilemmas of Reform. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage; Crank, J. (2004). Understanding Police Culture. Cincinnati, OH: Anderson; Gilmartin, K. M. (2002). Emotional Survival for Law Enforcement. Phoenix, AZ: E-S Printing.

2 Boba-Santos, R. (2012). Crime Analysis with Crime Mapping. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage; Ratcliffe, J. H. (2008). Intelligence-Led Policing. New York, NY: Wilan.

3 Charles, C. & Rezin, A. (2017, July 22). Cops targeted Chicago’s most violent beat, so crime moved next door. Chicago Sun Times. Located at: http://chicago.suntimes.com/news/copstargeted-chicagos-most-violent-beat-so-crime-moved-next-door/

4 Ibid.

5 Andreoni, J., Nikiforakis, N., & Stoop, J. (2017). Are the rich more selfish than the poor, or do they just have more money? A natural field experiment. Working Paper 23229. National Bureau of Economic Research.

6 Ibid.

7 Ibid.

8 Brantingham, P., & Brantingham, P. (1999). Theoretical model of crime hot spot generation. Studies on Crime and Crime Prevention, 8, 7–26; Patten, I. T., Mckenlden-Coner, J. M., & Cox, D. (2009). A microspatial analysis of robbery: Prospective hot spotting in a small city. Crime Mapping, 1(1), 7-32; Sherman, L. W., Gartin, P. R., & Buerger, M. E. (1989). Hot spots of predatory crime: routine activities and the criminology of place. Criminology, 27(1), 27-56.

9 Farrell, G. (2010). Situational crime prevention and its discontents: Rational choice and harm reduction versus ‘cultural criminology.’ Social Policy and Administration, 44(1), 40-66; Farrell, G., Clark, K., Ellingworth, D., & Pease, K. (2005). Of targets and supertargets: A routine activity theory of high crime areas. Internet Journal of Criminology, 2005, 1-25; Sherman, Gartin, & Buerger (1989).

10 Author’s unpublished research as part of a U.S. BJA Smart Policing Initiative grant with the Toledo Police Department.

11 Zhao, J., Scheider, M., & Thurman, Q. (2002). The effect of police presence on public fear reduction and satisfaction: a review of the literature. The Justice Professional, 15(3), 273- 299.

12 Ibid.

13 Brown, L., & Wycoff, M. A. (1987). Policing Houston: reducing fear and improving service. Crime and Delinquency, 33(1), 71-89.

14 Salmi, S., Gronroos, M., & Kreskinen, E. (2004). The role of police visibility in fear of crime. Policing: An International Journal of Police Strategies and Management, 27(4), 573-591.

Estimating the Cost of a Problem Officer

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Law enforcement is a high-liability profession. Lawsuits against law enforcement officers and agencies absorb an inordinate amount of personnel time and agency resources. Officers and supervisors have to be interviewed or deposed, attorney fees have to be paid, documents have to be gathered and copied, meetings are held with city officials, and insurance companies must be consulted. It all results in one expensive, time-consuming mess.

Some lawsuits against law enforcement agencies and officers are baseless, but others are not. In fact, several studies have revealed that the vast majority of citizen complaints and lawsuits filed against any law enforcement agency are generated by a small number of repeat offender personnel. One study examined citizen complaints across 165 law enforcement agencies in the state of Washington, finding that about 5% of the officers on these agencies were responsible for all of the sustained citizen complaints.1 Another study examined 15-years of citizen complaint and internal misconduct data within one urban police department in the state of New York. It found that about 6% of the officers employed by the department over those 15 years accounted for almost all of the internal and external allegations of misconduct.2

A third study examined more than 5,500 citizen complaints against officers on eight police departments from mid-sized cities. This study found that only around 5% of the officers had received more than one sustained citizen complaint, with this small group of officers accounting for more than 100 excessive force allegations, 200+ discourtesy allegations, and numerous other misconduct complaints.3 All of these studies found that while some officers receive only one sustained complaint or lawsuit during their careers, the vast majority of these problem officers accumulated 3 or more sustained citizen complaints.

