This is a long one (apologies), I really need to work on my brevity 🙂 I know that there are individuals that don’t sit squarely within these definitions and that they represent a broad brush approach, they do however give us a ‘broad’ view on what is coming down the line – and therefore they are pretty useful!

Some of you may have have heard, seen or even discussed Millennials, Baby Boomers, Generation X, Y and Z, or even the newer Generation G. They are usually used in a business or journalistic context, and have perhaps gained the apt label: Megatrends. They refer to groups of people that have been born before particular time boundaries that have been shaped by their experience of the world. If you look at it in terms of an example, those people that directly experienced World War II, have a different view of the world from those who have not. Each generation has these defining moments, and a certain school experience, built within a particular surrounding social/political environment.

I am a Millennial, although they are also referred to as Generation Y. If you want to read about Millennials, there are things all over the web that you can access via Google, but here is a quick breakdown. By and large, the senior positions within companies that sit at the top of the FTSE 100 and most public services, will be currently run by latter end Baby Boomers and possibly Generation X. It won’t shock you to see that there are distinct differences – and therefore clashes between the generations…

The external workplace that the police inhabit is set to become a majority Millennial workplace in either 2015-16, in the cops the best guess is around 2020. The lag in between is due to the particular nature of policing, with long tenure employment and large cohort intakes. As we have just seen the longest lag in police promotions and movement that we have ever seen, the gap in the leadership ranks has widened, with a larger percentage of Boomers and Generation X holding more positions of control as the hierarchy has shrunk due to austerity. The ‘catch up’ period is coming, but will there be an ‘equalling out’ of leadership responsibility, or will the Boomers and Generation X simply reinforce their level of control over the workplace even further? Only time will tell.

The one thing that is certain, is that the nature of work is changing rapidly. It’s becoming ever-more mobile, dispersed, on demand and technologically enabled. If you think about the way that the police currently operate, you may note that we are nowhere near that, and there will also be a ‘catching up’ period necessary in the very near future – simply through the gap in what the public expect, and what we actually manage to deliver. If people can track their parcel and delivery driver for their Ebay purchase, speak with the driver and organise alternative levels of service, will this expectation transfer at some point to the level of service expected of police officers?

Context

The reason I have written about this blog, is that the police work environment is set to change quite dramatically in the UK due to the Leadership Review, and the types of changes that are coming are tailored for the workforce that will be entering the police in the future. Millennial workers challenge authority regularly and dislike rigid hierarchies and structures. They communicate digitally and prefer it over face-to-face communication sometimes. The work to live and value balance in their lives, and are well educated, often carrying high student debt. A good report on these traits is here if you want a read, although there are many fully researched studies that show remarkable similarities in outcome.

Any police leaders looking to the future have a very tricky course to navigate. There will be a cadre of senior leaders who are distinctly Baby Boomer/Generation X. These people will have been promoted and supported throughout the performance era in policing. Looking back on it fondly (or not at all fondly, if I’m honest), the themes were situated strongly in Standard Operating Procedures, ‘business process’, compliance and audit. People were resources to be deployed, and the reign of specialised competence remained prevalent. Silos of specialisms characterised by continual competition between themselves made up the work environment, and ‘remit’ ruled the roost. Work was compartmentalised, chopped up into digestable pieces, and strewn across policing, generating huge amounts of waste and ambiguity in industrial levels of handovers.

My opinion of the above era aside, if you look at the charts above, you can directly map particular traits into those workplace conditions, and really see how they ran in sync. You may also be able to see how those young in service railed against them. This railing was however quite muted, as hierarchy imposed its stringent silence upon dissent. Even if you disagreed, it was far safer to stay quiet and just try and make a difference – despite the workplace conditions that – in some cases – actively worked against that.

There are countless articles that research the unintended consequences of the performance era, across many public services. Austerity has however – contrary to the intended aims – actually embedded a static position of leadership in the police. There is almost a five year gap in promotions in some forces, and even then there will be many with lengthy ‘acting’ or temporary experience prior to that. As the present leadership cohort has remained, the question to pose is one of pragmatism; is it likely that a dearth of ‘fresh’ supervisors entering the leadership domain has caused a temporary lull in progression towards the next generational shift?

That was a long sentence. Has austerity – instead of jump-starting ‘reform’ – actually forced conditions within police leadership that work against practical change?

A New Era

Building new workplace conditions for a changing workforce is very difficult within the policing environment. Let’s look at what happens when you discuss particular traits in context:

Transitory Careerists

This means that the average level of time spent with single companies is dropping incrementally. Even if you discount some of the research that indicates it isn’t quite as bad as many say, the researched figure in America is now 4.4 years, whereas here in the UK it sits at approximately double that. You may think that an average of 9 years isn’t too bad, but the figures are buoyed considerably by an ageing population, with young people far more likely to change careers. As the percentage of Millennials increase in the workplace, this figure will continue to fall. If we conservatively guess that it will sit at approximately 6 years by 2020, it’s fair to say that we need people to be able to drop in and out of policing not because it suits the business, but because it will suit the workforce… Many have speculated on the opposite of this, “it’s a ploy to save money etc.” The truth is that to commit to exist and compete for people in a time where the entire workforce will have changed, is a pretty important step to take.

Educated, value driven future employees

This is an important discussion to have. A recognition that the external environment in policing has travelled faster in terms of accreditation and supported transition between public services is a fairly painful one. It says a lot about our current workforce, who are operating in a high risk, high responsibility workplace, without any external recognition for that. Policing does a lot of training, but the evidence tells us that classroom based learning accounts for approximately 10% of learning that needs to take place, with the vast amount of learning sitting in peer-to-peer influence and ‘on the job’ experience. (the other 90%) That we continue to ‘train’ our officers in a classroom envt. may frustrate any efforts at ‘real’ change, and studies have also shown that NCALT sits at around 0% efficacy for actual behavioural change.

Some may say, ‘Well if this is the case, why would you want to put a degree in place?’ Firstly, it brings policing into the modern work environment, allowing greater transferability for future recruits (note: future recruits). Secondly, the proposed degree will have a high amount of ‘on the job’ learning, peer-to-peer learning, and perhaps more importantly, self driven reflective practice. What does this mean? It basically means that the practitioner does a lot of their own learning by looking back on their experiences, and trying to improve upon them. Education (note: not training) also encourages objective evaluation (critical thinking). Although some may speculate that the current environment will not support this critical thinking, as the percentage of Millennial leaders increases, it will be a vital part of future practice.

