Law Enforcement and Social Media: If I had a hammer… building social media presence I was talking with a citizen activist about social media use during events such as protests when he made a simple, yet effective, analogy. That is, like any tool, social media can be used for good or bad. Take a hammer for [...]

A doctor and a police officer are both worried about management practices in their organizations. The doctor thinks that chasing targets is affecting clinical decision making and affecting patient safety. The police officer thinks that chasing targets is causing dysfunctional organizational behavior and affecting public safety. Both try to raise their concerns and both are [...]

The Cultural Revolution & the Role of Police Silence This week The Badge Guys discuss Police Silence The Code & the Lamb. In addition to Juli Adcock and me, two very distinguished forces join us; Lauri Stevens and @NathanConstable. The topic of a code of police silence and its effect on social media use by [...]

When I first got into law enforcement, pagers were the rage; the few cell phones available were big, clunky and only made phone calls. By the time I retired, there were computers installed into patrol cars, internet capabilities were vastly increased with more and more households utilizing computers and the internet. With the advent of [...]

Your Voice The Badge Guys are super excited to bring you this week’s conversations about the culture, traditions and future of policing. What voice do you share in the communities served? Do you have opportunities for voicing your opinions, ideas or suggestions? The “Code” in this week’s theme title refers to our self-imposed and cultural [...]

Community Policing & Problem Solving The COPS Era, with a few exceptions is a series of missed attempts for addressing America’s frustration over the divisive period of the 1960s. The farce that it was something revolutionary by branding it as neighborhood-based failed to convince cops or communities. Ask any cop what are the central principles [...]

In covering the political era and the evolution into the reform era of policing, we have seen a change in focus from very local control of police, to a higher level of outside influence primarily at the state level. Proceeding into the COPS or community oriented policing service era, the advent of the 1994 Omnibus [...]

We have covered about 150 years of who we are. Bringing us into the era of the 1970’s, we still have many remaining. The last 2 weeks have been fun and educational, and who doesn’t love the old school Dragnet video embeds? To briefly bring you up to speed; The Political Era – 1840 – [...]

The Policing Reform Era – 1930 – 1970 is also known as the Professional Era and the Era of August Vollmer. Why? Simply because this period in U.S. history experienced the most radical change for policing, and he led most of it. The Badge Guys asked two weeks ago who is the father of law [...]

After the corruption and chaos resulting from the Political Era of policing exemplified by “Boss” Tweed and the Tammany Hall machinery; pressure rose to reform the administration of policing, along with the mission focus within policing. Technological advances such as cars, radios and telephones dramatically influenced how policing was performed and changed the relationship between [...]