These are problem-prone officers, often referred to as “bad apples,” and they create havoc within their respective government agencies. They routinely damage relations with the public, bring discredit to their agencies, and place their peers at risk for danger and lawsuits. Most of us have experienced them, and their effects, at some point within our agencies. In fact, one study involving interviews with officers from 11 police departments in Arizona revealed that most officers know who the problem officers are and resent that they often remain employed by their agencies.4 In this modern age of technology-driven transparency, the antics of these repeat problem-prone officers are also increasingly on display for the world to see—with the liability and public trust costs that come with them.

Removing Problem Officers

Removing bad apples has clear benefits for the well-being of the community, the reputation of the agency, and the morale of the department. The simplest way to deal with these problem officers is to avoid hiring them in the first place, yet many law enforcement agencies do not devote sufficient time or importance to background checks and the hiring process. Often agencies blame this lack of effort on the financial cost involved in a thorough background check, or political pressure to hire officers quickly or hire members of traditionally underrepresented groups.

After a conditional offer of employment is extended to the individual, the academy training period, field training, and probationary period continue to offer opportunities for agencies to terminate officers exhibiting problematic behaviors. Unfortunately, far too many agencies continue to try to counsel and reform these recruits or probationary officers, based on the argument that so much money has already been invested in the recruiting, hiring, and training of the individual.

Once the problematic officer successfully makes it off probation and achieves the civil service and / or union protection given to full-fledged officers, administrative and legal protections increase the difficulty of terminating such an officer. While it becomes harder to dismiss a problem officer who successfully got off probation, it is not impossible. Nevertheless, many law enforcement and government leaders worry that trying to get rid of such a problem officer is far too costly in terms of legal fees associated with the termination and the inevitable officer lawsuit.

Note that most of these concerns that prevent the effective removal of problem-prone officers tend to revolve around financial costs. Background checks are too costly. Waiting to hire the right people is too costly. Terminating a recruit or probationary officer in which thousands of dollars have already been invested is too costly. Terminating a problem-prone full officer, and defending against the resulting lawsuit, is too costly. However, has anyone ever sat down and done the math to examine these costs and compare it to the cost of the alternative? What is the financial cost of having a problem-prone officer on your department?

Estimating the Civil Liability Costs of the Problem Officer

To estimate the average annual civil liability cost of a single problem-prone officer in a law enforcement agency, data from several sources were used. A search of a number of online newspapers was conducted to locate articles that reported annual payouts to citizens by cities for lawsuits over police misconduct allegations. Articles published since 2010 reported multiple years’ worth of data about civil court payouts, specifically for police misconduct in 25 agencies from 15 states. Only jurisdictions for which multiple years’ worth of data were used as any given municipality could have a single abnormally large settlement in a single year. It is important to note that these payouts were only for lawsuits from citizens, and not internal officer lawsuits. These payout costs also only accounted for money paid to the plaintiff, and do not include other costs incurred by the jurisdiction such as litigation expenses and insurance fees.

Federal government data from the 2015 Census of State and Local Governments was accessed to determine the total number of full and part-time officers of each of these law enforcement agencies. Based on the prior research suggesting that about 5% of officers account for the vast majority of misconduct complaints and lawsuits, this percentage was used to estimate the number of problem officers with which each department might be struggling. The average annual payout by the agency was then divided by the estimated number of problem-prone officers to estimate the average annual payout for each jurisdiction-per-problem-officer. The results are displayed in the table below.

The average annual cost estimate per problem officer ranged from a low of $4,495 for Fort Worth, to a high of $131,163 for Chicago. Since jurisdictions can vary dramatically in their payouts due to differing attitudes of each local court, and differences in the egregiousness of officer misconduct, it is best to consider the average cost of the whole sample using the median cost. The average median cost in this sample was $34,924 per problem officer per year. If such an officer serves a 25-year career, the law enforcement agency can expect to pay about $873,100 in compensation to citizens suing the department. Again, it is important to note that these figures do not even include costs for legal defense, insurance rates, or internal lawsuits over officer grievances filed because of this officer, so it is reasonable to expect to pay about twice as much for this officer’s misbehavior when all expenses are considered.

Is It Worth It?

Some law enforcement and government leaders cite financial costs as a barrier to properly investigating applicants, terminating poorly performing trainees, and dismissing serious misconduct officers. In these cases, it is important to weigh these decisions against the estimate developed here. If your jurisdiction does not expend a few extra thousand dollars on thorough background checks of job applicants, then you very well could end up paying an addition $35,000+ every year in civil case payouts if you end up hiring a problem-prone officer. Likewise, jurisdictions will save money if they terminate a problem-prone officer for cause and end up paying less than $35,000 a year in legal costs to win any arbitration or wrongful termination hearings. The reality is that the legal fees associated with defending accusations of wrongful termination from one former officer are generally much less than $35,000 per year if you win.

