Guardians of our galaxy — what is good policing? | Seth Stoughton | TEDxUofSC

[Music] what does good policing look like on one level that question makes no sense right there's no single answer officers get involved in a wide variety of very different situations and good policing is context specific on another level though that question definitely has an answer we can identify a set of principles that we could use to evaluate policing in almost any context principles that shape the police function itself what officers do and how they do it the way that officers view their job and the way that they relate to community members I'm going to show you one police agencies recruitment video as you watch the video pay particular attention to the way that it portrays officers at the way they relate to each other and to the individuals they're interacting with [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] that video presents one vision of policing a particular attitude about the role that officers have the relationship that they have with community members it offers one answer to the question I asked before what does good policing look like I spent a lot of time thinking about that question for more than six years now I've studied policing as an academic first as a Clemente go fellow at Harvard Law School now as an associate professor here at the University of South Carolina School of Law my perspective isn't exclusively academic though prior to attending law school I served for five years as an officer with the Tallahassee Police Department and the lessons I learned there both from other officers and from my own successes and failures have informed my research and shaped my views about policing I've come to believe that there is a better metaphor for policing than what we see in that video one that represents the highest ideals of the profession I'm here today to talk about Guardian policing the phrase Guardian policing has become something of a buzzword and that's a little unfortunate because we have a tendency to adopt or criticize buzzwords without really thinking about what they mean so I'm gonna share my understanding of what it means my vision for what policing can and should be I'll do that by first talking about what Guardian policing is and what it isn't I'll tell you why it's important and I'll finish by talking about a couple of things that we can do to make it happen at its core Guardian policing is a service-oriented approach one that emphasizes protecting all community members from indignity and harm including the indignity and harm that can come from policing itself I am NOT the first one to talk about Guardian policing that phrase has been promoted by sue Rahr a former sheriff of King County Washington who now serves as the executive director of the Washington state criminal training commission when the president's Task Force on 21st century policing released final report Guardian policing featured prominently in its first recommendation it's been a core part of training for groups like blue courage and at police agencies around the country from Austin Texas to Kansas City Missouri to our own Richland County Sheriff's Office and Columbia Police Department over the last few years Guardian policing has been discussed widely in police publications in the popular media and in academic articles in fact just this week justice quarterly published an empirical analysis that found that Guardian policing isn't just semantics that attitude matters of course we've known that for a long time Guardian policing is based on a very old approach to policing one articulated almost 200 years ago when the first modern police agency was formed in London constables were given a set of principles known as pea lien principles after British Home Secretary Sir Robert Peel those principles reminded officers that they depended on public support it reminded officers that policing isn't something that can be done to a community or even in a community policing is something that has to be done by a community as the pea lien principles put it the police are the public and the public are the police now officers are tasked with doing a range of things like investigating and enforcing criminal violations that most community members aren't and to that end they're uniformed armed vested with authority that most community members don't have that authority is why I'm here today officers can invade our privacy they can take our liberty they can use force including deadly force that authority is what makes it so important not just for officers to get policing right but for all of us in society to get policing right now let me be very clear about something to be guardians officers have to be able and willing to invade privacy and take liberty those actions are sometimes necessary to enforce the law to be guardians officers absolutely must be able and willing to use force including deadly force to protect themselves or others when the situation demands it those situations are rare more than 98 percent of police encounters don't involve the use or threat of force more than 99.99% of encounters don't involve the use of deadly force still I would argue that an officer who can't enforce the law or use force when it's required can't serve as a guardian but but that's only one part of policing as those statistics suggest Guardian officers have to be capable of doing far more so what does it mean to be a guardian well Guardians honor the sanctity of life among other things that means using good tactics and communication skills to avoid conflict when it's possible to do so when conflict is unavoidable guardians seek to resolve it without resorting to force and when they do have to use force Guardians use only what the situation requires Guardian officers have and show respect for human dignity the nature of policing will require officers to make arrests conduct stops do searches and frisks but a guardian will do so with an eye towards minimizing to the extent possible the potential for humiliation and harm I was always a little surprised as an officer when someone I had arrested someone I had taken to jail said thank you they were not thanking me for arresting them that would be a little weird they were thanking me for doing what I could to make difficult experience as painless as possible Guardian officers have empathy they know and they respect that not everyone has the same perspective on a police encounter that they do Guardian officers know that something that they do every day making a traffic stop or responding to a burglary call or frisking a pedestrian can be an upsetting experience for a community member who may feel confused or angry or powerless empathy also means realizing that it is not enough to treat people equally a young black man may have a very different view of the police and of a police encounter then an older white woman and Guardian officers take those perspectives into account as they calibrate their own actions reactions and expectations for that encounter empathy doesn't require officers to agree with the individuals that they're interacting with but it does require them to understand where they're coming from Guardian officers are patient and patience takes time in the arrest context for an example stuffing someone into handcuffs may take only a few minutes talking them into handcuffs may take significantly longer but for Guardian that's time well spent Guardian officers honor the sanctity of life haven't show respect for human dignity have empathy and exercise patience and they do all of those things for everyone they're interacting with it's already happens in my neighborhood but it needs to be the default everywhere Guardians