Our subject matter is complex and multi-layered. At the end of our workshops, participants typically want to continue exchanging ideas, asking questions, discussing the topics, etc., for another hour. The list of topics that cover is a testament to the complexity of police work and the relationship between law enforcement and the communities they serve.
Each workshop is a four-hour interactive learning space where participants engage in polling sessions with hand-held keypads. We measure their familiarity and knowledge of our subject matter and their opinions about which topics are most important.
Groups are tasked to discuss a specific facet of the topic and report their opinions to the entire group. We then have a facilitated discussion about the conclusions they’ve reached. We use the same keypads to collect participant evaluations as we close.
We ensure that our workshops aren’t overly academic and also don’t allow the session to be no more than a gripe session. We identify themes, topics, and discussion items that we can report in a way that fosters growth and collaboration.
Each of our workshops is based on one of the short documents in our “library”. These are all public source materials we ask participants to read (or at least browse) prior to the workshop. These materials are highlighted in italics which are accessible links and also reposited in “Workshop Reading Resources” on our contact page.
When we look back on the origins of Community Policing to examine our efforts, we’re guided by the last major Presidential report on American Policing in 1968, The Challenge of Crime in a Free Society. The report helped to establish “Community Policing” as we have practiced it for the last three to four decades. We also reflect on the 1994 BJA Monograph, Understanding Community Policing.
We poll our participants about the three pillars of Community Policing:
While a number of issues and ideas were discussed in the development of the 21st Century Policing Report, they were not included in the list of pillars. Bias in policing, discriminatory policing, accountability, and reform were discussed and the results are embedded in the recommendations listed in the report. Procedural Justice was discussed often and there has been a significant roll out of training for law enforcement officers. We’ve had clients that wanted us to conduct Procedural Justice training in their departments, so we built a workshop based on the four pillars of Procedural Justice as presented in Procedural Justice for Law Enforcement – An Overview.
While not a part of our foundation library, we note some of the significant criminal justice and law enforcement studies and findings in our workshops. Prominent among these are some significant findings in Pew Research’s 2017 Behind the Badge.
We offer specially designed workshops for law enforcement management and executive ranks. We also provide workshops for specific types of stakeholder organizations. Law enforcement advisory and review boards, public officials, business associations, criminal justice students and civil rights and civil liberties groups, to name a few.
In selected workshops, we develop strategies for our Citizen – Law Enforcement Engagement Matrix.
These are successful “traditional” community policing strategies and activities that foster better partnerships.
Citizen “CompStat” where citizens and officers jointly review crime analysis data and create crime reduction strategies as equal partners.
Here we discuss the role of law enforcement transparency with an eye toward decisions of citizen-led or department-led accountability and civilian oversight. It’s based on a basic department audit methodology employed throughout the industry.
We’ve built a workshop around one last matrix that outlines the law enforcement agency accreditation or audit function. We find that the adoption of this self-evaluation strategy will likely change the structure of the Professional Standards function of the agency and, ultimately, other parts of the organization when fully developed, In theory, the adoption of this matrix is a measure of risk management or “good order and discipline.” It’s been nicknamed PTSD or PTSA.**
Agencies must adopt best risk management policies and revise them regularly.
Training must focus on the risk management policies, test weapon proficiency and continually educate its members.
Supervisors must reinforce good work practices and correct bad habits, misconduct and under-performance.
Misconduct must be addressed and dealt with in a timely manner in accordance with mediation, table of penalties or disciplinary matrix and early intervention policies.
For departments and stakeholders who want to strategically produce a more collaborative and engaging relationship, we offer specific Community Speak workshops where we develop lists of “next steps” for our participants. We always prefer that our participants have already attended the PWOC workshop and that the officers who attend actually patrol the neighborhoods reflected by the stakeholders. For this workshop, we are guided by The President’s Task Force on 21st Century Policing: Implementation Guide – Moving from Recommendations to Action.
For those communities that have significant violent crime and/or gun related violent crime, we shape workshops based on the Community Based Violence Intervention and Prevention Initiative Implementation Initiative Checklist (CVI or CVIPI). The Initiative was developed from the successes in CVI, Place Network Investigations (PNI) and Ceasefire programs based on police – community collaborations.
A companion government-wide reference with a slightly different approach can be found in the Building Communities of Trust – Fact Sheet..
The publications we use and promote are all available from the public websites of their sources. We often refer to other sources that we cite. From this page:
*The most complete book on Community Policing may be Dr. Lee P. Brown’s, Policing in the 21st Century – Community Policing.
It focuses on “operationalizing” community policing and is a must for the student of policing in the US.
** PTSD/PTSA is an acronym commonly used in audit and accreditation processes as a shortcut to describe the primary systems to evaluate and measure a department’s efforts against standard and best practices in place throughout the law enforcement universe. A succinct but more detailed discussion of this concept can be found in Chapter Fourteen of Bob McNeilly’s, Blue Continuum, Best Practices.
If you get a copy, make sure to read the Introduction where Bob describes the various police types and personalities……pretty accurately.
