This recent story out of Albuquerque, New Mexico, reinforces my premise that, besides recording police activities, body-worn cameras also document a department's culture. You may argue that this is just a singular incident involving two officers, but is it? Is this singular or is this pervasive? This isn't the first time similar comments have been recorded by body cameras around the country. These incidents do little to reinforce public support in the current climate of police dissatisfaction and mistrust. Many agencies have policy mandated routine supervisory reviews of officers' videos that are supposed to identify such conduct and to respond accordingly. These are insufficient. Reviews at this level shouldn't be considered anything more than a first-line supervisory performance monitoring tool. They do not take the place of a comprehensive, department level review program. These department level reviews are not commonplace around the country. A department shouldn't be surprised when an incident such as the one in this story arises and the public questions its pervasiveness, what processes are in place to identify the behavior and what is being done to rectify it. I'd argue that it would be better for department executives to have a response that outlines their proactive processes to identify such behavior rather than one that simply states the reactive response which is frequently investigation and discipline. Develop a program that shines a light into the darker corners of your agency or one day you may be surprised by your departmental culture.
Principis Group can provide consultation and training to help you design processes, regardless of resource limitations, to identify shortcomings and risks to your agency.
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