If the next generation of workers needs to feel like they are making a difference, surely it would help to actually ‘know’ that they are? This is where education comes in. There are other reasons for improving objective analysis skills, including a rise in the regulatory environment and increasing complexity of work, these too play into the ‘need for change’ mix.

I don’t want to dwell on this, the argument on both sides is complex. It is however a change aimed for the future (possibly even past 2019), rather than one that seeks to change the ‘now’.

Collective/Participative Leadership

This is a large part of the Millennial need, and it is enabled by technology. Millennials are tech savvy and comfortable on social media. Baby Boomers and Generation X prefer titles, recognition and direct communication. This clash has been most visible in the police use of social media – particularly twitter. Here is the Kings Fund’s view on what Collective Leadership is:

“Collective leadership means everyone taking responsibility for the success of the organisation as a whole – not just for their own jobs. It requires organisations to distribute leadership power to wherever expertise, capability and motivation sit within organisations.”

This supports the future of the Advanced Specialist Practitioner, the removal of hierarchy as the sole provider of expertise, and it chimes directly against the, ‘Do it your way, forget the rules,’ need of Generation X. It requires the sharing of knowledge, not the hoarding of it, and it rests fundamentally on the need for a shared goal. This is values/mission led, group orientated, high trust, networked leadership. Some may say that it is the antithesis of the current leadership environment in the cops, and in many cases I think that they would be right.

Why this may need to be slow

I mentioned earlier about the ‘slow down’ caused by austerity within public services. I encourage the reader (be they cop or otherwise) to look around and see if they can find any Millennials in places of senior leadership in policing. I would hazard – and this is a total guess – that the actual amount will be minuscule. With the current promotion structure as it stands, where experience and time served (read Baby Boomers and Generation X) hold the most value, how quickly are there going to be any in senior leadership? This is despite the fact that they will make up over 50% of the workplace in around three years. If that isn’t a recipe for a wicked cultural problem, I don’t know what is…

How can this be mitigated?

• The leaders currently in place can alter behaviour in order to better represent the growing numbers of Millennials in their ranks, invite their input and involve them in designing future change.
• Millennials can take some ownership, instead of feeling disconnected, and actively lobby for change that they wish to see.
• The service can facilitate ‘jumps’ in leadership by removing barriers, reducing ranks, and starting to mirror the external environment more closely. Talent schemes may be used to push those younger in service through to decision making positions.

This isn’t an exhaustive list, but they are some some suggestions that may help to navigate the bumpy road of the future with a little less dissonance. The truth is that the current/recent external environment has created an internal environment that frustrates the very ‘reform’ that it sought to enable. It’s left a heady mess of cultural conflict as older generations of leaders now seek to navigate the murky world of motivating Millennials, without having any Millennial counsel. The nature of work itself is changing rapidly through technology, with Millennials in the best position to steer the ship, but without any hands on the tiller…

The future of workforce development looks increasingly complicated; maybe it’s time to involve the workforce in the design of that development? Without some element of ‘together’, it may continue to operate as it does now, leaving a generation of skilled leaders in its wake.

Policing is undergoing changes that are shaking the very foundations of its identity. This blog is a reflection on that from my perspective, having spent some time involved in that change. It may get a little more personal than my usual kind of blog, so please bear with me if you are expecting another based solely on research. It is in there, it’s just hidden 🙂

I’ve just spent a week on a course which discussed the theory of knowledge. This isn’t the best way to start a blog, as many will just be instantly put off by something so obscure – and seemingly – so far removed from everyday policing. But when you really start to understand such a complex subject, you realise that it actually underpins everything we do, every day. In fact, it is so pervasive, that we can’t escape the benefits and the negatives that it produces.

I watched a serving Detective Inspector discussing a study that he had just completed into ‘Threats to Life’ and the way that we deal with them within force. These are incidents where the police come into contact with a threat made to someone’s life, and there is a set of things that we do with regards to these incidents when they happen. He was shocked to discover that the reasons behind ‘why’ a lot of these things were done were based on a ‘tacit’ understanding – which basically means that everyone just understands why they are done, it is ‘implied’ that they are all useful, and that they are just something to complete in every case. If you are a police officer reading this, you will encounter many of these ‘tick lists’ every day. They are usually applied without question and then enforced through compliance management, yet when he began to ask ‘why’ around the local procedures, he usually ended up with, ‘Because we have always done it that way,’ or the even more common, ‘Because I asked you to.’

Even more worrying was the fact that there was no training in managing ‘Threats to Life’ incidents, no consistency between areas or supervision, and no study or research of the outcomes. There were often no recorded evaluations as to why an incident was downgraded/upgraded, and over time the incidents were often downgraded simply because something else had taken priority or there was nothing else to do on  the list. Indeed, the usual discussions that took place sat firmly within the story that had created the incident, instead of any data, knowledge, insight, or deep understanding. The way that the incidents were managed often depended solely on the experience of the supervisor – which is of course totally variable.

The reason these things weren’t there, is because there wasn’t/isn’t any data/knowledge/insight/deep understanding. An incident as severe as this is without in-depth research. Are any of the actions taken by the officers involved adding any value to these occurrences, or are we creating action simply because we have to be seen to be doing something? The audit of these instances would certainly suggest that lots of actions is an acceptable indicator of ‘hard work’ to resolve the incidents, but which of these actions are actually doing something? Which are reducing that threat? Which are actually increasing safety?

We don’t know the answer to any of these questions.

These studies are beginning unravel some of the pillars of the policing profession. Experience has always been a by-word for understanding, but as we truly scrutinise our actions, we realise that understanding is often without depth, and the actions related to it are simply ‘filler.’ The commonly (and tacit) understanding in the workplace is often, ‘But if we do everything that we usually do, then surely we are going to be making a difference, and at least our backs are covered.’

During this presentation, the DI related this to medicine. It was a startling analogy. Imagine a patient walking in with a set of symptoms, and the doctor giving them a full sheet of exercises and a plethora of medication. “Here, take all of these. We think that one of them does the job for what you are suffering. There are loads of possible side effects but we know that they’ve worked occasionally in the past.” The patient then asks why, and the doctor – who hasn’t had any specific training in this area – states, “I’ve done a few of these before and they have always turned out OK. You have to trust me because I’ve been doing this a long time.”

