Police Reforms Are Increasing Force
Leaders Have Created A Dangerous Environment For Cops
Law enforcement has a problem, and if leaders don’t start leading, those problems will manifest into more officer injuries and deaths. The latest drama comes from the Chicago Tribune, where everyone seems confused as to why the use of force within the Chicago PD has risen every year since 2021 despite reform after reform.
The Reforms
To say that no leader should emulate CPD is an understatement. Here are just a few of their policy requirements that are code for harming police officers if attempted against violent suspects.
De-escalation is a “core” principle that includes slowing down, using time, continual communication, persuasion, and warnings.
Trauma-informed communication must be used along with a respectful tone.
Voluntary compliance must be sought before force.
Deadly force can only be used as a last resort.
Verbal warnings shall be given before force is used.
Caratoid restraints are deadly force (even though it’s not).
Foot chases are prohibited if the risk outweighs the apprehension of benefit and when in doubt, officers are encouraged to “contain” the suspect.
On paper or in the mind of an activist, all this sounds like Disneyland. But Chicago is not Disneyland, and if you believe officers are more scared of their policy than violent criminals with a gun, you’d be right.
Below is a portion from my seminar, Seconds For Survival. In the video below, officers know the suspect has a gun, and he was shooting it just before the officers’ arrival.
If you could stomach watching it, the officers followed policy to the letter. They refrained from a foot pursuit and contained the shooting suspect while being very nice to a guy who moments earlier was shooting a gun in a neighborhood.
Just two cops were shot, so I guess it’s a win?
Now that you see the result of insane reforms that have never been proven to work, let’s get back to the utter shock at the increase in use of force.
The reason the reforms aren’t reducing force is simple.
The reforms don’t reduce the use of force… they increase it.
Reforms also don’t decrease officer injury; they increase it, and Chicago saw an 18% increase in officers assaulted last year alone.
I previously discussed this here with real examples, but I want to explain why it’s happening.
The Why
De-escalation, trauma-informed communication, and voluntary compliance may be sound practices for non-violent suspects, but they officially never work on violent suspects. Thus, when these “feel good” ideas are used on violent suspects, violent suspects do what they do…they commit violence.
You can deny that, but no one can point to any studies or evidence that any of this works against violence. If “Trauma Informed Communication” was reducing use of force and officer injury, I’d name my next kid after it and tell every cop in America about it.
I have reviewed every single use-of-force incident in the public domain over the last several years, and I saw a lot of “attempts” to make them work, but they never did.
What these reforms did do was give suspects time to plan and execute their violence, and that violence created a situation where officers often had to use a higher level of force than they would have much earlier in the encounter.
This is the truth, and leaders know it.
The question is, why are they continuing down this path?
The Answer
The response to all of this is a complete U-turn for law enforcement, and it lies in the data from all those videos I reviewed.
91% of violent encounters began with a call or information the officer knew before contact, which requires higher tactical awareness. 100% of the non-ambush violent attacks came from suspects who did not comply with officers.
We could start with this: When those two characteristics aren’t present, try any reform you want. But if they are, officers need to be encouraged to make rapid decisions about lower-level use of force because if that’s not done, higher levels of force will have to be used.
The issue isn’t the police reforms but our decision to implement them, regardless of the suspect's crime, action, or behavior.
Maybe you don’t believe me because your PERF representative told you so?
Then explain what’s happening in Chicago and across the country?
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.
Another outstanding article!