I have always believed that law enforcement can improve their relationship with the communities they serve if every police officer treats each call for service as though it is the most important call of the day. Having this attitude can be a big challenge for most officers. The call may be the most traumatic event that has ever happened to the caller although but just a “routine” call for the police officer.  Many of the calls for service come are from people calling the police for the first time. You only get one chance to make a good first impression.  Take advantage of that first interaction. A contributing factor that makes it worse is the fact that police departments have a monopoly on the service they provide.  Unhappy or poorly treated “customers” have little recourse.  In most cases, callers can’t just call another department. How It All Began I attend Vertical Life Church in Dallas, GA.  At the time you read this, 25 of us will be in Allen, SD, which is one of the poorest, if not the poorest, cities in America.  Allen is on the Pine Ridge Indian Reservation. The majority of the team flew out, but one…

I don’t know about you, but the first thing I do when I arrive at work is check my email.  In fact, I spend a considerable amount of time at the beginning of my workday checking the over 100 emails I receive daily. It is a habit I have fallen into over time. But it doesn’t stop there. I also check my email frequently throughout the day to handle anything important that pops up. I now realize there is a better way. A Better Way I stumbled on the better way out of necessity. You see, I noticed that I have difficulty focusing on my work in the early afternoon, which seems to collide with my need to concentrate on important tasks that take a considerable amount of time and thought. That was a big problem for me. I recently ran across an article that mentioned the work of Dr. Ron Friedman, Ph.D.  In the article, Dr. Friedman discusses many essential aspects of developing daily routines to be more productive. He also has a book titled, “The Best Place to Work.”  I haven’t read it yet, but it looks like a good read. Although he discusses many topics in the article,…

I use the word "common" loosely since the process used to hire a police chief varies dramatically from city to city. You might say the process shifts like sand in the sea from opening to opening, but that would probably be a little too much hyperbole. Anyway, l have participated in several different hiring processes in the last 10-15 years. I have also observed the shift in methods used from a strictly internal approach to a more public process in the last several years. Small, medium and large police departments can use different processes. Listed below are the typical processes used to hire a police chief. By no stretch of the imagination does this list cover the breadth of possibilities. A list such as that would take an entire book. Instead, I have tried to include the most common approaches. Internal Process By far, this is the most common process. I would even call it the traditional approach. The process works like this. They advertise the position and collect resumes. The hiring officials sift through the applications and narrow them down to 8-12 applicants to participate in the interview process. The City Manager or Mayor, depending on who the hiring…