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Avoiding The Avoidable
A
Law Enforcement Officer’s Guide To Problem Solving
By
Lt. Dennis M. Marlock
Ó2002
How often have you invested time creating and implementing crime
prevention programs, department’ policies, or other problem solving methods that looked
good on paper but failed miserably? That this occurs is a fact, but what usually escapes
us are the reasons for those failures. With that in mind, I’ve created a list of the most
common mistakes, and a few suggestions on how to correct and avoid repeating them.
Mistake #1: Uncertainty
If you cannot properly define exactly what you hope to do, then you
shall do nothing. Being vague leads to disaster.
If you want to solve a problem within your department, then you
should be able to cite in specific terms what the problem is. Not close to or almost, but
exactly what do you hope to change or eliminate?
Mistake #2 Misidentifying The Problem
Closely related to
mistake #1, is misidentifying the problem. Make certain you’re not treating the effects
of the problem rather than the cause. In considering
the problem of cause in any situation, it is essential to distinguish between necessary
factors, conditions, and incidental factors.
All factors that are necessary for an event to occur
is called a condition. Incidental factors are those that may have existed
during a particular event, but have no direct bearing on it. Two rules of thumb to
apply in order to distinguish between conditions and incidental factors are:
1.
A cannot be the cause of B if A is ever absent when
B
is present.
2.
A cannot be the cause of B if B is ever absent when
A
is present.
Here’s a classic example of what confusing these factors looks like.
Every morning when the neighbor’s rooster crows, the
sun appears on the horizon. Therefore, it is the rooster who makes the sun rise.
Appears silly, but I’m certain you could cite real life examples that are just as silly.
Mistake #3 Ignoring Valuable Resources
Failing to make use of available resources has become the hallmark of
most every bureaucracy. Traveling throughout the country conducting police training
seminars has always been an enjoyable experience for me, but with few exceptions, there
are usually officers within the host agency who know as much, or more, than I do about the
topics covered. Perhaps it doesn’t appear that you’ve conducted adequate research unless
you go outside your department or agency, or some other obscure rationale. In either case,
the best place to start looking for help is within your own department or community.
For as many years as I can remember, the Milwaukee Police Department
possessed some of the most knowledgeable and proficient arson and auto theft investigators
in the nation. These officers were constantly traveling around the world helping other
departments duplicate our success. For reasons that remain a mystery, our administrators
often brought in various arson and auto theft experts from other states to train our
officers on how to conduct proper investigations. Not only did this insult our own
experts, but it soon became obvious that the outside authorities were trained by our
department’s experts.
I’m aware of many other PACC members, agents, sheriffs, district
attorneys, and others who have experienced the same situation. If there is a logical
explanation for this, then it has escaped notice.
Mistake #4
Failure to Set Goals
All too often we confuse our values with our goals. Values are
something you believe in, feel, or think. Goals are something you intend to change or
accomplish. Once you have identified a problem, create a list of specific goals that are
to be achieved within a set time frame. With this, you need to establish a list of steps
to be taken for achieving each goal.
Mistake #5 Duplicating Other’s Mistakes
Trying to copy a program created by another department usually leads
to trouble. Other than a swell vacation, all those fact-gathering junkets, usually taken
by upper management, are a waste of time. To put it another way, my problems aren’t
necessarily your problems. Crime is crime, but the why, when, where, how, or who
commits those crimes in any given community is unique to each location. That any given
program was a huge success in San Francisco does not necessarily mean the same will work
in Dubuque, Iowa. Social values, population density, unemployment, and all those other
wonderful topics that criminologists love to study, affect what will and will not work.
This does not mean you should fail to look at another department’s
successes. You must take from them what will work in your town and avoid using what won’t.
No one knows your community better than you do, so don’t sell yourself short.
Mistake #6 Being Unrealistic
Just because you want to accomplish
something does not insure success unless you have both the ability and resources to make
it all happen. In other words, don’t bite off more than you can chew. Okay, I’m allowed at
least one hackneyed expression.
The only advice here is don’t get overly ambitious. Keep your goals
in line with your department’s ability to produce the desired results. And while on the
topic of results, here’s something else to consider. Just because you are trying to solve
a complicated problem, does not mean that you must create a complicated solution.
How many times have you had to work with a policy or program that was
so complex that no one, including its creator, could explain how it worked? If you
solutions to anything even remotely resemble the standard government tax forms, use it as
a good sign that your program is doomed unless it’s brought under control.
Real Life Example
Here’s a true story that demonstrates the mistakes we’ve just looked
at:
Some years ago, the New York Police Department set out to solve the
problem they were having with slow response to calls for help from their citizens. A very
ambitious and expensive research project was conducted by outside experts. The experts
concluded that the NYPD needed to invest millions of dollars in the latest hi-tech
computer aided dispatch systems. This wonderful technology would assure that all calls for
police service were handled in a most proficient fashion. No more would callers have to
wait for the police to respond; criminals would be caught in the act, and crime would be
significantly reduced.
The wonderful equipment was installed. Soon afterwards,
administrators from around the planet were flocking to the NYPD to study this law
enforcement miracle. With few exceptions, most who observed this state of the art
equipment were impressed. So impressed that they duplicated this miracle in their
respective cities.
All might have lived happily ever after, were it not for one minor
research flaw. Although there did exist a real problem with the time that elapsed between
the offense and the time the police arrived, the cause of that problem was not the cops.
Conversely, it was the citizens who were the problem. A reexamination disclosed that most
crime victims, for various reasons, waited between 30 to 60 minutes before calling for
assistance. Add this to the time it took to dispatch a squad, and you get criminals and
witnesses who are no longer on the scene and a very low clearance rate.
In this classic case of false starts to wrong conclusions, the NYPD
failed to interview their own officers, and elected to use an outside agency not familiar
with the department or city residents. The agency in turn misinterpreted the problem, and
ultimately cost the taxpayers a lot of money that might have been used to educate the
public on how to report a crime. Then, too, let us not forget all the other departments
who hastily duplicated New York’s mistake. What these department administrators failed to
take into account was human nature.
What, you ask, does human nature have to
do with any of this? A lot. People who spend a few dollars on a foolish item eventually
discover their mistake and readily tell others how foolish they were. The opposite occurs
when the same people spend a lot of money on a foolish item.
Rather then admit to the mistake, they
instead pretend they are well satisfied about the purchase and actually encourage others
to follow their lead. There is a lot of psychology behind this, and you won’t have a
difficult time locating a wealth of information on the topic. But for now, all you need to
know is that such exists, and that you should use caution when conducting your research.
One For The Road
One last pitfall involved with many programs today involves a failure
to continually reevaluate what you have put into place. The adage that says, “if it works,
don’t fix it,” sounds reasonable, but is nevertheless untrue. All programs need occasional
adjustments, and in some cases, the original need that prompted the program might have
disappeared. In those cases, it would be wise to scrap the program and move onto something
else. Consider periodic reevaluations as a form of preventive maintenance.
Again, know what the real problem is before deciding what action is
needed. Use all the tools available to you during your research, including people within
your own organization. Do not trust people who speak for others. If for example, you’re
creating a senior citizen program, don’t ask a person in their thirties what seniors want
or need. A wiser choice would be to speak with the seniors you hope to serve. Use what
you can from outside sources, but tailor everything to your particular community. Do this
and you will indeed be the creator of programs and policies that work as advertised.
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