Police captains train with improv techniques to reduce violent crime

0 0 4 minutes read

Police captains train with improv techniques to reduce violent crime

Three dozen police captains combine in a chicago conference room to play a game: they have to start a sentence with the last word that his partner has used.

Many exchanges are absurd, full of an increase using difficult words and laughter. But the improvisation game finally makes sense.

“What we are trying to do is to make you listen to the end of the sentence,” explains Kelly Leonard, finishing the improvisation exercise. “If my arm was a sentence, when most people stop listening? Always the elbow! But then you miss everything that goes after … and sometimes it’s critical information.”

Police captains who were ahead of departments across the country nod. “I really do that,” calls some.

The officials of the Police Leadership Academy of the University of Chicago Crime Lab brought members of the second City, the Chicago improvisation theater, to teach the police leaders more diverse skills found in improvisation exercises – as thinking about your feet, reserving a judgment and listening fully.

The Academy, a workshop taught over five months, addresses serious subjects such as how to make data -based decisions or how to help agents manage the trauma during the job.

Improve social skills

“We call that yoga for social skills,” said Leonard, vice-president of the creative strategy, innovation and commercial development of the second City.

Skills may not apply to all police situations in the field, but being a better listener or learning to breathe before responding can make better leaders, according to Tree Branch, a strategic customer partner in the second City Works.

The creation of improvisation and the second city is rooted in social work. The two trace their beginnings at Viola Spoolin, who created some of the exercises still used in improvisation when she was a resettlement worker in the 1920s to help immigrant children and local Chicago children. Ms. Spoolin was also the mother of the co -founder of Second City, Paul Salls.

The creators of the Police Leadership Academy think that these skills can also help achieve their objectives to increase community engagement, improve the morale of officers and ultimately reduce violent crimes.

“We are trying to argue that you can do the three things,” compromised the others, said Kim Smith, director of Lab crime programs.

The Academy focuses on work with leaders of the departments dealing with high levels of community armed violence and pays for them to fly to Chicago one week per month to follow the training of five months.

Researchers in the crime laboratory have found that the district and district captains have the greatest potential impact on their colleagues, although they have often received little leadership training for the position. A district could have high notes for morale, community relations or make a breach in number of crimes, but if the captain changes, these gains could fall, according to the researchers, even if the community, the officers and everything else remained the same.

Professors, researchers and police chiefs teach courses on subjects such as the development of transparent police crops, data use and collection, stress management and the creation of community partnerships. Until now, around 130 police chiefs of around 70 services, including tribal police services and even a Toronto police inspector, have participated.

Communication is essential

Captain Louis Higginson of the Philadelphia police department said that the Academy had provided much wider training than the two weeks of police training he had obtained before being promoted to the captain just over a year ago.

“The great thing for me was to think about the things we allow to happen because they were like us before us,” he said. “And the ways in which we can change the culture of our district by changing the reflection on the reason why we do things.”

He said he had done some of the improvisation exercises with his wife and daughters when he returned home and that it opened the communication in a way he did not expect.

“I think it opened my eyes, as made to me,” said Higginson.

The commander of the Albuquerque police department, Ray Del Greco, said that he was still thinking about how he communicates weeks after the improvisation class.

“When people talk to you and help you solve their problems, be able to push your ego and worry less about your own agenda and listen, it is an understanding of leadership,” said Del Greco. “For me, it was the most precious class we had.”

The student becomes the teacher

The leaders of the Academy stressed that learning does not stop at graduation. They create communication channels so that classmates can continue to support each other, they encourage captains to organize training with their services, and participants are required to implement a Capstone project that lasts well after the last day of lessons and solves a real problem in their district or service.

Many projects are implementing programs to combat specific crimes, such as involving the community in programs to prevent cars flights or pilot drones as first stakeholders. A previous graduate has created a partnership with community groups to increase community pride and reduce armed violence by reducing quality of life problems such as detritus, invaded prizes and graffiti.

Stephen Donohue, captain of the San Jose police department and a recent graduate of the Academy, creates an early intervention system focused on the well-being of officers. A typical system can point out the complaints of citizens or the conduct of accidents, but Mr. Donohue’s program collects comments from supervisors and peers to report when an officer takes too many trauma in service, such as several murders or shooting investigations in a short period of time.

“It is a Venn diagram between training, well-being and domestic affairs,” he said. “And we can help them, we can reduce complaints and allegations of strength use, offer better training and improve the services issued by the Department.”