REVIEW OF WHAT WE COMMUNICATE

Before revealing a face, heart and personality of the profession (policing) and its task (service), let us extract from a list of truths certain undisputed facts in order to establish future direction. Feel free to add to this list.

Facts

1. Police officers and citizens are accountable to the community.

2. Police officers and citizens are accountable to themselves.

3. Perception becomes reality.

4. Changing perception is difficult. You can only assess your own motives.

5. Effective policing necessitates effective communication.

6. What we believe about ourselves may determine how we perceive the importance of communicating with another person or group of people.

7. Communication is bidirectional, requiring listening, hearing and understanding other viewpoints.

8. Certain fears provide fertile soil for attitudes of prejudice to ripen and proliferate.

9. Fear is an emotional response. Prejudice is an attitude.

10. Fear can be disabling if you allow it to control your mind and emotional state.

11. Fear can become contagious when people delay identifying cause and effect.

12. Since prejudice is an attitude, attitudes are changeable when the willingness to change exists.

13. Differences are challenging; acknowledging differences makes learning reachable.

14. No two people think or behave exactly alike and for this reason, developing attitudes that transform into practices of disparate treatment toward another human being can become an outgrowth of implicit bias and fear.

15. Differences make each person a separate and unique member of society.

16. Using an ethical compass serves to guide a person to making decisions based on doing what is right, not necessarily, what is popular.

What common characteristic do you find expressed implicitly or explicitly in each fact? If you identified communication, you are correct.

C-o-m-m-u-n-i-c-a-t-i-o-n

C Connecting with
O Openness, sharing a
M Message of desire for
M Mutual
U Understanding
N Never neglecting
I Integrity and the importance of
C Citizen perception and collaboration,
A Acknowledging the need to access non-protected
Information that might explain police actions with
T Transparency, truthfulness and trust.
I Information presented with
O Optimism for strong future
N Networking.

I want to underscore one undisputed fact; what we believe about ourselves may determine how we perceive the importance of communicating with another person or group of people.

Leadership instructors White and Pennypacker ((2016) provide an interpretation of effective communication within the context of leadership; "the aim is to get people to think, feel, and act in a specific way after they receive your message". In any given situation, everyone holds a leadership role. Therefore, the importance of communicating effectively extends outside the supervisor-subordinate relationship. Foremost, when people communicate, what does either party want to accomplish?

The goal of communication is to create connection, engage in conversation through meaningful and comprehensible dialogue, without contradictory gestures or nonverbal behaviors. Consider the word communication as an acronym representing characteristics expressed as an organizational mission statement.

Connecting – Openness - Message - Mutual -Understanding, Never neglecting Integrity - Citizen Perception and collaboration, Acknowledging – Transparency – Information -Optimism – Networking

Depending on conditions, most communication is bidirectional. However, based on conditions, bidirectional communication becomes unfeasible, bringing us to fallacies embraced equally by citizens and police.

First fallacy states, police or law enforcement officers only give commands and that explains the harshness of some. Second fallacy, communication between police and citizens is one-way never intended as a bidirectional exchange of information.

Unquestionably, there are times when someone must take the lead in initiating a conversation or giving direction. In exigent circumstances such as during crowd control, medical emergencies or active crime scenes declared unsafe, etc. communication is one-way with the desired outcome being to get people to act in a certain way for safety. When the emergency subsides, communication becomes bi-directional.

How do you effectively invalidate a fallacy? Understanding comes from hearing the truth. To invalidate a fallacy, people need exposure to new information or training to identify what is accurate. In other words, someone must communicate facts. How do people communicate their message? What are we communicating in the message?

What we communicate

The confusion is perceptual given that people seldom dispute the content of a message; however, people file complaints about how people communicate their message when speaking and from inferences drawn from body language sometimes not in sync with spoken words. Here are examples for consideration.