Obviously, this wouldn’t happen. The studied knowledge that the doctor possesses allows him to make a far more focused decision, with precise dosages and times of consumption. He often has read in great depth about that particular set of symptoms, and although he realises every single patient is different, he has a set of previously proven medications/exercises that he can prescribe. Indeed, if you asked the doctor why he had made that choice, he would be able to probably describe what the medications did on a cellular level, and how they actually dealt with the problems that the patient was experiencing.

Policing is around 150 years behind medicine in evidence based practice, and although policing will never hand out prescriptions of medication, it is clear that there are actions that can be taken that do ‘work’. They create better outcomes, and as long as they applied within the right context, they are likely to produce the same effects. There is a Hampshire study ongoing (CARA) that is piloting conditional cautions in a domestic violence setting where a process of education is ‘prescribed’ for first time offenders, instead of the usual disposals. The results are great so far, and soon they should be rolled out for people to use as they deal with similar incidents. You might like to think of this as a police version of a drug trial for a particular malady or affliction…

Hopefully this has given you some context for the introduction of evidence based practice, but the theory around this is fine, the application of that theory is another thing altogether…

Policing has several ‘pillars’ or foundations to its identity. In the UK we have the big stuff, like the Rule of Law and Policing by Consent, but there are career based foundations too. These are things like ‘length of service,’ experience, ‘sound common sense,’ a tenured job for life, a good pension, and a lack of employment rights as servants of the crown. These all help to form our job identity, but they also help to form our general identity in life. We are all – in parts – our job. But police officers tend to become absorbed into policing far more severely than in other professions. Social isolation is a tenet of police culture, so as officers often become isolated from ‘non job’ friends, the ‘job’ friends become ever more important. The shared experience becomes a glue that knits cops together, and the pillars of it have been unshakeable for many years.

Social identity is individual, as who and how you identify with those that you work with can both suck you in, and spit you out. If you don’t buy into those accepted pillars, or you have opinions that differ from the established majority, then there will be a spitting out on the cards. Imagine a government then comes in and begins to question all those pillars? In fact, they go further than questioning, and they begin to dismantle the stone pillars, whilst simultaneously erecting a steel framework. This framework is far more accessible and bits of it can be replaced if necessary, but those big stone monoliths, they are coming down – one by one. There are a great many cops stood on top of those pillars, and in many cases, they may have joined the job – in part – because of them.

If you lived in a house where this kind of construction was taking place, chances are you would go to a hotel or go and stay with a friend, because living in a house that is having it’s foundations removed and replaced is going to be a pretty unpleasant experience. Indeed, I read a really good blog from @NathanConstable here that pretty much describes this experience, and it is certainly a shared one. There are a great many feeling this way, and it would go a very long way if this feeling was acknowledged and understood, instead of steam-rollering, digging and welding away under them regardless.

How do these two sections meet? They meet in a great amount of indignation, resignation, unhappiness and in some cases, hostility. No one likes to have their identity – or what makes them, them – taken away from under their feet. It’s horrible, it’s unpleasant, and it results in feelings of irrelevance (this is the worst in my opinion).

But, as we watch demand shift into very complex waters, is there any doubt that we need to be able to go deeper than, ‘but we’ve always done it that way?’ We can’t employ check lists based on a few dodgy jobs to deal with incidents that have the propensity for people to lose their life. We can’t expect the pillar of experience to deal with new kinds of jobs that simply haven’t been ‘experienced’ before – think cybercrime. We also can’t expect the pillar of ‘common sense’ to root out child sex offenders – we have to be increasingly sophisticated. All of these changes means changing the very way that we see the mode of ‘accepted’ knowledge within policing. It can’t be enough any more to have ‘done a few years,’ within an area to prove that you are the best person for the job. You need that ‘new’ knowledge, the stuff with depth of understanding and an ability to question ‘what we have always done.’ You need that drive to constantly learn about what is going on in your area of business – and this does not mean just by ‘doing’ that area of business. It means continuing, self-driven, professional development. It means asking the right questions about how to make things better, and then actually empowering people to change it.

Caretakers sat on pillars of experience ensured that the profession remained solid for many years, but the world has moved faster than we have, and renovations are under way. I feel – working in this change as I have – like a complete alien, uncomfortable and totally unaccepted by the majority of policing culture. I’m interested in giving the best possible service for the public, and I believe that there is a better way. I’m also really uncomfortable with the removal of some of these pillars, as I personally think that some were actually a good thing and need to stick around, with a steel frame built around them. I also think we should be shouting up to the people inside the house, and increasing the understanding around what is happening and why, by inviting them down to design the new framework. And the last thing I will say is that the replacing of ‘professional experience’ with a steel construct of evidence based practice is NOT the way forwards. They both need to compliment each other, so we can appreciate the craft of the artisan, tempered by the knowledge generated by research. A doctor will always use professional experience AND their medical knowledge before prescribing a drug. In the future a cop could use copper’s nose, together with the learning around ‘Threats to Life’ to ‘prescribe’ intervention that is both likely to work, AND does not result in many, many hours of wasted activity – that actually may be causing harm.

This is not an ‘either, or.’ It’s a ‘together.’ And no one should be evicted.

This whole ‘change’ business has gotten personal. I love policing, I just see it slightly differently – as many do. As I come to the end of this, there is no ‘irrelevant’ or ‘yesterday’ to anyone within policing in my opinion. If people are feeling like this, then there’s some big mistakes that have created some horrific pitfalls from the Home Office downwards. There’s no point in dwelling on that though, because the future is coming fast. We need those that are feeling like ‘yesterday’s’ police officers, to both temper and develop a service that best uses their experience, together with a new mode of learning. If we get that bit right, without pushing anyone out of the door as the builders move in, then there’s hope that the future will be one built with the best of both worlds.

Our ‘accepted’ knowledge can no longer exclude research knowledge, we have to accept that ‘the way we have always done it’ hasn’t always been the best way. But, nor can we throw that immensely valuable experience into the irrelevancy bin. Not just because it is still hugely relevant, but also because it should still form the base for delivery of our service.

I wouldn’t want a research based computer prescribing my medication, would you?

Bear with me on these next few paragraphs, I promise they are relevant.

Ignaz Semelweiss was a Hungarian physician that worked in obstetrics in the mid 19th century. For the purposes of this blog – and I won’t go into too much detail – he was a pioneer of evidence based medicine. He was the first to buck the accepted theory of ‘miasmatic’ transference of disease; this basically referred to disease being transferred through the air, instead of by contaminated contact.

