US Law Enforcement Final Paper

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American Military University *

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Jan 9, 2024

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1 Leadership Struggles in Modern Policing Brendan Cawthon American Military University CMRJ302 U.S. Law Enforcement Dr. Nicole Cain August 20, 2023

2 Abstract Recent events have shown there are major problems when it comes to policing. With officer involved shootings occurring far too often and being broadcasted in the media everywhere, it raises the question, how can we fix our police? The defund the police movement has gained traction in many regions in the United States along with Black Lives Matter and studies suggest that abolishing the police or reducing their funding is the exact opposite of the solution needed. Equipping officers with the tools necessary to succeed is more important than ever, and that includes more in depth training and responding to emotionally charged situations and use of force training to the extreme to ensure officers know what they can use and when while staying within their bounds and make it home safely to their families.

3 There is no question the police force is struggling as a whole in this day and age. Whether it’s the public's view of police officers, leadership from within, corruption and many other examples. Many say a total reform is necessary for trust and confidence to be restored in departments across the country. Others desire to eliminate large chunks of departments altogether. There has been a plethora of recent events that have been causing issues for law enforcement leaders nationwide. A huge deterrent is the defund the police movement creating issues is funding first and foremost, and a trickle down effect taking a toll on finding people to recruit, having the ability to retain these individuals for long term employment, lackluster training without the ability to fund a complete overhaul,and outdated equipment. A dive into overhauling our police departments could be disastrous and may never be possible but where can we look for help to make improvements to what we already have? These are some of the issues leaders are facing all while the media is hounding them for answers on every little detail. One of the most prominent issues faced at this time is recruiting and has been classified as a crisis by the International Association of Chiefs of Police. Although many may think so, it is not poor management that is causing these issues. That is a whole other set of problems to address within an individual department. The reality is many factors go into recruiting including perspectives from social, economic, and political points of view. Retention of existing officers comes into play when recruiting is suffering as well. When new officers are not being added to the workforce, current officers are being asked much more of them than ever before, along with becoming eligible for retirement. Overworked and burnt out due to a growing population and understaffed shifts are causing low morale and horrible retention rates. 78% of agencies reported

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4 having difficulty in recruiting qualified candidates (International Association of Chiefs of Police). This may be the case for a variety of reasons but given the state of our society and the lack of healthy, fit individuals, this may be a leading cause for the trouble. 65% of agencies reported too few candidates applying to be law enforcement officers (International Association of Chiefs of Police) which could be perceived as a direct correlation with the negative outlook on police due to the media and events that have transpired over the years along with undesirable pay and benefits that come along with the job. 25% of agencies reported having to reduce or eliminate certain agency services, units, or positions because of understaffing difficulties (International Association of Chiefs of Police) which is simply a trickle down effect from a combination of lack of applicants, lack of qualified candidates, retention and retirements of existing officers. There are a few potential solutions to addressing recruitment issues but none of them are a sure fix. One of the possible more effective ways to improve recruiting is to streamline the application process. This is a very long and in depth process to even get someone ready to join the force and can be made a whole lot easier. One suggestion from Elkins (2019) is to have multiple applicants go through the process at the same time such as on weekends where everyone will more than likely have free time. Brief interviews can be conducted and basic paperwork to be completed before getting into the nitty gritty of the hiring process. In terms of retention, a solution could be as simple as increasing pay and benefits for officers. Funding may be an issue in order to implement this but this gives incentive for the department and officers involved to prove why it is a necessary change to maintain staffing.