Example#1- Everyone is guilty of being too harsh or condescending in tone at one time in his or her career and personal life. Harshness and speaking in a condescending tone is problematic when the conduct becomes an ongoing pattern of behavior.

Example#2- Equally disconcerting is when someone demonstrates disregard for or lack of understanding of power inherent in their position and becomes unnecessarily authoritarian when conveying their message. The only potential outcome from this behavior is miscommunication, lack of understanding, communication shuts down, conflict and confusion.

Everyone has been guilty at one time or another.

A leader infrequently needs to announce his or her presence at an incident when they have command presence. What is command presence? First, command presence is not limited to those within the rank structure. Fee (2014) explained it is impossible to ignore someone with command presence. This individual conveys command presence in the way they behave, with a nonthreatening posture of authority (never compromising officer safety), using appropriate eye contact, which in turn reduces fear in the listener. Demanding attention provokes a less favorable response to include confrontation.

Example#3- Inadvertently, an incident can elicit a prejudiced response, causing a person to question the citizen or police officer's capacity to think and behave impartially. Prejudice is a learned behavior based on limited facts, broad brushing of groups, deficient of personal experiences for reference, and lacking exposure to information to either refute or confirm accuracy and understanding about racial, ethnic, cultural differences and about the policing profession.

All three examples illustrate why people file complaints alleging ineffectiveness of communication, not the message itself, but against the messenger.

Communicating verbally is social; therefore, communication, social aspect of policing, is a human element; the central theme I believe eludes our total knowledge that some fail to grasp about policing. It is essential and valuable to understand that there is a face, personality and heart behind policing, whether the individual provides the service or is the recipient of it.

Communication styles

Everyone has his or her own style of communicating. We communicate with family members using one style, a different style with friends, a different style in Church, and a different style while working. How people communicate covers a wide spectrum of styles; there are as many interpretations of the spoken word as there are reasons to talk to anyone based on the circumstances for communicating.

Misunderstanding, misinterpretation, disconnect between the spoken word and nonverbal cues when parties do not share the same race remains problematic and the potential for conflict. Does misinterpretation lead to allegations of racism in all cases? No, of course not; however, it is prudent for police and citizens to remain alert to the potential. Modifying a communication style is not always the remedy, because the potential for displaying poorer skills that ineffectively communicates a message increases. The remedy is learning about generational differences, the historical background of cultural differences in talking with each other, responding, use of slang and interpreting gestures when communicating.

Since training is a social institution, we turn our attention to the humanity of policing cultivated through social institutions, training and education.

THE PEOPLE FACTOR

Statisticians use the symbol X in equations for investigation and quantification. X is usually a variable representing data with a specific characteristic. Before we proceed, I want to explain the characteristics of X as a controlled variable (something researchers overlook) within the sociology of policing to begin unraveling the confusion about the humanity (person, heart and personality) of the profession and its tasks. The symbol X represents the human side (the controlled variable) of policing and the people police serve. Thus, in the context of policing and communication, X represents human relations skills needed to police effectively.

A police chief addressing academy graduates explained "X-factor" to the group. The social aspects of policing remain center stage. Citizens expect communication, collaboration, openness and access, problem solving and partnerships.

It is illogical to think that social aspects exist solely in the profession and practice of policing without including the humanity of the performer of the social tasks. We assign the notion of openness and access, components of communication, to practices of humanity. Of equal importance is how people understand principles at the heart of social tasks.

Critical race theory draws our attention to how people interpret messages we communicate through spoken words, gestures and practices. Critical race theorists investigate race, power, racism, and the challenges to achieving reform that transforms what people think about race. Critical race theory also addresses the practices of openness and access. Race should not matter when effectively policing the community.

You are probably thinking race should not enter into the discussion when trying to get people to think, feel, and act in a specific way. True, we should not interject racial makeup into effective policing. However, in some societies of people, ethnic descent, cultural beliefs, sexual orientation or gender drives feelings of marginalization in addition to fear in and about others. Individuals who prey on fear only exacerbate these fears. The decision to either include or exclude race is not up to us. Race is an integral element of the equation during present day policing.