Miasmatic transference was the accepted ‘norm’ within the scientific community at the time of his study, but he did not accept it as red, and conducted his study using his own observations of the difference in death rates between a maternity ward staffed with midwives, when compared with a ward staffed by doctors. The ward staffed by doctors had a much higher death rate, and the current theory of airborne infection was used to explain this. Semelweis discovered that the current airborne theory of infection was false, and that it was the fact that doctors were not washing their hands between the mortuary and other patients that was the deciding factor.

Semelweis found that when mandatory hand washing was introduced, the mortality rate dropped from 18% to 2%, and then down to 1% when they started washing the instruments too. He implemented this in the hospital where he was working, but because the current thought (we shall call it the narrative – because it was the accepted story and language of that era) was in totally the opposite direction, he was eventually removed from post by the senior managers. They were convinced that the change in mortality was actually down to an upgraded air conditioning system…

Semelweis was moved to another hospital, and shortly after moved into a mental hospital. He died there as a patient. Twenty years later, his work heralded a revolution in medical thinking, with the miasmatic beliefs dying away to be replaced with contact based disease transmission theories. In those twenty years, thousands of people died, because the current thinking and narrative would not accept this new evidence. It was too out of kilter with the theories espoused by senior medical practitioners across the country.

At this point, I will move away from mortality rates, and back into my usual discussion around cop culture. In the UK we are at the point where evidence based practice is a relatively ‘new’ term. Some of the study will buck significant narratives that have been in place for many, many years. Here is an important question:

What are the current ‘miasmatic’ theories in policing? What assumptions rule our behaviour that are totally incorrect, yet we set up entire industries around them as if they were sacrosanct?

And another just as important question:

What would we do with our Semelweis?

If someone were to find evidence that one of our accepted practices was in fact counter-productive, what would become of them? I can think of one that gave evidence at the PASC and then left the job immediately after (James Patrick); I can also think of one initiative that continues to buck repeated evidence and is still discussed as a great ‘reform’ initiative – Scared Straight. The truth is that Semelweis-like characters are likely to increase as EBP grows, and the way that profession and colleagues interact with them is also very likely to hit the front page of the newspapers.

I write this blog – again – with reference to Stop and Search. It is continuing to hit the headlines as there are rises in knife crime in London, and I have read many commentaries on dealing with the problem. Some are extremely well written and I can react positively to the sentiment, but the thinking that is required to tackle them relies heavily on experience, narrative, and culture.

I had a great conversation with a Chief Superintendent last week about the development of ‘gut feel,’ as a vital component of policing. As someone who used to love my drug jobs, I relied on it heavily, and after over a decade of experience I’m pretty good at predicting who is ‘carrying’ and who isn’t. This kind of ‘feeling’ is a direct product of experience, and somewhere in my brain, my subconscious is making connections based on previous interactions that lead to conclusions that I act upon. I’m sure that the ‘feelings’ around knife crime are similar, and there can be no doubt that removing a knife from the streets can only be seen as a good thing that may have saved a life that night.

But, we have seen a steady build up of evidence that the occurrence of knife crime is not strongly linked to the rate of stop and search. What does this mean? It means that no matter how many searches the police carry out, the effect of them upon knife crime is not significant. If you want to see the data, have a look at the work of the Police Foundation, in particular Gavin Hales here. What conclusions can we draw from this? It’s always dangerous to draw total conclusions, but it is possible to ask some serious questions:

1. If the rate of stop and search doesn’t affect the knife crime rate in a significant way, are the cops using it in the right people and in the right places? (pretty sure this is asked daily)
2. In the knife crime that takes place, would it have been possible/probable to catch the offender en route to the place of offence via stop and search?
3. Is it possible that the knives that are being found currently are carried for defense and not offence?
4. If the latter is true, how do we change tactics to address knives being used in an overtly offensive way (i.e. with specific intent).

The problem with all these questions, is that the answers take a huge amount of analysis, and are therefore lengthy and expensive. I have no idea if they are being considered, but they aren’t being discussed on public forums or on the media, nor are the wider questions of community cohesion and a culture of violence. Knife Crime is a wicked problem. It is unsolvable. The only solutions possible are ‘clumsy’ and will involve lots of different initiatives that connect and are delivered jointly. Stop and Search is not ‘the‘ answer to knife crime, it is part of a complicated tapestry – and the evidence suggests, not a very effective part at that.

At this time, the main opposing voices in this debate are external, and are mainly academics that study policing, and on the other side, police officers. The debate looks like this:

Academics: we study this with rigour, the tactics are proven to be variably poor.

Police: We know Stop and Search works because our experience tells us so and we totally believe it.

Sound familiar? It should. It’s a Semelweis problem. Experience and narrative against proven evidence. Don’t get me wrong, Stop and Search is part of the answer, but it probably needs to change in the way that it is used (significantly), and then accompanied by a plethora of other totally different interventions. Who will be the real Semelweis on this topic? Probably not me, it’s taken me weeks to pluck the courage up to even write this, such is the strength of the accepted narrative.

Opening our profession to critique is a necessary step in the process of learning. Our current assumptions that underpin our decisions can be totally incorrect, and many years in the making. These assumptions may cause people to die (as they did in medicine in the mid 19th Century with hand washing). Critical thought therefore isn’t a luxury, it’s a necessity. People’s lives depend on it.

Let’s listen to our Semelweis. They are out there. They are the different ones that won’t accept the current culture and stick out. They are the ones who constantly question, say no, and challenge rank based assumptions. Diversity in the workplace isn’t about numbers, it’s about welcoming the Semelweis characters and learning from them.

Changing deeply held assumptions takes difference of thought, but mainly, it just takes the ability to actually, actively, listen.

This isn’t a Red Button blog, as it doesn’t deal with the future. It is more an examination of what we do now, and how we do it. It professes dangers and should shine a light on some cultural issues that persist despite some concerted efforts to reduce/replace them. 

 

This blog came about after a conversation with a good friend, who just said, ‘Demand Mgmt., it’s taken over.‘ I replied, ‘Taken over what?‘ He then said, ‘It’s the new ‘performance,’ it’s all we think about.’

Unfortunately the conversation ended shortly after, and I had to leave, but I’ve been thinking about it ever since, and do you know what? He may be right. 

This isn’t a blog about any particular force, or a group of forces, or about the College of Policing; it’s about culture. It’s about, ‘The way we do things around here.’ (For those who have read about the academic material on the subject.) It’s about conformity, and the need to be on bandwagons before finding out where they are going and what the condition of the wheels looks like. That conformity comes from somewhere, and how it then displays itself in the workplace is incredibly important. What is going on with our culture in the police, and is it actually positive?

