Breaking Rank (44 page)

Thirty-four years of intimate experience with police discipline, combined with research into principles of individual accountability (heavily influenced by Richard C. Grote's
Discipline Without Punishment: The Proven
Strategy That Turns Problem Employees into Superior Performers
, 1995), make it clear that putting an employee on the beach without pay almost always has precisely the opposite effect of that intended.

If you want your cops to actually
think
about their transgressions and mend their wayward ways, send them home for a day or two,
with pay—
and instructions to reflect on what they've done. (This is assuming their transgression is not a terminable offense.)

Maybe police work isn't for them. Maybe they don't have the patience or the courage or the maturity. By listening to them, leveling with them, and encouraging them to really think about whether their chosen career is a good fit, you've taken a dignified, effective path. And you've put the onus squarely on the shoulders of the one person responsible for the screw-up.

None of this should be taken to mean that you can't or shouldn't fire incompetent or willfully disobedient police officers. Police work is no place for amateurs, for individuals who lack the tools—emotional, moral, physical, or behavioral—to get the job done.

As field operations chief in San Diego, and with Chief Bob Burgreen's blessings, I drew a new line in the sand. We would continue to discipline our cops for policy violations. But our system would be “bifurcated”:
punitive
disciplinary action for acts of willful misconduct or gross negligence,
corrective
disciplinary action for honest mistakes or performance problems.

The discipline, whether punitive or corrective, would be administered “progressively,” meaning each new violation of an identical or similar nature would result in progressively more stringent or assertive action.

To illustrate: For years in California, I taught a statewide police personnel management course. One morning, I asked my students (supervisors, middle managers, a sprinkling of chiefs): “What action do you take when one of your subordinates commits a minor infraction of department policy?” From around the room came, “counseling,” “verbal warning,” “written warning.”

“
Really?
” I said. “Is it possible that you might simply note it, mentally, but do nothing at all?” A few nodded in agreement. “Could it be that you
don't say a thing unless they do it a second time?” More nods. In other words, their cops got a free ride, perhaps a frown or a raised eyebrow on the first violation, with something a little more “official” the second time around. And a tougher response the third time out. That's progressive discipline.

What disciplinary actions are available to police supervisors? Many. On the punitive side: warnings, reprimands, suspensions, demotions, terminations (with the possibility of prosecution). On the corrective side: coaching, counseling, additional schooling including remedial education or training, and—termination. If a cop is struggling with report writing, for example, he or she could be required to take a community college course, or to work with a peer or supervisor in a tutorial relationship. An officer who lacks assertiveness could be sent to a class or a counselor to gain those skills and strengthen his or her self-confidence.

The governing philosophy is to
help
police officers perform to the best of their ability, and to behave professionally. To build them up, not tear them down. (Even when you have to fire them: A lot of decent human beings, trying their best, simply can't cut it as a cop. There's no need to rub their noses in it before you send them packing.)

As a deputy chief in San Diego, I made it a habit to spend a day from time to time with each of my captains, riding around with them, chatting informally about crime and crime fighting, strategic and tactical planning, personnel issues, and so forth. I called Captain Mike Tyler on a Wednesday to confirm my visit to Western Division the next morning.

“Great,” he said. “I'm looking forward to it. But could you come a little later? I've got to suspend one of my graveyard cops.” I knew all about it. He was going to suspend a patrol officer for recklessness in a high-speed pursuit.

“Do you mind if I sit in? Do you think ‘Mitchell' would mind?”

“No problem here. It'll give me chance to teach you how the pros do it.” Modesty was not one of Tyler's failings. “I'll have someone check with Mitchell this afternoon and get back to you.”
*
Mitchell, it turned out, was cool with it.

At six the next morning, greetings accomplished, Mitchell took a seat across the desk from his captain. I sat in a corner. Mitchell had waived his right to representation.

TYLER
: “We've already talked about your actions on the chase, Mitch, and my disapproval. I don't have anything more to say about it. You know the discipline: four days on the beach. Do you have any questions or comments?”

MITCHELL
: “No, sir. Guilty as charged. It won't happen again.”

TYLER
: “Good, glad to hear it. Sign here.”

Mitchell signed the form. Tyler gave him a copy. Mitchell started to leave. “Hold on second,” Tyler said. “When you get back to work next week I want to see you here in my office before you hit the field, okay?” Mitchell nodded. Handshakes all around. Out the door.

