21st Century Policing

Nearly 200 Police Chiefs & Prosecutors Give President Trump 5-Point Tutorial on Enlightened Crime Fighting

Celeste Fremon
Written by Celeste Fremon

THE ART OF FIGHTING CRIME & REDUCING UNNECESSARY ARRESTS

On February 13, a group of nearly 200 police chiefs and prosecutors, who come from all 50 states, sent the president a five-part agenda outlining specific steps that the group believes the Trump administration should use to promote public safety while also reducing incarceration.

The list of suggestions came on the heels of President Trump’s executive order of last Thursday, which used hard charging language to create a task force on crime reduction, that was to focus “on illegal immigration, drug trafficking, and violent crime.”

The agenda from the nationwide group was authored by Ronald Serpas, who is the former New Orleans police Superintendent and the former Chief of Police in Nashville, Tennessee, and David Brown, who was most recently the chief of police in Dallas.

LAPD’s Chief Charlie Beck is a member of the group too, so is former NYPD Commissioner (and former Chief of the LAPD) Bill Bratton. San Francisco DA, George Gascon (who has headed up several police departments) is on board, as is Bernie Kerik from New York City, and around 190 more present and former law enforcement officials. California alone has 17 members, but the red states are fully present and accounted for. Google any state name and you’ll see that all regions are healthily represented.

“To better combat crime, we must improve our nation’s crime policies,” wrote Ron Serpas in the introduction to the document. “We urge president Trump and attorney General Jeff Sessions to join and take leadership roles in the ongoing cross-partisan efforts to reform our justice system. This report offers five policies the new administration should support to forge a path to advance our common goal of a safer nation.”

THE FIVE POINTS

The five principals that Serpas, Brown and company recommend are as follows:

1. Prioritize fighting violent crime.

The law enforcement leaders urged President Trump and Attorney General Sessions to target federal resources toward preventing violent crime specifically, which they said poses the biggest threat, “instead of over-resourcing efforts to fight lower-level drug crimes and non-violent crimes.”

The president’s executive order creating his “Task Force on Crime Reduction and public Safety” at the Justice Department, and a second executive order to curb gang and drug activity, wrote Brown and Serpas, “do not target their language and efforts on fighting violent crime — the most serious threat to our public safety.” Instead, Trumps two executive orders encourage law enforcement to focus on crime more generally. “Federal resources are imperative to combat crime across the country,” the authors wrote, “but failing to direct these resources toward our most immediate and dangerous threats risks wasting taxpayer dollars.”

2. Support Reducing Unnecessary Incarceration and Federal Sentencing Reform.

With its second point the report points out that Senate Judiciary Committee Chair Charles Grassley and House Speaker Paul Ryan plan to reintroduce the Sentencing Reform and Corrections Act, which had impressive bi-partisan support but was previously prevented from even getting close to passage by law and order conservatives. “Law enforcement strongly supports this bill,” the cop authors wrote, “which would reduce mandatory minimum sentences for nonviolent crime and save $722 million over the next 10 years.”

To further their goals, the group also sent a letter to Congress last week, explaining their support for the SRCA citing additional support from such law enforcement groups as the Major Cities Chiefs Association, Major County Sheriffs Association, National District Attorneys Association, and International Chiefs of Police, which represent 58,000 law enforcement officials.

The authors urge “congress to pass and the President to sign the measure this year as a way of reducing recidivism and crime.”

The law enforcement group also calls out Sessions, who was one of those in the Senate who previously opposed the SRCA. But “he may have a different perspective” as the head of the Justice Department,” they write diplomatically.

3. Increase mental health and drug treatment.

With point number three, the agenda states plainly that greater support for mental health and drug treatment programs will address “the key underlying causes of crime,” thereby preventing future crime and removing an undue burden on police.

“The mental health system is chronically under-resourced and unable to meet the demand for treatment and services,” the authors write. “Last year, 57 percent of adults with a mental illness did not receive adequate treatment.” Many of these individuals, they point out, end up in the criminal justice system, turning jails and prisons into substitute health facilities.”

4.Bolster community policing.

On this point, the authors are particularly direct.

“Tension between communities and police has risen in the last three years,” they write. But the result, they say, “has been something of a false debate,” one in which “civilians and politicians are expected to choose between supporting law enforcement or their neighbors.” But police and communities must work together. “We are not on opposite sides of the fence.” There must be penalties for misconduct, they acknowledge, “whether that misconduct is committed by the police or the community.” A mistrustful community puts police officers at risk, the authors state. “Without cooperation between law enforcement and the community, enhancing public safety is next to impossible.”