Even if you lose, one study in Florida found that the average payout for a wrongful termination lawsuit in that state was only $40,000.5 Which would you rather do? Would you rather pay $40,000 plus a few thousand dollars in litigation fees to rid your agency of a serious problem-prone officer, or continue to pay $35,000 in payouts to citizens plus legal and insurance fees each year for many years into the future? Biting the cost bullet now to prevent continued future loses later is often the right decision. Agency funds well spent now to ensure problem-prone officers are removed or not hired can reap significant financial savings for the agency later.

 

References

1 Dugan, J. R., & Breda, D. R. (1991). Complaints about police officers: A comparison among types and agencies. Journal of Criminal Justice, 19, 165–171.
2 Harris, C. J. (2010). Pathways of Misconduct. Durham, NC: Carolina Academic Press.
3 Terrill, W., & Ingram, J. R. (2016). Citizen complaints against the police: an eight city examination. Police Quarterly, 19, 150-179. 
4 Haarr, R. N. (1997). They’re making a bad name for the department: Exploring the link between organizational commitment and police occupational deviance in a police patrol bureau. Policing: An International Journal of Police Strategies & Management, 20(4), 786-812.
5 Cutting Edge Recruiting Solutions (2012). Officer Lawsuits. Boca Raton, FL: CERS.

Community Policing is Not Soft on Crime: The Evidence

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Dolan Consulting Group is committed to the principles of community-oriented policing. Unfortunately, we sometimes encounter push back from attendees in our courses that suggest community-oriented policing strategies are some form of a “hug-a-thug” philosophy that is soft on crime and criminals. We are often baffled when we encounter such views as we struggle to understand how community-oriented policing strategies, designed to include law abiding citizen input to determine crime priorities and responses, could be considered soft on crime.

The community-oriented policing strategies we advocate focus on the targeting of crime and criminals. These strategies involve officers getting out of their patrol cars and actively engaging the community in a way that builds relationships that lead to intelligence-gathering and crime prevention and prosecution. Including citizens in the processes of alerting the police about crime and identifying criminals is designed to lead to the successful prevention and prosecution of criminals preying upon communities.

Dr. Robert Trojanowicz, one of the founders of modern community-oriented policing, defined it this way:

Community Policing is a philosophy of policing, based on the concept that police officers and private citizens working together in creative ways can help solve contemporary community problems related to crime, fear of crime, social and physical disorder, and neighborhood decay. The philosophy is predicated on the belief that achieving these goals requires that police departments develop a new relationship with the law-abiding people in the community, allowing them a greater voice in setting local priorities, and involving them in efforts to improve the overall quality of life in their neighborhoods. It shifts the focus of police work from handling random calls to solving problems.1

How is that soft on crime? A careful examination of American policing prior to the 1950s will reveal that this “community policing” is what regular policing was like in both rural and urban environments for decades. And yet it is hard to imagine, for all the imperfections of policing in the early 20th Century, criticizing police officers of that era as being soft on crime.

A research study has just been published that provides strong evidence that community policing is not soft on crime but actually leads to higher arrest rates for violent crimes. In May of this year, the research journal Justice Quarterly published a study by Dr. Rob Tillyer of the University of Texas at San Antonio. This study examined violent crime arrest rates across a nationwide sample of 603 law enforcement agencies.2 Professor Tillyer specifically looked at 402,786 reports of violent crimes across these 603 jurisdictions to determine the percentage of these cases that were cleared by an arrest. He examined whether or not agencies engaged in community-oriented policing had lower arrest rates.