Targets are dying a very messy death across the landscape of policing. The death rattles and gurgles are continuing way past the point of acceptable standards of drama, and are now encroaching on Spaghetti Western territory where full on monologues continue despite ten bullet holes in the soon to be deceased. If you know the evidence behind targets and their use, it is actually impossible to carry on using them. The unintended consequences far outweigh the results achieved and in the context of harm caused, they can be horrific. I have alluded to these consequences before so I won’t go over them again, but performance mgmt does not sit well in ‘non-algorithmic’ work. This means that unless you are sat on a production line fixing part A to part B, carrot and stick methods of management don’t work. And policing is light years away from any production line. 

In my last blog, I mentioned some of the behaviours seen in the performance environment. The list wasn’t exhaustive, so here’s another: 

“Toe the Line or Leave”

There has been much discussion on Twitter about this phrase. It’s all about conformity, and it is actually a direct attack on dissent and difference. Translated in a slightly more verbose manner, this becomes, ‘You will do what I say, when I say it, and you will not stray from it, or question it. If you do, you can leave of your own accord as you will not be accepted.’ If one were to ask for one of the best and brightest example of Command and Control leadership, this would be a contender.

Many reading this may think that this is fair enough, as if people don’t want to be part of a team, or do the same work as everyone else, then maybe the job isn’t for them. I would challenge this really heavily, as some teams become like packs in their behaviour, and they will hunt out and exclude anyone different because it threatens the way that they think and behave. I’m not sure it’s just small teams that do this, I think strong cultures do it…

  
This happens. It happens in every profession. What happens as a result of it is a matter of how ‘strong’ the demanded conformity is, and I suggest that you can evidence that by the consequences of what happens to those outside of the accepted ‘groupthink.’ Policing is rife with tales of different officers being hounded out of the profession, and whistle blowers are treated with disdain and often end up in expensive employment tribunals. The strength of the conformity is so strong, that without it, you can often be seen a freeloader, a hanger on, an unnecessary, a dissident, a ‘disruptive influence…’

So let’s go macro on this… What do commentators say that the cops are lacking?

• Creativity – Conformity to policy is one of the biggest causes of tabloid front pages in police history. As is, ‘Computer says no.’ You can’t have a creative workforce unless creativity becomes a valuable trait within the workplace. Creativity relies on autonomy (personal control and discretion), and as this is very, very low in the cop environment, you can imagine what happens to those that display it.
• Strategy – this has been criticised in the recent reports commissioned on senior leadership by the College of Policing. Strategy is all about setting things in place now, that won’t be realised for long periods of time. It often sets strong values and mission statements that guide whole organisations to constant, planned change. Strategy requires significant forays into uncertainty, it is usually grounded in evidence, but supported by constant re-assessments of what the future may bring. It fundamentally, is a creative process.
• Innovation – I watched a talk recently, where innovation was discussed as the constant and sought after breaking of the rules. It discusses that it’s really hard to get ‘real’ innovation from within the company, because a company’s sustainability relies on those rules being followed… Imagine those rules are so tight, that any difference is seen as a threat, and then try and innovate… If you want examples of Innovation problems, I.T. (although it’s doing some catching up) is a constant reminder of what happens when you react to here and now, instead of thinking about what is coming over the horizon.

Unsurprisingly, these areas of high critique, are where you will find unadulterated difference in the people that have their strengths there. People who think differently, approach problems differently, and deal with people differently. Using a lot of contemporary leadership study, these people like bringing others together, taking calculated risks, show regular dissent, and push for change by inspiring people. 

These people may not flourish in a performance culture, and many may have left, or been so cowed by the current culture that they dare not whisper a challenge for fear of an imminent dressing down. To find these people we must look at empowering others and releasing the control of them. This means searching for answers from those working the coal face, and then giving them the influence to implement that change. Would it not be interesting to see what they could do, given half the chance?

  
Some people believe all of these three above categories to be ‘buzz’ words, but in reality they aren’t. They are only buzz words because people like using them without the right meaning attached. As a good friend tells me often, ‘No-one understands what innovation is, they just use the word in meetings.’ Innovation is held to be a change in operations that offers a difference of over 30%… Think about that, a change so deep that a third of our work is totally changed forever… I can not think of a single time that this has happened in my policing memory. That time needs to be realised now. 
 

Anyway, back to my original point and the point of this blog. The questions around demand that are now rearing their heads across the policing domain are almost performed in unison. ‘We are doing other service’s work! – This shouldn’t be a police job! – We must filter out what we are doing at Comms!’ There appears to be a huge lean towards stopping those asking us for help, because we are the wrong kind of help..? We are setting up departments to manage demand, and by the whole we don’t actually understand it enough to make any  big decisions on it yet. Many forces don’t have a deep understanding, but the narrative is established around it and everyone is talking about it. Everyone.

Performance culture stopped us really talking about demand, because everyone was counting what was coming in, instead of proper critical thought around why it was coming in. Demand management is now stopping us asking some similar but very important questions, and it is also overtaking the narrative to the point where it is stifling discussion. We can talk about the percentage of calls coming in that are crime related, but how long do those take to deal with properly? Where is the thorough analysis of start-finish case mgmt times, the timings on mental health liaison, the timings on missing from homes. That approximate 20% of calls that are crime related coming in, they may account for 80% of police activity… If that were the case, many of our arguments are hollow and without meaning…

But hey, let’s cut the numbers of logs coming in. That will solve the problem of massive cuts in our numbers? Only it won’t, or even come close. This narrative, and it is a strong narrative, is stifling the real discussions that need to take place around designing a service that can weather and deal with more work with significantly reducing staff levels. We need that 30% change, a 5%-10% reduction through managing exceptional calls for our service out of our work lists won’t do it. We need to change the way that we actually police. Demand info starts that conversation but doesn’t come close to ending it.

Everyone is saying it, but who is really doing it? We need a return of trust, discretion, and more leadership behaviours (not just Management behaviours). We need layers of audit to go, and the frontline to become autonomous professionals without the spectre of risk averse internal investigations because they made an honest mistake behind them. We need the workplace to be a positive place where cops and staff enjoy turning in, with an atmosphere of inclusion where difference and dissent is encouraged and not trodden on. We need good technology to enable new ways of working and a CJS file and court system that is fit for purpose in a mobile world. And we need – we desperately need – an inspection regime and a Home Office that will support this change. 

