By Chief Joel F. Shults, Ed.D Police agencies have been criticized for their handling of calls regarding people with mental illness. The major problem is not the ignorance of police officers in dealing with the mentally ill. The challenge is knowing if someone has a mental illness at the time of the police contact. If Read more »
By Stephen Owsinski Well before the March 28 White House announcement regarding the 2023 fiscal budget, especially the portions pertaining to law enforcement, America’s police academies have all been business as usual. Although police recruitment efforts have been a challenge in some regions of the nation, law enforcement training centers I continue analyzing are priming Read more »
By Chief Joel F. Shults, Ed.D There is a biblical proverb among the words chiseled in the National Law Enforcement Memorial in Washington, D.C.: “The wicked flee when no one pursues, but the righteous are bold as a lion.” One might not expect a Bible verse to be the rationale for a proven law enforcement Read more »
By Stephen Owsinski Although technology is prevalent in modern-day policing, some old-school methods remain as pointed as a sharpened pencil. Police sketch artists putting pencil to paper were all the rave back in the day, well before the tech we have nowadays. Yet some law enforcement agencies retain the antiquity of a police sketch artist Read more »
By Stephen Owsinski Recently in California, an agitated man threatened to shoot a few people before fleeing in a car. Those victims contacted cops and provided a description of the individual and the automobile he was driving. A BOLO (Be On the Lookout) was broadcast over police radio frequencies. A few police officers observed the Read more »
By Chief Joel F. Shults, Ed.D The use of force continuum is a largely abandoned policy to guide police officers in the lawful use of force. That particular model relies on stages of subject behavior followed by authorized police behavior. It is a reactive policy that relies on a succession of failures until an officer Read more »
By Chief Joel F. Shults, Ed.D “The gun violence spikes seen in 2020 and again in 2021 in many cities show the crime reductions experienced over the last three decades are fragile (Major Cities Chiefs Association, 2021). Cities must have comprehensive strategies to create and maintain safe communities.” This is the thesis of a white Read more »
By Chief Joel F. Shults, Ed.D Experienced police officers may be rather puzzled by the sudden popularity of the belief that police officers lack skills when dealing with mental health emergencies. In a very real sense, that’s what police do the most. Whether a person is in a full-blown meltdown or merely a victim of Read more »
By Chief Joel F. Shults, Ed.D After the arrest of Rodney King by the LAPD in 1991, many states enacted laws requiring police officers to report their colleagues if they feel that unnecessary force was used. Some states have gone beyond that requirement and are now requiring physical intervention. I understand, but let’s think about Read more »
By Chief Joel F. Shults, Ed.D The animal in man is something that appears in his most desperate hours. It is intense, visceral, and primitive. What happens in the mind and body when death is in the air is hard to research, since the body’s functions are rarely measured during those moments. Capturing the full Read more »