know that everyone deserves good policing without exception or exclusion from the business owners they chat with to the suspects they arrest those are the fundamentals of Guardian policing and like I said before they're not new good officers have been doing exactly what I described since long before I started describing it and there's good reason for that the first reason is philosophical Guardian policing represents the way that a free society wants and expects to be policed there's also a set of pragmatic reasons though Guardian policing makes officers safer and more effective and it does that while better protecting the safety and civil rights of community members to understand why it makes officers safer we need to think two different levels first in the context of an individual encounter and to explain this I'm gonna need your help so let's do this I'm gonna divide the room in half you guys over right you're my first half this is gonna be weird but bear with me I promise it will make sense everyone on this half of the room go ahead and stand up for me yes to end up awesome just think of the stories you'll have to tell your friends all right we're gonna take our hands shake our hands house a little bit we're gonna take our hands we're gonna put them up at like a 45 degree angle here right okay so our hands are up palms down 45-degree angle now we're going you can make this sound if you want but you don't have to even a bank put your fingers down right awesome okay this is our Batman pose mmm I'm a big Batman fan such a big Batman fan that would I'd like you to do and help me out with this last little bit you've already gotten this far grab your cape spin in a circle and sit back down awesome all right let's give him a hand job guys stand up now all right you're good it's interesting because not many people stand stood up so let's talk about why that happened when I asked this side of the room for help right I was depending on you guys I was empowering them and by empowering them I earned their cooperation I think it's probably fair to say that you guys did something that you would not have done on your own fair okay but when I yelled at this side of the room I was demanding their compliance and that's disrespectful disempowering all I was asking do was stand up is that something that you're planning on doing anyway in the next 45 minutes hour hour and a half of course it is but not when I told you to do it why not because snow one likes being bossed around right because I surprised you or maybe scared you or maybe you were just telling me and each other that I'm not the boss of you okay there's another way that Guardian policing can improve safety we need to think back to the summer of 2014 when a Ferguson police officer fatally shot Michael Brown in the aftermath of that shooting two distinct narratives arose in the first Michael Brown had violently assaulted the officer and was aggressively approaching a second time when he was shot in the second he had his hands up in surrender at the time he was shot in the immediate aftermath of that shooting there were few if any verified facts that we could use to believe either story so why would a substantial portion of the community believe one story and not the other why would they believe the second story and not the first big part of the answer is lack of trust lack of trust had primed the community to believe the most negative version of events related in media reports and the result were protests looting confrontations between hundreds of officers and thousands of civilians Michael Brown's death was the trigger but the underlying cause was a badly fractured police community relationship a relationship that had been strained for years the Department of Justice found largely because of an adversarial agency culture the emphasized aggressive enforcement oriented approach to policing imagine what would have happened if the agency had adopted a guardian culture as Kevin Plank has said Trust is gained in drunks but lost in buckets Guardian policing allows officers to earn that trust one drop at a time so when you have a critical incident like a shooting and officers reach for their bucket to put out that fire there's something in it in the aftermath of a shooting society demands and deserves answers with trust we get time to find those answers without creating situations that are dangerous for everyone it's also that trust that makes officers more effective by better aligning police priorities with community priorities Guardian policing can result in the type of cooperation that effective policing depends on so Guardian policing can improve safety can better protect civil rights you can make officers more effective how can we make it happen well first we need to rethink the way that we approach policing in this society we leave it up to officers to respond to a range of social problems that other government institutions have failed to address but officers aren't adequately trained or well equipped to deal effectively with problems like homelessness poverty mental illness alcohol substance abuse or school discipline just to name a few the solution there isn't just improving the police response it's improving the delivery of other social services so there's less need for the police to respond you can also have some changes to make within policing starting with how officers are recruited and selected it's not just who engages in policing though it's also what we have them do agencies may need to rethink their priorities when agencies encourage or direct officers for example to engage in what's been called policing for profit using enforcement oriented techniques like traffic tickets or civil asset forfeiture as a source of revenue they're driving a wedge in police community relations there's a reason the Sheriff of Nottingham was the bad guy right yeah okay officer training could also be improved most police training has not taken advantage of what we now know about effective adult education and research proven best practices like crisis intervention training is far from universal officers who have confidence in their tactics in their communication skills in their physical abilities are less likely to need to demand compliance more likely to earn cooperation and those other attributes I mentioned respect dignity patience they can be taught and given how often officers should be using those skills we should be committing time and resources to teaching them perhaps the most important thing though is for Guardian policing to be supported and reinforced in the community and at all levels of policing that starts at the top with police chiefs and sheriffs but it also requires the support of rank-and-file officers and their immediate supervisors and we can earn that support by building internal organizational cultures that model procedurally just practices what we might call Guardian leadership an officer who's treated with dignity and respect inside their own agency is far more likely to demonstrate those same behaviors with the individuals they interact with those are just a few considerations there are others I wish I had the time to get into for now though I'd like to ask you again the question I opened with what does good policing look like in my view it looks like Guardian policing thank you you

Channel: TEDx Talks

Views: 4,037

Rating: 4.8571429 out of 5

Keywords: TEDxTalks, English, Humanities, America, Behavior, Big problems, Community, Compassion, Control, Cooperation, Criminal justice, Freedom, Human Rights, Inequality, Law, Policy, Race, Reform, Research, Security, Social Justice, Violence

Id: uJrBuo3lo5s

Length: 17min 59sec (1079 seconds)

Published: Thu Jan 10 2019