This, is where the 30% is. This is complex problem solving that requires collaboration, solid strategy and creative risk taking. At risk of a pun, salami slicing just doesn’t cut it.

 
I will finish on an example of what a strong narrative does to difference. The current narrative around stop and search is so stark on Twitter. There are educated people trying to chip in with things like research evidence and community experience, but they are repeatedly shouted down by the constant ‘stop and search works’ commentary. The evidence over the last few years shows that this link is tenuous at best. I need to labour this, people have studied large numbers of searches and their efficacy in the criminal justice system, and they have found that the link between stop and search and reducing crime is weak.

Officers with experience of using it have been told that it works for years, and may have caught people carrying before. It has been the established narrative that when there’s a stabbing, up the stop and search in the area. Cops believe this wholeheartedly, it is a well motivated belief, and I used to believe it too. I have seen the research now, and I understand the data, and it says my belief is wrong. I accept this, but some may attack the evidence because it threatens an established narrative that they believe – to draw a stark contrast, this is what happens with strong ideology in religion.

The problem with the strength of this narrative, is that it stops critical discussion. It stops us asking the right questions. If knife crime is going up now and everyone (I mean I don’t actually think I’ve seen a cop on Twitter ask these questions – despite there being many) immediately jumps to the conclusion that it is because stop and search is falling, what does that say about the ‘strength’ of our culture? What if the real reason behind the rising stabbing is a lack of policing legitimacy, rather than anything to do with stop and search? What if the issue is rising poverty and tribalism within stricken communities? What if the issue is that the drugs trade is hitting rates similar to that seen in places like Baltimore in the US? What if there is a rising threat of death as retribution within street level disputes, and this has nothing to do with stop and search?

All of those questions, unasked because we ‘know’ it’s stop and search. 

Only we don’t. We don’t at all. 

Why are those questions not being asked? Because that is the strength of the police narrative, the strength of assumption, and it irons out critical thought, creativity, strategy and difference. It has to stop, it’s dangerous.

This is another challenging blog, and one which – again – I make no apologies for writing. As a cop who has lived through the worst of this culture at its height, I am incredibly thankful my force moved away from these behaviours many years ago. I am aware that some persist, but you can’t fight what you can’t see, here’s some binoculars 😁

 “I need to show a reduction by March. That’s it, now you make it happen. I don’t care how you do it, but you will do it.”

Performance culture at its worst. At the height of New Public Management (public management techniques that centre around league tables, competition and percentages) the affect upon policing on the front line was felt keenly. Managers were rewarded by reduction, including bonuses for senior managers if they ‘performed’ exceptionally. These bonuses weren’t small either, and well worth the label of ‘incentive’ were anyone to ask.

In a hierarchical organisation where command and control rule, the demands for cuts were hierarchically enforced, commanded, and demanded. Control was a huge part of the deal, with micro management by senior managers a regular part of the day’s proceedings. It was commonplace to be questioned on the name of the victim from last night’s burglary, or the number of target visits that were conducted. If you didn’t know these snippets, well the wrath was unleashed with lashings of disapproval. You were ‘letting the side down,’ ‘didn’t understand how it worked,’ or were simply, ‘not up to the job.’ 

Morning meetings were incredibly well attended with frontline Sgts, coordinators (also Sgt’s), intelligence, burglary robbery team supervision, CID, several Inspectors, a Chief Inspector and sometimes a Supt. they lasted an hour at least as each area went over – in great detail – what had happened the night before and what we were doing about it. If the management system hadn’t been updated (even if the actions had been completed) there was admonishment for that PC/Sgt en route, and God forbid a lack of immediate follow up on any Serious Acquisitive Crime. At one point I costed this meeting for the year, it was astounding. This is where the phrase, ‘Shoulda, woulda, coulda meetings,’ was born.

Serious Acquisitive Crime (SAC) was a strange category because it classed domestic burglary as the same level of severity as a theft from an unattended vehicle. Invading a house and stealing keepsakes, has far more impact than a smashed quarterlight and stolen Sat Nav, but hey, they were counted and part of the league tables so they received special attention. There was a squad dedicated to SAC and we were under huge pressure to reduce our numbers, so much so that we had staff dedicated to the management of crime reports in and out of the SAC categories for jobs that were borderline in other categories. What I saw in this area wasn’t corrupt, but it was a huge waste of money and did absolutely nothing for victims. 

All that mattered was the numbers. Even when we were talking about victims, it was about victim satisfaction scores, or public confidence levels. The target wasn’t catching the burglar, it was turning the crime from red to green on the system. 

All of these behaviours were discussed extensively in the PASC inquiry into crime statistics. We as a force had moved away from this culture and all targets had been removed by the time of this inquiry. I had my fair share of ‘brushes’ with this culture, as on many occasions I refused on principle to do certain things asked of me. It harmed my work life and there were times when I questioned being a cop, I didn’t join for this stuff, and I know that many feel the same way. 

History aside, what were the defining cultural behaviours on evidence during this period? I could refer to my previous blogs on culture here and here, as much of it applies, but I won’t, let’s get specific. 

Meetings

  
Performance meetings. What do they really do?

Well, I guess the answer is that it depends on what is in them. From a practical perspective, how do they actually help what is going to happen in the future? Who are they run by? Mgmt. Who call the shots? Mgmt. Who asks the questions? Mgmt. Who designates actions? Mgmt. Who holds the attendees to account? Mgmt. Who delves into the detail? Mgmt.

You get the picture.

I need to know how any of the above actions actually helps the frontline do their job a little better? In a time of diminishing resources (well, to be fair, all of the time) the frontline need management assistance and not increasing scrutiny. What does it really do? Forces them to comply? Yes. Coerces them to do extra on top? Definitely. How does this help form relationships and foster a learning environment?

Inspires the frontline? No. Empowers them? No. Assists them? No. Engenders trust? Definitely not. Raises standards??? Standards of what, form filling and recording?  Encourages creativity? No again. Develops people? Nope. Improves relationships? Nope. 

I could just go on forever. I just can’t see how knowing about what happened the night before (unless it’s exceptional) helps anyone? If the Mgmt. want that info, surely they could get it from the computer systems themselves? Why do frontline officers who should be dealing with victims have to sit and prep for a hours at a time to satisfy this style of micro mgmt, when the actual product of the meeting is mistrust and extra distance between ranks? It is the job of the immediate line manager to manage their team and keep an eye on standards. If you need a meeting to do this in your organisation then you are stating that the immediate line mgmt is inadequate by proxy. What message does that send?

