As police brutality cases continue to mount, six things officers should do to build trust

In Ewing Township, New Jersey, it took three years for journalists to obtain footage of an incident in which police used excessive force against a Black teenager. The episode, which happened in 2018, ultimately led to the indictment of the officers involved just last month. 

In Michigan, a former commander who retired from the Detroit police force after crashing half a dozen cars in just eight years – once while registering a blood alcohol level more than twice the legal limit – was hired as chief at a nearby police agency.

Meanwhile, police officers throughout the country are refusing to comply with local laws mandating COVID-19 vaccinations, despite the up-close and personal nature of much of their work.

Examples like these are taking a toll on public trust in the police. Last year that trust hit an all-time low, particularly among Black people, after the killing of George Floyd and the protests that followed.

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Why should we care? Because public trust in law enforcement is essential to public safety. If residents lack confidence in those charged with protecting them, they are less likely to be willing partners in crime control and prevention.

Many Americans are looking to police reforms as the way to rebuild public trust. This stands to reason, but police agencies and officers should embrace accountability and incorporate best practices as a matter of business – not wait for Congress and statehouses to reach consensus on specific measures.

We serve on the Council on Criminal Justice Task Force on Policing, a diverse panel of experts spanning policing, advocacy, oversight and civil rights perspectives. Together with our colleagues, we identified six actions that are foundational to community trust and essential to improving the fairness and effectiveness of law enforcement:

►Acknowledge and address history. Historically, police in America were involved in upholding chattel slavery, turned a blind eye to lynchings and enforced discriminatory Jim Crow laws. This complicity in racist practices persists today in more subtle but still pernicious ways. For example, a study published last year in the Nature Human Behavior journal of 35 municipal police agencies found that the rate at which Black motorists are stopped by police is nearly twice that of white motorists. That disparity becomes less pronounced after sunset, when it is more difficult for an officer to discern a driver’s race. Acknowledging the role that police have played in perpetuating racial biases and injustices – both within their departments and in law enforcement more generally – and making good on a commitment to eliminate such biases will go a long way toward building confidence in the police.

►Do no harm. Police officers make a pledge to protect and serve. As such, the Hippocratic oath of “do no harm” surely applies to their jobs. Harm can take many forms in law enforcement – from physical injury to the harms caused by unnecessary or unjustified invasions of privacy. Officers who prioritize de-escalation methods are less likely to use physical restraints or weapons that could prove lethal. Police agencies should also question the net benefits of conducting traffic stops for low level, nonmoving violations, such as a cracked windshield or broken taillight, perhaps issuing a discount coupon from an auto parts store by mail instead of a ticket.

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►Co-produce safety. Amid the clamor for police reform is a growing chorus of advocates demanding that community members have a lead role in public safety. Consistent with the notion that those who are closest to a problem are closest to the solution, police should develop responses to community safety and disorder problems in collaboration with the people who live and work there.

►Be transparent. No institution is perfect. Errors can occur, and bad actors can emerge in even the best of agencies. The difference between police departments that earn the public’s confidence and those that don’t rests largely upon a department’s degree of transparency, including open and honest communications with victims of both community and police violence. Transparency is served when information and data, including video footage, are consistently collected and shared publicly in a timely manner.

►Promote community wellness. Community wellness requires law enforcement to address the trauma experienced by people who are subject to excessive force or biased policing, and by families who lose loved ones to community violence or police use of force. Officers who are trained to recognize that trauma and respectfully address it are more likely to earn the trust of residents. In light of evidence that officers’ behaviors and interactions are influenced by the quality of their own mental health, officer wellness resources are crucial to community trust building.

►Foster an equitable culture. Like all organizations, police agencies are defined by their culture and values. Successful efforts to promote sustainable change in officer behaviors start with clearly defined departmental values that prioritize equity, empathy, collaboration and problem solving. These values must be reinforced by policies, procedures and responses to misconduct that are adhered to with consistency and applied uniformly and equitably. Respectful and procedurally just practices both within police agencies and in officer interactions with community members can restore confidence in law enforcement.

Public trust in the police will not improve overnight. But it’s naive to believe it will be restored solely through adoption of new policies or trainings. Public trust is earned through authentic engagement by officers in agencies that reject the “them against us,” warrior culture that has long dominated policing in favor of a culture of collaborative problem solving.

Getting there won’t be easy, but failure is not an acceptable option.

Tashante McCoy is the founder and regional manager of the Stockton, California-based Crime Survivors for Safety & Justice/The OWL Movement. Louis M. Dekmar is chief of the LaGrange, Georgia, police department and former president of the International Association of Chiefs of Police. Both serve on the Council on Criminal Justice Task Force on Policing.