Community policing, they write, properly applied, can diminish this damaging tension while also reducing crime.

There has been talk about reducing some of the federal grant money for community policing. The group makes clear that more support from the feds is needed, not less.

5. Expand recidivism reduction programs in prison

The 5-point report notes that “recent reports” suggest President Trump is considering “significant cuts to the federal budget”, which could slashing recidivism programing in the federal prison system. “While this would save immediate costs,” the authors write, eliminating these programs would ultimately harm public safety.

Instead of cuts, they urge the president and the Justice Department to “support the existence and expansion of in-prison educational and treatment programs as a means to reduce recidivism, crime, and taxpayer dollars spent on repeat incarceration.”

Second, they recommend the Bureau of Prison “expand its use of residential reentry centers” and the like for federal prisoners nearing release.”


HARD ON CRIME V. SMART ON CRIME?

Newly confirmed Attorney General Jeff Sessions, has said that the government has grown “soft on crime.” President Trump has repeatedly delivered a similar message.

Many in policing agree.

But this group is made of an impressive array of high profile law enforcement pros whose suggestions are backed by research, breadth of experience, and stats. It will be important to see how the President Trump and his new Attorney General respond.

7 Comments

  • Local Law enforcement bureaucrats oppose the cutting of their federal hand outs, shocking. I like the part where they bemoan the tension that has arisen during the past three years between the community and the police (you know,the departments they have been in charge of) . Why haven’t they inacted that magic solution, community policing ? Not enough federal money I guess.

  • This such bs. Why don’t cops ever take accountability?!?! The people/citizens are ALWAYS the problem or other higher gov. entities. Why don’t cops overhaul their culture and see how people respond.

  • Recommendation 6.

    Establish a Blue-Ribbon Commission for research, education and establishment of guidelines and strategies to control and reduce the costly and harmful effects due to compressed scheduling for law enforcement patrol personnel.

    The benefits from recommendation No. 4 – “bolster community policing” will not cancel out the tension between communities and police that can arise as the negative effect from overuse of compressed scheduling.

    Insufficient amount and quality of rest leads to fatigue.
    Fatigue contributes to diminished cognitive functioning, diminished reflex control, impairment of memory, perception and judgement.
    The undesirable result is an increase in the rate and intensity of errors, some of which are fatal errors.

    We expect Recommendation 6 will precipitate the strongest organized resistance and will become the most difficult to implement.

    The Blue Ribbon Commission will need to engage resolutely with law enforcement unions and their membership which have normalized the financial and auxiliary benefits of compressed scheduling while suppressing any acknowledgement of the ultimate costs.

  • Oh my, this has a little good but not much. First let’s try something a bit different and listen to the sgts. on down, the guys out in the neighborhoods actually doing the job not the upper brass who rely on graphs, activists and politicians to tell them what’s needed.
    Less time for actually committing crimes is working out real well here as all crime is rising and doper accountability, don’t make me left, the idiot left threw that out a few years back.
    Community policing of course, but putting some type of penalty into doing crime is maybe worth revisiting along with funding programs for offenders to keep them from doing the same old but since prison rights types and ACLU’ers do their best in making sure gangsters and the like get to keep paling around together what good does it really do?
    Fact is people are stealing more, running from cops more and are more violent and the answer the thinkers come up with is how can we keep more of them out of jail and limit the cops from hurting the miscreants? The inmates are truly running the asylum.

  • Recommendation (4) Being a good Cop is basically doing your job professionally (actions & attitude) and not taking certain things personally. Citizens in the inner city and economically depressed area’s may not particularly care for some police but they will respect them, being firm but fair. As the old adage goes, you catch more flies with honey, than with vinegar.

  • Thank you for reporting on the ongoing support for Policing in the 21st Century by chiefs of police. The fact that police unions supported Donald Trump in the 2016 Presidential election has been seized upon by some as a justification for taking the country back to the 1980’s. This would be a tragic mistake. During the past two decades police accountability has improved based on data that demonstrates what does and doesn’t work. Communities are more engaged and civilian oversight agencies have sprung up helping to make government more transparent and accountable. Police departments are also taking proactive steps to conduct systemic performance audits to measure and improve constitutional policing programs. Please keep reporting on this topic.
    Many thanks

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