Absent personal illustrations of overt disparate treatment based on demographic differences, some people are sensitive and in the periphery of their thinking question what will happen next because of their race, gender, ethnic background or sexual orientation. A psychological response is fear, fear ignited by fallacies and secondhand stories about treatment based on racial differences.

Unfortunately, feelings of fear can lead to behavior uncharacteristic of the person. Uncharacteristic behavior leads to typecasting or stereotyping about groups of people possessing any demographic indicator and even self-fulfilling prophecy. People are not jumping to baseless conclusions in an attempt to divert focus away from their desire for effective policing. People tend to operate out of misunderstanding and confusion.

Some believe critical race theory speaks exclusively to people of African descent. Critical theory proposes in general that race and gender continue to make the benefits of democracy inaccessible to all people but in particular people of color who perceive themselves lacking influence or access to it.

Critical race theory more narrowly speaks about power, privilege, racial injustice and exclusion, lack of understanding and societal practices. Critical race theory when adding Latino and Native American (tribal) communities focuses on identical concerns. Race is a sensitive topic; however, it is an important topic when defining effective policing, diversity, implicit bias and prejudice as well as the voices needed for worthwhile discussion. Every voice requires representation.

In reality, when people (residents and the police) hold biases against one another and when biases remain unaddressed, personally it is easy to perceive marginalization and for all involved to develop fear. Race infused with fear remain dominant constructs during encounters between police and citizens and subsequent investigations into the cause behind volatile encounters. Change in thinking remains intangible as long as discussion between partners lacks substance and weak from poor structure, perforated with distrust about one another.

How do people acquire interpersonal skills?

We learn to talk when very young. As we age, through formal training, we learn new words to increase our vocabulary; we witness and adopt gestures as a shorthand communication style. While maturing, we interact with family, friends, and teachers to continue learning. We are inclined to repeat behaviors, shorthand communication, words and ways of treating people that we believe bring satisfaction and appear successful, never wondering if any of these actions are cruel or harmful.

Police officers receive training in a police academy, later reinforced by the hiring police department through on the job training and policy standards. Police officers also learn how to interpret gestures and nonverbal language for personal protection and to protect citizens. Police officers learn which gestures create cultural conflict that may make open dialog with another person impossible and improbable.

Citizens have access to similar awareness training through careers outside police and law enforcement.

Before advancing discussion on the humanity of policing and unveiling the person, personality and heart of policing, the upcoming interlude is an opportunity for introspection. Discussion resumes in Chapter 4.

INTROSPECTION INTERLUDE

Take a moment to revisit some undisputed facts stated earlier. When completing this exercise, please keep in mind, everyone is responsible for policing the community.

If you believe the statement identifies a strength, explain how it has become your strength and write an encouraging statement to others dealing with the need to change in that area. Alternatively, if you identify the need to change, use the text block to identify how you plan to make the change.

For non-police/law enforcement readers, the instructions are identical. If you believe the statement identifies a strength, explain how it has become your strength and write an encouraging statement to others dealing with the need to change in that area. Alternatively, if you identify the need to change, use the text block to identify how you plan to make the change.

1. What we believe about ourselves may determine how we perceive the importance of communicating with another person or group of people. [] No changes needed [] Change needed

2. Certain fears provide fertile soil for attitudes of prejudice to ripen and proliferate. [] No changes needed. [] Change needed.

3. Changing perception is difficult. You can only assess your own motives. [] No changes needed. [] Change needed.

5. No two people think or behave exactly alike. Developing attitudes that transform into practices of disparate treatment toward another human being can become an outgrowth of implicit bias and fear. [] Agree, I am guilty; sometimes I become fearful [] No change needed.

Part 2

What is your opinion?

1. Effective policing involves effective communication.

2. Differencesmake each person a separate and unique member of society.