Police 'de-escalation' training — how it could help Chicago

Chicago suffers from violence and tension between police officers and low-income predominantly Black communities. In 2011, the chief of police consulted with a network of university academics and began implementing “procedural justice,” which was an approach that trained police departments to surmount the lack of confidence that residents felt towards officers. The academics and police chief found that by directing social workers to the homes of at-risk community members, and regarding them with respect, there was a reduction in violence—but now the program has stalled.

Lawyers and activists are educating residents in cities across the country on encounters with law enforcement. Know Your Rights training programs have been held by lawyers and community activists in neighborhoods in urban cities nationwide, designed to help residents understand the limits of police authority.

Holding the police accountable for their actions is needed to build trust in the communities they police. The city of Minneapolis has created the Committee for Professional Policing, which advocates for a city charter amendment that requires the police to purchase liability insurance. In this piloted approach, the insurance provides a “financial oversight of the police” but it is still unclear if it has made the police department more accountable.

Muslim youths in Denmark were leaving to join ISIS in Syria, feeling they were being persecuted in Europe. Then the police in Aarhus responded in a completely unexpected way: They apologized.

Little attention is given to black men who are victims of gun violence but survive and need help. An organization in California is mobilizing all gun-violence victims to voice their opinion on criminal justice reform and support for victims.

Juvenile offenders can feel as though they have no chances for a good future. Volunteers of America’s Face Forward 2 program helps young people in Cleveland to complete their education and to find employment. With this program, juvenile offenders believe they can succeed.

Misinformation and misunderstanding about the law can lead youth to have accelerating confrontations with the police. Cleveland’s Patrick Henry School offers Juvenile Justice Jeopardy, a game that orients middle school kids to the facts about criminal justice. The game enables youth to internalize the information through an enjoyable format.

Specialized training for school resource officers improves the relationships between law enforcement agents and students. Following a lawsuit by the American Civil Liberties Union, Salt Lake City, its police department, and school district, begun reforms that address the issue of policing in high schools. New training requirements for school resource officers have led to a significant decline in the number of kids cited at school since 2016.

Police departments across the United States are implementing strategies and reforms in response to the growing number of unsolved criminal cases. With cold cases often linked to declined trust in police and the undermining of wellbeing in, typically urban, neighborhoods, these reforms are seeking to reverse course.

The Washington State Criminal Justice Training Commission has developed a training approach that emboldens police officers’ sense of guardianship by teaching empathy, how to build trust, and how to listen. As San Francisco’s police department grapples with how to be both guardians and warriors in their community, they seeks to adopt a similar model.