What of actual value comes out of these meetings, and is that product actually worth taxpayers cash? 9/10 times the actions decided at the meeting would have happened anyway or had already been considered and discarded by the attending officer.

I’m sorry, I’m asking too many questions here, let’s move on. 

Individual Staff Performance

I remember a particular conversation I had about one of my team. I was told that a particular member of staff had hardly made any arrests, conducted any stop/searches, or submitted any process and that I needed to put them on a action plan to improve. This member of staff was amazing. They dealt with all the complex hand overs and sexual offences for CID, and were also qualified to run complex video interviews of victims and witnesses. As such, they were often ‘off the grid,’ and had low enforcement stats. I tried to explain this, but the numbers ruled. This member of staff was seen as poor according to the spreadsheets. 

How can I as a a supervisor justify a conversation where I tell one of my cops they are performing badly, when I know for a fact they work their backside off? I can’t. And I didn’t. 

  
What cultural behaviours does this create? Well people chase and get very good at things that get counted. And the thing that gets counted is the objective, and not what it is meant to measure. A classic example would be chasing arrests as they are positive indicators, which causes cops to lean towards them during interactions with the public. I think we know where that may lead. But, the opposite is also unfortunately true too. The things that don’t get measured, like empathy, understanding, compassion, demeanour, and kindness are superfluous to the amount of counted detections (cases cleared up).

It also leads to cops judging others on the same things that they judge themselves on. If you are an enforcement cop, then you may (just may) judge other cops on their ability to enforce. These officers will say (I know, I’ve heard it many times), “What does that officer actually do? I never see them in custody and they don’t like fighting, and look at the detections they’ve had? They don’t do anything!” Why the hell would we encourage staff to rate themselves against others who have totally different skill sets?

If culture likes enforcement – and New Public Management liked it a lot – those cops that do equally as important activity, but don’t get the ticks in boxes, are often derided. If you are looking for answers about how difference is ironed out in police, look no further than the assiduous habit of counting beans…

Officer mindset

What should be first and foremost in the officer’s mind when they attend an incident? I think all should agree that it should be the victim’s best interest, with a smattering of societal/experience based context. What do the setting of performance targets do in this context? Well, they become the focus instead. Upon landing at an incident governed by a target, the attending officer has the immediate goal of ensuring the victim is safe, following that, it is the satisfaction of that target that shapes the next few minutes/hours. If it isn’t, the officer will be put through the ringer following the performance meeting the next morning, as opportunities for detections are to be taken at every opportunity…

Even if the officer fights the culture, it will still be a prominent consideration throughout the interaction with the victim, often overshadowing the personal qualities of the interaction, unconsciously. As an avid ‘problem child’ in performance mgmt terms, even I caught myself wondering about the easiest way to turn crimes green and get them off my screen. 

This, is faulty thinking. As an officer, I should be sitting and listening to that victim with all of me there, in that moment, not wondering about how I escape or complete the task, but how I can help the person in front of me. This is where the most insidious facets of performance culture exist, they supplant the purpose for which officers join the job and replace them with a construct forged by spreadsheet.

 
The Red Button

Ok, so the button has been pressed. Performance culture is gone. What does a new culture look like?

Performance meetings

Imagine a performance meeting that became a place to learn. A meeting where a senior manager asks if there had been any screw ups or near misses in the last 24 hours? How about any really good successes? And then asks… ‘What did we learn, and how can we ensure that it does/doesn’t happen again?’ As another suggestion, what could happen if the roles were reversed and the frontline got to to ask questions on the performance of senior managers over the last last 24 hours? Imagine that both of these scenarios could take place without any blame? Where learning comes, and is shared, without any witch hunt or ‘accountability‘, which actually presently only seems to sit at the bottom… 

Let’s be radical. If nothing exceptional had happened in the last 24 hrs, how about we don’t have any meeting and we use the time to ‘go back to the floor,’ or for the frontline to use as ‘innovation time’ where they come up with ideas about how to make things better – for them and the victims. If anything, this time can be used for something that actually produces something positive, instead of retrospective negativity.

Individual Staff Performance

Boxes and grids and numbers can no longer be the future of staff appraisal. Instead of managing officers by numbers, supervision need to get out of the office and actually watch how they interact with the public. The best feedback is given at the time, and it’s also where both the cop and supervisor can actually learn from each other. Where is the feedback on values, and ethics, and kindness, on role modelling, on compassion, and on empathy? Where is the Sgt leading from the front with officers and providing visible examples of good practice to generate learning? Where is the Sgt learning from the PCs about their leadership style and how they can improve?

The quality of conversation in this area is rubbish and governed by numbers. It needs changing. 

Officer mindset

Targets must go. And never return. Numbers must never supplant the officers discretion in doing what is right for the victim. This means autonomy, and it means trust, and it means mgmt empowering frontline staff to interact with the victim and do what is right for them, not what is right for the organisation. This means letting go of spreadsheets as the definer of activity, and using them as an indicator instead. It means mature performance management with statistical process control charts and long term outlooks. Above all, it means change, and big change at that. 

As a final note, numbers and charts denote control. They denote tangibility, predictability, and they allow simplification of complex interactions. These are useful, but where is the comfort with uncertainty, the acceptance of being out of control, and the understanding of complexity? Cops do not commit crime, so blaming them for it is like blaming midwives for pregnancy. The future is uncertain, and pretending to have control of it is immensely damaging. It promotes a belief that police actually do far more than they do, and places false reliance on activities that actually hold no value. 

The future doesn’t look like the past. A=B is dead and gone, and we are in an environment of simultaneous equations in its place. It’s a complicated landscape with lots of interdependencies, I would just like cops to come to work and enjoy what they do, and work hard because they want to, not because I (or anyone else) forces them to. And when they make mistakes – and they will, just like we all do – I’d rather we take that learning and get it out there to stop it happening again. 

Performance culture holds us back, not pushes us forwards. It’s time to let it go.

  
This is another challenging blog, and I hope you take it in the way that I intended for it to be taken. It’s critical, but constructive, and that is what the Red Button is all about. How do we make a better future – emphasis on we?

Culture. 
It has a lot to answer for. I’ve posted this before on my Twitter account, and it generated some good conversation. Here it is again, it’s worth a read, and it tells us a lot about the enduring facets of cop culture.

