LCSO requests Insight Policing training for deputies in field operations, School Resource Officers, courts, corrections and for supervisors to get ahead of the clashes and conflicts that we anticipate emerging from the rapid changes coming to Loudoun County.
Insight Policing is an innovation in police communication strategy. Building on conflict resolution principles, in particular on how people think and make decisions in conflict, Insight Policing trains deputies to identify conflict behavior as they look for cues for criminal behavior. The premise is that often times unlawful actions—especially those that occur during an interaction with law enforcement, for example, resistance and noncompliance—behaviors that can often trigger an escalated scene—are at the same time conflict behaviors. Insight Policing has shown that conflict behavior is an observable cue that indicates that a person is defending against some kind of perceived threat and that a person will continue to defend until the threat is mitigated. A way to mitigate a person’s sense of threat is not to heighten it by increased force, but to ask about it—to strategically investigate it. What Insight Policing suggests is that when people are asked and given the chance to be heard about what they are worried about and defending against, they tend to calm down and are more likely to comply. Not only does gaining compliance in this way indicate a level of legitimacy and trust that helps officers efficiently enforce the law, but it helps officers get information that allows them to articulate their actions. When they can articulate their actions, they can prepare strong cases, be justified in court and provide a clear outline of decisions in the case of a conviction or an IA complaint.
We believe that Insight Policing could be a powerful, low cost strategy that could have profound effects as we aim to proactively police and protect Loudoun County in the face of rapid change.
To begin to integrate Insight Policing into LCSO, we request training in Insight Policing: Core Skills, a 2-day class, to be followed by a 1-day advanced skills workshop for 32 deputies from each of the following units: patrol, courts, schools and corrections. We also request 2 1-day Leading with Insight classes for officers in supervisory roles. We would like to begin with SROs, as their availability for training is limited by the school calendar.
By many measures, Loudoun County, Virginia is an idyllic collection of communities. Situated 25 miles northwest of Washington, DC, Loudoun is the 4th largest county in Virginia, has a median income level that is more than double the national average, ranks #10 nationally in percentage of residents with a college education, is comprised largely of families with children, and has the lowest crime rate in the Washington Metropolitan Area. These positive attributes are, not surprisingly, attracting rapid growth. Between 2010 and 2017, Loudoun County saw a 26% increase in population, adding 80,400 residents. Over the next 2 years, county officials are forecasting another 30,000 new residents. The construction of a new Metro rail line, to be completed in 2020, is anticipated to lead to continued high growth and an unprecedented influx of nonresidents into areas of Loudoun County. Demographically, change is underway, and more change is coming.
Loudoun County Sheriff’s Office (LCSO), a full service agency that oversees the law enforcement and public safety of the county as well as the county’s corrections system, must be prepared to help manage the county’s growth and the civil and criminal disturbances that will inevitably accompany it. This is especially critical in the current national climate of compromised police legitimacy, which, with an increased focus on use of force and the rapid reach of social media, has stirred suspicion and mistrust even here in Loudoun County.
LCSO recognizes that if we don’t act strategically to build and maintain strong connections with communities, particularly in the midst of rapid change, public safety and effective crime fighting will be compromised. When public safety is compromised, trust and legitimacy decline, conflicts between law enforcement and the community grow, and divisions deepen. While LCSO deputies are highly trained—with over 90% trained in Crisis Intervention (CIT)—we are in need of training that will ensure that we have a department of proactive deputies who are skilled at interacting and communicating effectively with all members of the public—whether they are long time residents, new residents or visitors from around the region. We need a communication framework that deputies on patrol, in the courts, in the schools and in the adult detention center can leverage to engage their critical thinking abilities and facilitate appropriate discretion to ensure legitimacy and build a solid foundation of trust as our community grows and changes.
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Patrol deputies are the face of LCSO. They are the deputies on the street, riding in their cars, answering calls. They are the deputies who will be the first to respond to an emergency and the first to encounter the change in the Loudoun County population. We want to equip them with skills they can deploy to set a foundation of trust with the community. Many of our experienced officers have these skills, however, as is the case across the country, these seasoned officers are moving up in ranks and retiring and we are hiring a new generation of officers, most of whom are millennials, who bring an array of unique challenges to the job. We hope that Insight Policing skills will equip millennial deputies with face-to-face communication skills and that the rapport that they build with the community will encourage them to stay on the job as a career instead of moving on.
Our SROs, the deputies who serve in our schools, have an elevated obligation to use communication first when dealing with young people in schools, especially those young people who are getting into trouble and breaking the law. Communication is especially difficult with youth, who are still developing cognitively, are quick to react and can be highly resistant to authority. Fostering good communication with youth can build trust in law enforcement for a lifetime.
We feel an urgency to build the capacity of deputies in corrections to communicate effectively with inmates and secure voluntary compliance. Inmates are more likely to misbehave given the difficulties that come with being confined. Skills that help deputies gain voluntary compliance and build trust keep the detention facility running smoothly. They also affect the way that released individuals view law enforcement. When trust can be built rather than eroded inside detention centers, the safety of all deputies—both in corrections and in the field—improves.
We feel that it is important for Insight Policing training to be delivered, in an accelerated form, to supervisors in addition to deputies. There are two reasons for this. First, we want supervisors to know what deputies are learning so that the agency can be in sync. Second, Insight Policing holds promise for building the capacity of supervisors to create and maintain an effective work climate for deputies. Supervisors often deal with subordinate deputies who do not comply with general orders. When consequences do not work, the challenge of managing these deputies can grow. Insight Policing’s focus on understanding and dealing with conflict behavior could enhance the leadership capacity of supervisors at LCSO.
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Insight Policing was developed by professors from George Mason University through a BJA grant called the Retaliatory Violence Insight Project. It was taught at Northern Virginia Criminal Justice Academy in 2017. The results of the training were impressive. According to evaluation data from the provider, the Center for Applied Insight Conflict Resolution, 81% of officers trained agreed that Insight Policing training helped them develop questioning skills and strategies to understand and deescalate conflict behavior, and 81% agreed that using Insight Policing skills would improve their interactions with community members. In that training there was room for only one LCSO deputy. In order to have sufficient impact, we would like to train a significant number of deputies across units in Insight Policing so they can deploy effective communication skills consistently to prevent conflict with the citizens of Loudoun County and beyond, build trust and keep the public safe.