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| A new book on policing by Gerry Cleveland and Gregory Saville |
Sadly, the wrong members of the community receive the brunt of the blame. Vandals and troublemakers cause the problems, yet many in America are prepared to lay the blame at the feet of African American citizens. That blame is both misplaced and unfair.
Irresponsible media fan the flames. They mix editorial opinions and ideological pundits into their news coverage, a cheap parlor trick guaranteed to boost their revenues. They ignore root causes. Fed up with the nonsense, one Baltimore resident confronted an on-the-street Fox reporter on national television during a protest (which that network censored).
Without doubt the media, vandals, and a minority of cops all carry an equal share of blame in what is happening in our cites. So does racism, poverty, corruption and criminal behavior. But there is another culprit looming large.
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| A different kind of policing for the 21st Century city |
That culprit is police training.
A GUIDEBOOK FOR NEW COPS
Today my colleague, Gerard Cleveland, a former cop, a lawyer and law lecturer, and I completed a new book that responds to the problem of outdated and improper police training. It is called You In Blue – A Guidebook for New Cops. We wrote it as a guidebook for rookie cops and for those who train them.
The book includes chapters on academy life, street realities, intelligent tactical response, arming oneself with emotional training and the destructive issues arising from a warrior agenda.
Now is the ideal time to reconsider our broken training system.
Stay tuned.
Congrats on "You in Blue". You guys are literally writing the book on the next coming debate in policing. Again. Thanks for bringing clear, experienced and humane perspective to an apparently ever more brutal situation.
ReplyDeleteThank you for pointing out a way to move forward on the issues we face with policing. The warrior mentality is a failure when dealing with most policing issues.
ReplyDeleteGreg,
ReplyDeleteI look forward to reading the new book and to hearing about the conference from the two we are sending up (be sure to ask Scott about his daughter Sophia). Wouldn't you agree, however, that officers in places like Baltimore are the products of the systems put in place by their leaders, and they're performing exactly as they have been trained and encouraged to perform? How about a book entitled "You in Charge of Blue"?
Thanks very much Paul and Anon. We had a great launch at this week's PBL conference in Madison. It seems a void exists about what the future should look like and this book provides a roadmap. Thanks for the kudos.
ReplyDeleteTim
ReplyDeleteYou In Charge of Blue? What a perfect title for another book! You are very correct about the culpability of police leadership and their unwillingness to adopt (and read) new books and ideas. I just recently watched an academy director pull the rug out from senior staff who were trying to implement PBL after over-reacting to poor quality research (and not knowing the difference between that and quality research). Poor quality leadership, especially in training, is indeed a major culprit.