Brian Mc Grew
VP of Education
Every year there is pressure to perform at a high level in the Professional Standards Unit to keep your officers and community safe, fairly investigate internal concerns, and to maintain and improve community trust. However, 2021 will challenge leaders in Professional Standards to do even more since we’re coming off a year of nationwide calls for police reform.
2 challenges for Professional Standards units seem to be rising to the top of the list:
- Implementing an effective Early Intervention System
- Providing data to your Community and FBI for transparency and trust
Read on to learn how to overcome these challenges…
1 . Implementing an effective Early Intervention System (EIS)
An effective EIS protects officers from disciplinary action and provides greater levels of safety and wellness to them and those they contact while performing their public safety duties. There’s a preponderance of discussion and best practices by national organizations and accreditation bodies like the IACP, NAACP, and CALEA recommending agencies purchase and deploy EIS software to be pro-active in managing officers’ behaviors and performance so public trust is not eroded.
So, what makes an effective EIS?
- Establishing an EIS Policy
Effective EIS policies outline the purpose of the system, the data being captured, who will be notified (supervisor/command staff), what their responsibilities are, the options and actions they should consider, timeframe, and what should be documented.
- Setting an intervention warning point based on the number and weight of multiple indicators during a small window of time.
An early intervention policy or system that is based on 2 use of force incidents within a year or 1 use of force incident within 6 months is not sufficient to be proactive and to intervene early since the timeframe is too long and there are other factors to consider like complaints, pursuits, crashes, etc. EIS software that can calculate and display multiple incidents grouped within a 90-day window effectively help supervisors see potential problems ahead of time. In addition, effective EIS software should trigger based on weighting. For example, a complaint may be weighted less than a use of force event, but when multiple complaints on an officer have been made during a short window of time, the EIS warning should trigger even if the officer has not been involved in a use of force incident during this time.
- Timeliness of displaying officers reaching an intervention warning point.
An EIS software system that only calculates incidents after the reports have made it through every level of review and is marked complete is not effective because the time this takes could be several months. One agency experienced a significant lawsuit when 1 of their officers was involved in a shooting and their EIS system did not trigger a flag even though the officer was involved in 3 use of force incidents and multiple complaints because several of the reports were still “in review.” Effective EIS systems calculate risk as soon as an incident report is filed, not upon review and completion.
- Documenting supervisor/command review & actions.
Effective EIS software will have a supervisory/command staff module that displays officers hitting the pre-set threshold for a potential intervention, why they hit the threshold, the ability to document the date the officer flag was reviewed, associated actions taken, and results.
2. Providing data to your Community and FBI for transparency and trust
Maintaining and building trust with the community you serve is paramount in today’s LE environment. 3 pieces of data your agency should consider sharing with your community are:
- EIS Software Implementation: Inform your community that your agency has implemented EIS software. In a nationwide survey, 75% of White respondents and 80% of Black and Hispanic respondents favored the use of early warning systems as an accountability mechanism.
- FBI Reporting: Inform your community that your agency shares it’s use of force data with the FBI national database. Your community can go to: https://crime-data-explorer.fr.cloud.gov/officers/national/united-states/uof to see if your agency is listed as a participating agency. Being on this list helps your community make data-driven decisions to form perceptions and trust vs. media-driven decisions.
- Current Contacts and Incident Data: Inform your community of officer contacts vs. use of force and complaint incidents. In addition to FBI reporting, this also provides your community the means to make data-driven decisions on whether your agency is performing within acceptable boundaries.
Effective Professional Standards software will automate your FBI reporting and quickly produce reports on use of force, complaints, and pursuit data.
If your Professional Standards Unit needs to overcome either of these top 2 challenges in 2021, let me know and I’ll be happy to educate you on EIS software choices and more best practices.