5 According to the National Institute of Justice (2009) there are five levels of the use of force continuum. These five levels being officer presence, verbalization, empty- hand control, less-lethal methods, and lethal force. The use of these are all dependent on the situation at hand and severity of actions carried out by individuals involved. Officers are taught to use the least amount of force possible while maintaining control of the subject and keeping themselves and others around safe. In some cases the presence of an officer is enough to deter criminal activity. If presence is not enough you move up to verbal commands. This could range anywhere from calm commands asking for identification or higher volume, shortened commands in order to gain compliance such as “Don’t move!” or “Get on the ground!” If a subject is being non-compliant control techniques may be used such as joint locks and holds or with a more aggressive individual strikes to deter them. Less-lethal methods will be used when hand to hand techniques aren’t quite enough. These include pieces of equipment like the use of a baton, OC Spray or pepper spray, and tasers. All of these are known to be extremely effective without the use of a firearm in order to gain control of a subject who is being combative. The final stage of the force continuum is lethal force. This should only be used as a last resort and when you or someone else’s life is in danger. The use of force continuum does not require that every stage is put in use. If you arrive on scene and someone has a knife and shows opportunity, intent, and capability to cause harm to others, you would jump to lethal force. If there is a situation where an individual is charging at you but has no weapon, and shows intent to engage in harmful actions toward you or others, it is acceptable to jump to less-lethal force and utilize OC spray or a taser to subdue the individual. For the safety of you and others, you should remain

6 one level higher on the force continuum in relation to the actions of the people on scene. Excessive force could be defined as any level of force above the necessary use of force to accomplish apprehension of an individual or control of a situation. As everyone knows, the media is always quick to release a story on incidents where this is the case and it has had a major impact on the public view of police as a whole. Going above the necessary use of force is unacceptable and that is what makes high stress environments so difficult to make the right call but there are also some evil people that slip through the cracks and purposefully cause harm, as well as people that cannot handle high stress environments and make the wrong decisions on the fly. Police officers are not above the law and in fact are just civilians whose job is to enforce the laws they are required to follow. An instance where excessive force was used was in North Carolina on November 11, 2013. Robert George was a Sergeant at the Hickory Police Department near Charlotte. George had made an arrest on a woman and while already placed in handcuffs was thrown to the ground causing her to suffer serious injuries consisting of a broken nose, severe dental trauma, and facial lacerations which required medical attention and multiple surgeries. The woman was then locked in a cell with a spit hood over her head because she was bleeding so severely rather than receiving the proper medical attention needed (Office of Public Affairs, 2022). Once an individual is apprehended, they are the officers responsibility concerning their health and well-being. George was sentenced to three years in prison and one year of supervised release due the the 2013 incident. Preventing excessive force is a work in progress given that it’s individual officers' decisions that lead to rogue situations. Pre

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7 Employment screening is the first step in prevention by utilizing psychological tests. Traditional assessment tools such as standardized personality tests are used to single out officers and applicants that may present a problem in the future regarding how they react in high-stress environments. This also applies to testing incumbent officers and further testing due to stress that may have been endured over the course of duty. Resources for counseling and support may also be put in place to prevent mental decline in the future. Training and research is an essential part of preparation for existing officers in a high stress environment and scenario based training for current officers and applicants going through the academies. By forcing scenarios in training it will create a muscle memory reaction and reduce the chances of an officer acting out in an unlawful manner. Communication may be the most important tool we have in any form of law enforcement. Especially in the event of a crisis that may or may not be able to be averted. With the lack of crisis communication, there is a certain level of difficulty to effectively keep people safe, maintain order in your community, and accomplish the mission at hand. In today’s day and age, social media is the main driver of news information and police departments can leverage that to effectively communicate with their citizens. An example of this would be in Kalamazoo, Michigan, when there is some sort of shooting, or large force of officers responding to a call for service, they will send out on twitter or a text reminder to steer clear from the area providing a brief summary of what is transpiring in the area. Besides social media, there should still be constant communications via briefing between high ranking officials and the community along with officers within the organization. People forget from texting so much, that voice pitch

