An End To The “Us vs. Them”
As I began to put together this article on creating a new mindset and paradigm within policing organizations, something jumped out at me,
What jumped square into my mind was the fact that we HAVE HAD THE TOOLS to implement change in policing practice that were in some cases, implemented decades ago.
There is an abundance of literature on the topic of police culture and the attempts to carry out cultural immersion of police into the communities that they serve.
So given the fact that the challenges of changing police culture is not new, I wondered why we still have the current conflicts and mistrust between our police organizations and our community organizations.
While I was pondering all of this, I also had to acknowledge that despite the challenges of being a professional law enforcement officer in today’s conflict filled environment, our profession is indeed very NOBLE.
In the Blue Courage organization, (bluecourage.com) the phrase, “The Nobility of Policing” is used to affirm this reality. And that reality is that the OVERWHELMING majority of INDIVIDUAL police officers seek NOBILITY.
We MUST as community members and professionals, remember that this essential value and the desire to be NOBLE exists in the hearts of most men and women in Law Enforcement,
It is essential for our law enforcement personnel, in all capacities, be able to experience the community respect they need and from that redpect be willing in turn to embrace change.
Not as a reason to change for their own good or benefit, at least initially, but to change and grow professionally for the good of the communities where they work and serve.
Communities themselves need to estole the standard of NOBILIY as well, in order for them to EMBRACE and INTEGRATE law enforcement as a bona fide and necessary part of their communities.
I deliberately made use of the word, “individual” when discussing nobility because must be an integrated value within the individual officer when interacting with the individual community members, where positive change is most probable.
So, starting off on that positive premise of NOBILITY, I have some observations and thoughts to share. As I looked at the possibility of long lasting behavioral change within established cultural environments, I recognized that the big “Elephant In The Room” is FEAR. Fear is often based on a lack of exposure to the external reality that comes from face to face, hand to hand, eye to eye contact with those people and circumstances that normally lie outside of the individual’s awareness. The fears that lie beneath the uniform, beneath the skin color, beneath the language barriers and beneath the pre-conceived images are what must be faced directly, but in a controlled manner. So what is the basis of fear? Usually the emotional fires of fear are stoked by the minds failure to question its own automatic thought processes. It is NOT the minds natural habit to engage in self reectireflection or inquiry. Our minds tend to like the stability of its own beliefs, even when the stability of those beliefs takes it away from objective reality. Police Officer decision making on the street is fast paced, multi-tasking several processes simultaneously, like a well oiled machine. Any re-training of the officers heart and mind isn’t likely to occur on the streets of his or her community unless they have had the time and opportunity to re-program their “survival” mind from fear responses that are based on misperception and misunderstanding of other peoples realities. Make no mistake, meeting this challenge of change requires GREAT COURAGE. To challenge the mind toward accepting change, we must have the same COURAGE we had as children when curiosity seduced to move forward and propelled us into the unknown scary places. Indeed, this courage to face fearful things, is the basis of all learning and growth. Life is a fear-filled enterprise! Since there are risks to “going where no man has gone before”, as the Star Trek fans all know, it behooves us to cultivate the characteristics of courage and curiosity, that we all too often leave behind as we become adults. There are scary aliens out there – and They Are Us!! So in the spirit of adventure and curiosity, I would like to propose a test challenge for our communities and law enforcement to take. It is founded on the principles of Exposure Therapy. Exposure Therapy is an intervention within the field of Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (CBT), and it has been shown to be very effective in extinguishing fears that create barriers to accurately perceiving threats. Now applying Exposure Therapy to deal with subjective fears may not work but it has shown promise as an intervention for PTSD, so it has some good history. Remember, we are working toward greater Courage and Nobility! Ready? Here it is….. Now this exercise can’t happen UNLESS Bridges take time to build, with one outstretched hand that is met by another outstretched hand. From that place of meeting, there comes that shared sense of empowerment that we experience as we move to the middle of the bridge and meet with each as part of one unified community connected by mutual understanding , mutual understanding, open hearts and the spirit of NOBILITY.