This is an excerpt from an academic text, so if it reads a little jargon-ey, that’s why. What does it really say? It says that police culture is characterised by a set of core cultural characteristics, these being:

1. An exaggerated sense of mission – often characterised by the, ‘We are the rough men…’ Speeches.
2. Crave work based on crime and exciting incidents/duties.
3. Celebrate masculine exploits (see 1).
4. Show willingness to use force.
5. Engage in ‘informal’ working practices – this means ignoring the rules and doing what is culturally acceptable.
6. Continually suspicious and lead socially isolated lives.
7. Display defensive solidarity with colleagues.
8. Conservative in politics and morality.
9. Culture marked by cynicism and pessimism.
10. Simple understanding of criminality (goodies and baddies).
11. Intolerant towards those that challenge the status quo.

This has been evidenced repeatedly in studies across many decades, with what is called qualitative methodology. This is where the culture is observed and then commented on, or officers are interviewed or take part in focus groups, with the transcripts pored over and studied for themes. These themes have emerged again and again, with very recent research holding fast on them (read book/articles by Bethan Loftus if you have time, they are very insightful).

If anyone were to contest the existence of these characteristics, I would point purposefully to Twitter, where they are repeatedly evidenced ad-infinitum. Again and again, the same themes emerge, characterised by defensive cynicism and aggressive suspicion of anything new. 

To be ‘in the club,’ you must trust no one, congratulate masculine use of force, defend anything and everyone even loosely connected with policing, and regard all new things as TJIF (the job is f***ed).

Twitter is of course a window that looks into the heart of police culture, the problem being, that people who are not inside the culture (the public) can also see in and watch these characteristics flourish under anonymous accounts. Now, I need to ask a question about the above characteristics, if you were not inside the culture or had been a part of it, how would they look to you? 

Sometimes I step away from the keyboard, and think about what is being typed for all to see. I may think that I am ‘telling it like it is,’ but the reality is that some very ugly characteristics could be being broadcast to the world and not only are they not helping to turn the tide, they are sending the public face of the cops, backwards. Under a relentless tide of media oppression and scrutiny, is aggressive defensiveness going to get us anywhere? I mean… Anywhere?

There are two sets of enduring characteristics that are not on that list up there. 

The first is the relentless tenacity of those cops completely disengaged from the organisation they work for, that care deeply for the victims and the public that they serve. These people are an inspiration to me, shouldering the shifts, the heartache, the social isolation, the cynicism and the pessimism around them, and the tough work they are asked to do, because they want to help people. These people are heroic, and I don’t mean in the ‘we are the rough men…’ sense, I mean in the ‘showing up to work with a smile on their face ready to face the next set of challenges,’ sense. And those challenges don’t come from outside exclusively either, the culture above has sometimes resulted in a selection of leaders that embody all of those things. (Definitely not all leaders by the way, just some.) Would you want to follow a relentlessly suspicious and pessimistic leader, who is hugely defensive in the face of criticism and values only macho and exciting parts of the job? 

The second characteristic not on the list belong to those that fight that culture. I can think of two great bloggers in the Twittersphere, these being MentalHealthCop and NathanConstable. Insp Michael Brown is currently influencing the role of mental health in policing across many sectors. He is advising other professions on the role of the police, whilst offering education and challenge to current practitioners in policing. I’ve used his blogs practically, and I mean pointed serving doctors at them whilst engaged in a spirited debate and who has responsibility for what. I find that inspirational, and Insp Brown is doing it all because he cares. Nathan (I have met Nathan too) describes himself as a ‘positive agitator’ in his bio. He’s knowledgeable, he cares, and he is passionate about finding a better way. There’s a good role model for social media; someone who challenges constructively and is not afraid to learn. Other pioneers like SgtTcs and ConstableChaos also inspire, by being people, and having a real interest in just engaging with the public positively.

If we pressed the Red Button, and social media and culture was gone, how would we rebuild it? Would we want a landscape filled with negativity and defensiveness, or would we want somewhere that generated support and looked at new things with a critical – but constructive, eye?

I know police officers who see Twitter as a passive place to learn. They log in, roam around some timelines a little, maybe click the odd link, and then leave. When I ask them why they don’t tweet, the answer is almost always the same, ‘It’s a pretty hostile place and being positive can be risky, I don’t want the hassle.’ I suspect the hassle comes from two places, cop culture on Twitter, and management enforcing strict control limits on social media. Both of these issues are destructive. They stifle debate, creativity, interaction, and they also erode trust (see ‘suspicious’ and ‘pessimistic’ characteristics above). I’m just going to add here (after comments from @Julieanneda who is great and should be followed by everyone) that using Twitter to reach out and for catharsis is goddamn important, and it may have really helped some. Being negative and complaining about bad experiences can result in great good, it’s the dragging down of others that defines the real issue.

The problem, is that passivity won’t solve the problem, and there is no Red Button.

If we want change for the better, anonymous, negative, defensive Twitter accounts are not the best vantage point from which to demand it. In fact, I would go as far as to say that they may be hugely counter-productive and although it may be cathartic, they may do more to reinforce the negative aspects of our culture than they do to help anybody. If that’s your bag, cool, but stifling debate with relentless ad hominem attacks and negativity only ruins the experience for others. 

Change – and big change at that, is here to stay for several years. If we are to survive it, and help keep people safe, we can shout about how bad the change is and how we have got no money, or we can control the controllables and do the best we can, with what we have. The best isn’t what we already have, and I think we can all agree on that. We are operating on a policing model that has been in place for decades as the world has changed around us. Would it be nice to have more money? Yes, it would, but we haven’t, and the time for mourning is past.

The future of the cops needs culture to change, away from command and control and compliance and punishment and blame… To somewhere more open, where ideas and new approaches can be discussed with a critical – but positive – dialogue. Being positive is a choice, and no matter how bad things may be, everyone has the choice to see issues and challenges as an opportunity to get something decent, or lay back and just criticise relentlessly.

  
It takes courage to stand up and fight back constructively. It takes courage to look for the light in the bleakest of landscapes. It takes courage to avoid the desire to just bitch and let the bad stuff happen. Those aspects of culture not in that passage above are the ones we need, and I implore you, if you are reading this and you want things to be better, start tweeting, start messaging, start talking, start emailing and find out how you can help and challenge constructively, because that’s how you actually change things.

The world was never changed from an arm chair, and I’m not going to sit by and watch these cuts do huge damage, without having some say in how we protect the most vulnerable and our cops in the process. 

You can have a say too, and Twitter is only one way of doing that.

Being involved in positive change is a choice. Make it.