8 and tone has a major impact on how the message is perceived. Just as important as informing the public is internal communication. Before, during, and after any crisis may be happening whether it is a known future event or not, there should be constant communication within and throughout a department. This could be in person communications via briefs before and after events, or via radio in the midst of a crisis to accomplish the mission. During an active shooter the most important aspect of communications would be over the radio, communicating with other groups clearing rooms for threats which parts of a building have been cleared, where the shooter may be, and if they are heading toward friendlies. Obviously, there is typically no warning before an active shooter, but if there was a bomb threat, or a natural disaster inbound, connecting with the community is a great way to inform, and improve the situation of the people to ensure the safety of all. With recents events such as the murders of Eric Garner, George Floyd, and Daunte Wright in 2014, 2020, and 2021, there have been many calls to defund the police. The uncommon but loud opinion of the public is that we need less police with the logic that with less police, there will be less tragedies such as the events listed above. It has been made very clear that is simply not the solution. What the public doesn’t realize, is when there are budget cuts, the first thing to go is training. Officers still need to maintain their equipment and qualifications but they’ll be doing so potentially without the knowledge to utilize their equipment properly. The real solution to the issues we see repeatedly in the media, is more funding in order to complete training to a higher standard and create higher performing officers. By simply adding funding, police training could be entirely more in depth and a lot longer to satisfy the needs of an officer in their

9 daily life on duty. The average police officer in the United States goes through roughly 8 months of training including 5 months in a classroom and just 3 months of field training (The Crime Report, 2021). Other nations have adopted a strategy that forces police trainees to attend higher education and training may take 3-4 years. The U.S. Department of Justice conducted a study and had findings stating that officers had an average of 6 hours of stress training and a whopping 25 hours for report writing (The Crime Report, 2021). In all aspects of training, officers, chiefs, and everyone have acknowledged and agreed that there is a major lack of adequate training in many fields. With growing concerns in the field of policing and ever-changing laws, and public views there will never be an absolute fix. The idea of getting rid of the police is terrifying to most and impractical. Who are you supposed to call when you are in danger and need help? By giving proper training to officers in academies, it will allow the public’s perception to sway in favor of more funding for the police rather than defunding the police. The only way to create better officers in the academy is to improve recruiting, increasing the selection pool, while increasing standards and length of training. Giving our officers the ability to utilize their equipment with the proper training, and proper mental preparation to handle the emotional rollercoaster of events they are required to deal with, they can create a police force that the public can stand behind and feel protected and secure.

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10 References International Association of Chiefs of Police. (n.d.). THE STATE OF RECRUITMENT: A CRISIS FOR LAW ENFORCEMENT 1 A CRISIS FOR LAW ENFORCEMENT THE STATE OF RECRUITMENT . https://www.theiacp.org/sites/default/files/239416_IACP_RecruitmentBR _HR_0.pdf Ten Recruiting Tips for Finding Good Officers . (n.d.). Cops.usdoj.gov. https://cops.usdoj.gov/html/dispatch/09-2019/recruitment.html National Institute of Justice. (2009, August 3). The Use-of-Force Continuum . National Institute of Justice. https://nij.ojp.gov/topics/articles/use-force-continuum Former North Carolina Police Sergeant Resentenced for Using Excessive Force Against an Arrestee . (2022, February 17). Www.justice.gov. https://www.justice.gov/opa/pr/former-north-carolina- police-sergeant-resentenced-using-excessive-force-against-arrestee

11 Travis, J. (1994). Controlling police use of excessive force: The role of the police psychologist . https://www.ojp.gov/pdffiles1/Digitization/150063NCJRS.pdf Developing a Crisis Communication Plan: 5 Important Strategies . (n.d.). Retrieved August 20, 2023, from https://bwctta.com/sites/default/files/Files/Resources/BWC_CrisisComm _v5_%5B2-2019%5D.pdf Lamorena, A. (2021, June 3). Don’t Defund Police, Spend More on Training . The Crime Report. https://thecrimereport.org/2021/06/03/dont- defund-police-spend-more-on-training/ TRAINING | COPS OFFICE . (n.d.). Cops.usdoj.gov. https://cops.usdoj.gov/training

US Law Enforcement Final Paper

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