It's Never Enough

It's Time For Leaders To Stop Playing Games

Law enforcement has been in a perpetual toxic relationship with a number of actors over the last decade and like any bad relationship, the longer we are involved the more damaging it will be.

The last three decades in the profession has been a dichotomy of ideas, concepts and technological advances that have been both positive and negative for the profession and our leaders are responsible for all of that.

Technology

When I started in law enforcement in 1993, we had a pad of paper in the car along with a 5 pound flashlight. There was no e-mail, text, or cloud and cell phones were just becoming popular. There is no question that our profession has become more efficient with the advancements of technology but it has also become far too reliant.

When cops sacrifice safety to make sure they are on camera or wait on software to tell them when and where gunfire goes off or where a stolen vehicle is, I can’t help but think that we are losing some of the skills that made us so successful in reducing crime long before this technology.

Leaders today are inundated with the latest and greatest technology advancements and I’ve seen the profession go from one shiny object to the next. For a while it was CompStat and now it’s Real Time Crime Centers and we are already talking about how AI will be in the mix.

Leaders deserve a lot of praise from moving the profession towards technology and we should certainly use technology to leverage our efforts to reduce crime but that technology can never replace people and the relationships that we must build to serve our community.

Policing has and always will be a people sport and if we continue to subscribe to the “it’s never enough” ideology, we will lose much of the skills that served us so well in the past.

Community Policing

The term community policing has been around for 40 years but the concept has been ingrained in the profession since the days of Robert Peel but we seem to be more confused today of what it means than ever before. An all embracing philosophy that every law enforcement professional should certainly be the goal but we have seen demand after demand at how that isn’t good enough. Community Policing Units, Police Athletic Leagues, Midnight Basketball, and a whole host of other activities that are being done in the name of community policing are not a bad thing but I often wonder when the demand to “do more” will stop? Law enforcement is engaging with the community like never before but if you listen to the naysayers, you would never know it.

Less Lethal Options

As far as I’m concerned, the more tools we have in the less lethal category, the better but the issue resides on what is expected with those tools. A few years ago, no one would expect to see a Taser out on a situation that dictated a deadly force response but a deadly force incident doesn’t occur today without someone asking why a Taser wasn't used. We often struggle with an answer when an answer should not even be warranted. Using a Taser for what it was designed for (less lethal encounters) doesn’t seem to be enough.

Policy

It’s hard to believe but when I started in law enforcement, there were still some agencies that lacked policies in vital areas but that is no more. Even the most rural and smallest of agencies have sound policy. My friend Gordon Graham most likely had more to do with this than any other in the profession with his groundbreaking idea of a standardized policy manual and you would be hard pressed to find any policy in any agency that did not conform with established case law. Our success in this area is often hidden from the constant demands to change policy. These changes no longer reflect case law or practicality but are often designed for failure at the line level. No one would have ever envisioned that some would be working under a 30+ page use of force policy but that is exactly what happens when it’s never enough.

For a time, we were told to place “sanctity of life” in policy.. Then it was mandatory deescalation and duty to intervene. Eventually, that morphed in to removing the long standing court standard of reasonableness to some higher standard that a chief or state demanded.

It never seems to be enough.

Conclusion

The intention of this is not to bash any of these topics. It’s the job of leadership to ensure that this profession continues to evolve and develop and that the greatness of our employees can be easily observed each and every day by the communities they serve but there does come a time that the mission of law and order must take priority. Whether it’s policy, community policing, or technology, leaders should embrace these concepts and ideas with the overall question that asks, “does this improve our mission of crime reduction.”

Often times, they do but only up to a certain point.

Police shootings weren’t reduced because we decided to put fancy words in a policy or we emphasized the use of less lethal options in a lethal situation.

Anti-police activists didn’t stop screaming because we played midnight basketball or recorded some tik-toc videos.

Community violence hasn’t been reduced since we have embraced technology after technology.

Leaders must understand the balance between what is demanded of them and what it actually takes to succeed in the mission of crime control. The skills, expertise, and determination of the men and women in law enforcement WAS the reason we saw crime plummet in the 90’s and we should be asking why it seems to rise every time we give in to those that seem to never think we are doing enough.

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Dr. Travis Yates retired as a commander with a large municipal police department after 30 years of service. He is the author of “The Courageous Police Leader: A Survival Guide for Combating Cowards, Chaos & Lies.” His risk management and leadership seminars have been taught to thousands of professionals across the world. He is a graduate of the FBI National Academy with a Doctorate Degree in Strategic Leadership and the CEO of the Courageous Police Leadership Alliance.