I recently read an article on the U.S. DOJ’s Office of Justice Programs website that had me question over twenty years’ worth of recruit training I’d participated in. That first article led me to others, which got me thinking and excited. Permit me to summarize, share and invite you to think and be excited.
For some decades, there have been two principal means for evaluating police, whether by scholars or police officials:
- The lawfulness of their conduct
- Their effectiveness at reducing crime and increasing public safety.
The second measure is more recent than the first.
It may be hard for today’s officers to imagine, but prior to the early 2000s many people, including police, believed law enforcement had little effect on crime. David Bayley (described as “America’s principal, most respected and longest serving policing expert at-large and the world’s preeminent scholar of international policing studies”) captured that viewpoint in his 1994 book, “Police for the Future": “The police do not prevent crime. That is one of the best kept secrets of modern life. Experts know it. The police know it. Yet the police pretend that they are society’s best defense against crime. This is a myth.”
Much has changed since then. Innovations in crime prevention strategies such as predictive mapping, big data analytics, drones, community policing, neighborhood watch programs, crowdsourcing crime data, defensible space, target hardening, placemaking, behavioral analysis and profiling, and multi-agency collaboration, all have police leaders and their communities expecting law enforcement to reduce crime.
The lawfulness of police conduct has long been a metric of policing. It played a significant role in my career. As a state and federal prosecutor, the lawfulness of police conduct could determine whether evidence was admissible or suppressed, and, thus, whether there would even be a prosecution.
Rethinking traditional police training priorities
Once I left prosecution work to train and write nationally, I was an adjunct instructor at the Alaska DPS Academy for over 20 years — beginning in the late ‘90s. My topics included criminal and constitutional law surrounding search and seizures, arrests, free speech, right to assemble, right to bear arms, right to an attorney, right to remain silent, right to privacy etc.
My focus was teaching recruits what the law required of them. The assumption was the recruits would conduct themselves as officers within these legal parameters — or be held accountable if they didn’t. That was important to the Academy, police agencies, the Alaska Police Standards Council, me, the officers to be and their communities. And, as stated above, it was and remains one of the two main measures of policing.
It was only in my later years that I began to incorporate something that was even more important than the lawfulness of officers’ conduct, although I didn’t understand that at the time. As the Academy’s staff instructors began to incorporate concepts of community-oriented policing, de-escalation and voluntary compliance in their tactical training, I began introducing comparable concepts into my legal training.
I discussed with recruits how the law we studied was a body of rules that governed interactions between people, and between people and the government. For these rules to work, people must buy into them. People buy into them if they think the rules and their application are fair. Then I’d invite the recruits to discuss what makes them and others feel they’re being treated fairly.
This is a basic premise of what we now call “procedural justice.” That concept has evolved. Four pillars of procedural justice have been identified:
- Voice: People are given a chance to tell their side of the story.
- Respect: Everyone is treated with respect and dignity.
- Neutrality: Decisions are unbiased and the reasoning is transparent.
- Trustworthy: Decisions are made with a concern about the well-being of those impacted.
Why fairness matters more than outcomes
Procedural justice has also evolved in its recognized effect on reducing crime. Research from across the world has shown that procedural justice has five key benefits that reduce crime:
- Police are viewed by the public as more effective crime fighters.
- Increased reporting by crime victims.
- Increased public participation in crime prevention programs.
- Increased public cooperation in crime solving.
- Increased compliance with officer directives, especially by offenders.
These benefits have greater impact on reducing crime than the lawfulness of police conduct. Study after study has shown that people care more about how they are treated by the police (their subjective experience of fairness) than they do about the outcome (whether they are stopped, frisked, ticketed, arrested, etc.).
“What I wouldn’t give to be back at the Academy tasked with incorporating procedural justice into recruit training.”
The future of police recruit training
I bid adieu as an adjunct instructor at the Academy in 2019. The question I began asking after my recent deeper dive into procedural justice is: Does police training incorporate all we now know about procedural justice? In a few places, maybe, but mostly, I think not based on my searching.
That makes this a very exciting time in law enforcement training. What I wouldn’t give to be back at the Academy tasked with incorporating procedural justice into recruit training — tactical and legal — along with performance testing and evaluation. Absent that, I’ll be back in my next article offering models, lesson plans, tools, videos and scenarios to Police1 readers for doing just that.
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