I complimented Tyler on the brevity of the meeting. During my early years as a supervisor and middle manager I'd felt it my duty to launch into a long, repetitious, moralizing lecture on the offending officer's transgression(s), to inform him where he went wrong, to explicitly condemn the behavior, to explain what steps he must take in the future in order to stay out of trouble, to lay out the consequences he'd face if he became a repeat offender, and on and on . . .

Tyler knew better. He knew “Guilty as charged” meant Mitchell had accepted responsibility for his actions. The officer did wrong. He got punished. Case closed.

But what's with the meeting next week? I asked Tyler about it as we headed out for breakfast.

“I do that with everyone I suspend.” (I had let my captains and commanders know that I wasn't prepared to outlaw suspensions . . . yet.)

“Why?”

“To welcome them back.”

“Yeah?”

“I let them know they've served their sentence, and I welcome them back into the fold. I tell them the reason they didn't get fired was because they're good cops. I tell them I'm glad they're working for me. Then I tell them to get their ass out in the field and do the job the way it's supposed to be done.” Sentence served. The offense not forgotten (some never will be), but forgiven. Grown-up discipline. Tyler did, indeed, teach me how the pros do it. He was in charge of that meeting because it was his division. Mitchell and all the other officers and detectives and supervisors and civilian employees who worked out of the Friars Road station reported to Mike Tyler. Not Norm Stamper, not Bob Burgreen.

Tyler's “ownership” of the disciplinary proceeding was crucial to my campaign to push police decision-making down the chain of command to its logical locus. In decentralized, geographically based policing—in
community
policing—you need the precinct commander to both be and
feel
responsible for what goes on, 24/7, in his or her command. You want police officers, as well as citizens, to appreciate the decision-making authority of their captain.

In Seattle I took heat from my critics, internal and external, for allowing captains to make disciplinary decisions that were formerly reserved for the chief of police. But over my six years as chief I saw captains become more and more responsible (and accountable) as they grew into their expanded roles.

The biggest beef about delegating discipline authority to precinct commanders? “Inconsistency.” What if Mitchell had worked not for Mike Tyler but for Joe Schwalbach at Northeastern who would have, hypothetically, slapped the guy with a ten-day suspension? Or for Paul Ybarrondo at Central who would have handed him a reprimand? Consistency is a valid and serious concern.

We addressed it in San Diego on two levels, the first of which was philosophical: Did we want a “bail schedule” approach to discipline in which
everyone
who, for example, backed a police car into another car, or left a knife on a prisoner, or used excessive force, or missed court, or got rude
with a citizen, would pay the exact same price? Consistency freaks said yes. Thinkers said no.
*
As Emerson wrote, “A foolish consistency is the hobgoblin of little minds.” The second level dealt with something I'll call the “Yes, but” issue.

Yes, but shouldn't two cops with identical records, time on the department, and discipline history pay the same price for identical violations of policy? Yes. In the unlikely event that that state of affairs exists, Officer B should get exactly what Officer A has coming. If nothing else, it facilitates a healthy organizational
predictability,
and brings more justice to the administration of police discipline.

So with no fixed, published penalties for policy violations, how did my captains and I achieve this kind of “smart” consistency?

Recall that I knew in advance that Tyler was going to be suspending Mitchell. How did I know? Because each of my captains was required to present at our weekly Field Ops meetings an outline of all pending discipline. Listening to one another, asking one another for information and advice, getting a feel for what's fair and appropriate became an institutionalized ethic in our administration of discipline. And there was this: Although it was the captain's call, he or she had to inform me before sticking a disciplinary package under the nose of his or her officer. Why? Because, in the interest of citywide consistency and fairness, I retained veto power (and did not want the captains to lose standing in the eyes of their officers if I chose to overturn a decision).

Of course, if I'd vetoed more decisions than I'd accepted (or even as few as, say, 10 to 15 percent of them), I couldn't say with a straight face that I'd truly delegated discipline responsibility to my captains. But in two or three years I vetoed only two of approximately a hundred decisions (both from the same captain, once for being too lenient, once for being too harsh). I knew in San Diego and in Seattle that I was accountable for all discipline but my captains were responsible for it.