It’s more important how law enforcement interacts with you the public.
One of the most critical components of effective law enforcement is the establishment and maintenance of public trust.
We must earn that trust.
With trust comes respect.
Though vital to public safety, its existence is often taken for granted.
But as recent events have demonstrated, examining our relationships with our community is essential to maintaining law and order.
Where do we start?
With a thorough, honest, and clear-eyed appraisal of just what our agency does and how it functions with regards to community policing.
We must be available and accessible.
That means high visibility.
Here are some questions we must ask ourselves as public servants:
Do our residents and business owners truly trust our sheriff’s office, its deputies, and its employees?
What kind of impact do our deputies make in the community?
Times have shown where deputies have gone above and beyond the call of duty.
Examples would be taking the time to change someone's car tire.
Another would be deputies taking money out of their own pockets to feed a needy family.
This action prompted me to start the sheriff’s office food pantry.
There are many more.
What kind of impact do these actions make in the community?
It’s very important to mention, deputies do have a job to do.
Are we seen more as enforcers to be feared or as community partners to be trusted and relied upon?
Are our deputies participating in local projects?
Just this past weekend, deputies participated in several events promoting public safety by fingerprinting children for their guardians safe keeping.
Do we attend community meetings or assist with neighborhood watches, the answer is yes.
We visit churches and share in God’s fellowship.
I encourage deputies to practice community engagement – not just hook and then book!
Non-enforcement community engagement activities make a huge contribution to building and maintaining lasting relationships and community trust.
The fact that a deputy goes out of his or her way to participate in something that is important to a certain segment of the community shows that the deputy really cares about the members of that community, not just about enforcing laws.
To accomplish this kind of community engagement sheriff’s offices need to start empowering young officers to think outside the box –to really look at a neighborhood and try to identify and address the needs of the community.
Too often, leadership forces young officers into statistic-driven policing, relying on the number of arrest the deputy makes, tickets he or she writes, and radio calls the deputy handles as a gauge of how well that deputy is doing the job.
Those these reportable, identifiable statistics do indicate productivity, statistics and numbers reveal only part of the picture.
What about community satisfaction and trust?
Here’s a scenario to think about: it’s a warm summer Saturday and one of your deputies is on patrol at a local park.
The deputy sees some kids playing basketball and walks over to the group.
As he approaches them, he asks one of the kids if he (the deputy) can he show them how it’s done.
The kid gives the deputy the ball and watches him shoot in full uniform for several minutes and they are impressed with the fact that some old cop can shoot ball.
The deputy’s supervisor just happens to see this and calls the deputy over to talk.
How would you handle this?
Would you tell the deputy that there are people breaking laws and he should be out writing tickets and not messing around with a bunch of kids?
Would he commend the deputy for having the initiative to reach out to those kids and build a relationship?
It’s important that law enforcement agencies encourage individual officers to establish community relationships and partnerships, and even become community leaders.
The support and encouragement from command staff and supervision make a huge difference in an individual officer’s ability and willingness to go above and beyond –to truly be community police officers.
But to get proactively involved in our community, we must also have the ability to identify a need and find a solution by being given the time and opportunity to do so.
In essence, create offerings that move or attract people, then invest your staff in it.
Not only do you derive true-value feedback, but moreover, you reintroduce deputies and citizens to each other, with no overtone, and allow them to reinvigorate the common goal of a safer, more enriched community.
Trust-building non-enforcement activities cost little in terms of money, time, or effort, but they pay huge dividends in public safety.
All I need to do is encourage my deputies to get out of their cars some time and go into a church or community center and just talk to people.
Deputies will usually find a warm welcome and will often learn something new about people.
What’s more, those people will learn something new about deputies.
And that’s how relationships are started –with a simple handshake and a smile.
It’s time to get engaged.