Professor Tillyer measured each agency’s level of community-oriented policing (COP) activity as the total number of community policing tactics / policies the agency employed. These tactics / policies included COP as part of the agency’s mission statement, a formal COP unit, use of the SARA problem solving process by patrol officers, a written COP plan, development of formal partnerships with the community, conducted community surveys, and used of technology in the COP process. Some agencies in the study had none of these COP tactics / policies, and a few engaged in all of them. The average agency employed between two and three of these policies / tactics.3

After accounting for the influences of situational characteristics (i.e., crime type, victim characteristics, witnesses present, etc.), and organizational characteristics (i.e., agency size, crime rate, call for service workload, etc.), the study revealed that agencies that engage in community-oriented policing had slightly higher overall arrest rates than did agencies that engaged in none of the stated COP activities. In fact, the more COP tactics / policies an agency had, the higher its overall arrest rate for violent crimes. Each additional COP tactic or policy increased the agency’s arrest rate, but the greatest arrest rate increases—the biggest bang for the buck—resulted from having COP as part of the agency mission statement, and having formal partnerships with the community.4

This wide-reaching, rigorous study is just one more piece of research evidence supporting the importance of community-oriented policing. In earlier research briefs we have cited research articles that analyzed numerous published studies of community-oriented policing strategies. These studies revealed overwhelming evidence that some community policing tactics (neighborhood substations, general community meetings, problem-solving community meetings, foot patrols, and intentional informal face-to-face police-citizen contacts) consistently reduce fear of crime and increase confidence / satisfaction with the police.5

All these tactics share one thing in common: face-to-face contact between law enforcement officers and law-abiding citizens within neighborhoods of greatest need. This can be achieved through the daily and intentional of out-of-car experiences with law-abiding citizens by all in law enforcement. The available evidence demonstrates that community-oriented policing can clearly bridge the gap between the police and law-abiding citizens while still holding offenders accountable for criminal activity.

In fact, the available evidence shows that community-oriented policing is tough on crime— leading to more arrests as officers increase their “out of car experiences” to build relationships, gather intelligence and successfully apprehend the criminals preying upon the community.

 

References

1 Trojanowicz, R., & Bucqueroux, B. (1990). Community Policing: A Contemporary Perspective. Cincinnati, OH: Anderson Press, Page 5.

2 Tillyer, R. (2017). Assessing the impact of community-oriented policing on arrest. Justice Quarterly. Volume and issue forthcoming. This article can be downloaded at: http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/07418825.2017.1327609

3 Ibid.

4 Ibid.

5 Weisburd, D., & Eck, J. E. (2004). What can police do to reduce crime, disorder, and fear? Annals of the American Academy of Political and Social Science, 593(1), 42-64; Zhao, J. S., Schneider, M., & Thurman, Q. (2002). The effect of police presence on public fear reduction and satisfaction: a review of the literature. The Justice Professional, 15(3), 273-299.

The Patrol Officer’s Perspective on Rewards and Punishments

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Decades of extensive research in psychology has revealed that people respond to rewards and punishments in the workplace.1 Law enforcement officers are no exception. We are generally motivated to engage in, or refrain from, specific behaviors because of the rewards and punishments associated with those behaviors.

Private industry often links pay and other rewards to specific employee performance goals. High performance often results in pay raises, swift promotions and bonuses. Failing to live up to the performance standards in the private sector often means that a potential year-end pay bonus is denied or that an under-performing employee will be included in the company’s next round of reduction-in-force layoffs.

In the public sector, however, we usually do not think of using employee rewards. This is, at least in part, due to the nature of civil service rules that make using formal rewards difficult. Public sector employers generally cannot offer pay bonuses or an unscheduled promotion to reward excellent work.

Law enforcement agencies often focus on the use of employee punishments as a management tool rather than rewards—in the form of verbal reprimands, write-ups, suspensions or undesirable shift assignments.2 This is unfortunate, as research consistently reveals that a punitive workplace carries negative side effects (such as destroying the morale and organizational commitment of the entire workforce), while the proper use of rewards does not.3

In order for rewards to motivate employees, however, the employees have to actually value the potential rewards—in other words, the “carrots” being offered must be enticing enough to actually affect behavior. If the employee does not place any value in it, the employee may not be motivated to achieve it. Conversely, in order for a punishment to discourage a bad behavior, the employee must be so concerned by the “sticks” that could be utilized that it actually impacts their behavior. It is noteworthy that one recent study involving several hundred patrol officers from two dozen agencies revealed that as officers progress through their careers, their work performance is affected less by the fear of punishment and more by the intrinsic and extrinsic rewards that they see as desirable. Veteran officers appear to engage in high levels of productivity almost exclusively because they receive external rewards for doing so and / or they receive some form of internal satisfaction for doing so, according to this study.4

How are Rewards and Punishments Viewed?

It is crucial for law enforcement leaders to understand how patrol officers view specific rewards and punishments encountered within law enforcement organizations. One study explored how patrol officers perceived a set of potential workplace rewards and punishments.5 A sample of patrol officers from one suburban sheriff department in the Midwestern U.S. were asked to score the desirability of a set of potential rewards and punishments that are commonly utilized within law enforcement organizations. Given a list of 14 potential rewards and punishments, the patrol officers were asked to rank the desirability of each on a scale from 1 (devastating to me) to 10 (extremely desirable to me). The results were as follows:

Reward or Punishment

Average Score
Choice of shift assignment 7.98
Approval of time off request 7.72
Letter of commendation 7.38
High performance evaluation score 7.02
Opportunity for special training 6.98
Verbal compliment from supervisor 6.97
Assignment of special equipment (i.e., radar, specific car, patrol rifle, etc.) 6.95
Transfer to specialty job assignment (i.e., detective, PIO, etc.) 5.89
Promotion to supervisor rank  5.58
Verbal reprimand 5.23  
 Written reprimand  4.67
 Low performance evaluation score 4.41 
 Suspension without pay 3.20 
 Termination of employment 1.41 

The rank ordering of the deputies’ responses reveal many things. First, the two rewards ranked highest – choice of shift and time off requests – both influence the officer’s life outside of work, such as family commitments, hobbies, or outside employment. This may suggest officers value most the rewards that improve their quality of life outside of work. Second, informal rewards that can more easily be granted by an immediate supervisor (such as time off requests, written or verbal compliment, and evaluation scores) tended to rank higher in value than rewards that require a more formal process or command level decisions (such as promotions, transfers, or specialty assignments).

Third, while law enforcement organizations emphasize annual performance evaluations as the primary measure of employee performance feedback, other forms of feedback (shift assignment, day off approvals, and letters of appreciation / commendation) appear to carry more weight and may occur more frequently than just annually. Fourth, it is interesting to note that the reward of promotion to supervisor ranked just above the punishment of a verbal reprimand, revealing that most of these patrol officers did not find promotion to sergeant particularly desirable.

When the responses of these patrol officers were examined by each officer’s years of experience, the more experience the officers had, the more they valued shift assignment and time off requests, and the less they valued promotions or specialty assignments. The longer the tenure of the officers the more they feared terminations or suspensions, and the less they worried about reprimands or performance evaluation scores. This suggests that as patrol officers move closer to retirement the more they fear punishments that could influence their pensions, and the more they value rewards that improve their quality of life outside of work.

Conclusion

Psychological research suggests that employee performance can be improved through the skillful use of workplace rewards and (when necessary) punishments. This study suggests that rewards that most motivate the majority of patrol officers are things that allow them to enjoy their lives outside of work. A shift of their choosing, or at least a stable schedule, and the approval of requests for specific days off are rewards that might be linked to good performance. Written and verbal complements are also valuable to patrol officers, while high performance evaluation scores, specialty assignments, and promotions may be valuable to some individual officers, but not the majority. Law enforcement leaders may be able to improve the efficiency of their teams by finding out what informal rewards best motivate each of their team members and adeptly using these rewards to motivate their teams to excellence.

 

References

1 Staddon, J. E. & Cerutti, D. T. (2003). Operant conditioning. Annual Review of Psychology, 54, 115-144.

2 Swnson, C. R., Territo, L., & Taylor, R. W. (2001). Police Administration. Upper Saddle River, NJ: Prentice Hall; Whisenand, P. R., & Ferguson, R. F. (2002). The Management of Police Organizations. Upper Saddle River, NJ: Prentice Hall.

3 Colquitt, J. A., Conlon, D. E., Wesson, M. J., Porter, C. O., & Ng, K. Y. (2001). Justice at the millennium: a meta-analytic review of 25 years of organizational research. Journal of Applied Psychology, 86(3), 425-445.

4 Johnson, R. R., & Lafrance, C. (2016). The influence of career stage on police officer work behavior. Criminal Justice and Behavior, 43(11), 1580-1599.

5 Johnson, R. R. (2009). Patrol officer perceptions of agency rewards and punishments: a research note. Journal of Police and Criminal Psychology, 24(1), 126-133.