Written by Don Washington   

Today’s tutorial is on the basics of the Quality Policing Initiative (QPI), a set of public policy initiatives designed to transform not reform policing and Mayor Emanuel’s faux policing reforms. The QPI is both a framework of five general principles and a set of specific suggestions the must be tailored to address specific police contracts and on the ground realities.

It is built for those who want to transform the police from an occasionally and/or all too often violent face of an occupying power into civil servants whose job it is to protect our civil rights. This concept of policing and the very idea of deploying “public policy” to create quality policing as part of enhancing public safety as a public service is so alien to Mayor Rahm Emanuel that just a month or so ago he was talking about policing “going fetal” at a time where the department’s levels of violence are increasing in a way that would make the old East German STASI shake their heads in silent admiration.

We don’t need a thousand more officers on our streets who will receive the same training and be dropped into a toxic culture that sees many of the citizens officers are tasked to serve and protect as threats to be monitored and neutralized. We don’t need our police to undergo “sensitivity training” that they will resist like the Anti-Christ being dragged into a church we need to make the police accountable to a social contract that holds them to a higher moral and ethical standard than ordinary citizens.

A standard that acknowledges that it is a BAD thing that presently an officer who is having a really bad day can shoot someone down and beat them senseless with relative impunity. So strap in students we’re getting out some fact-bats to take to the knees of the people in charge… our Mayor and the Alder-creatures who need to push him if he won’t act.

Mayor Emanuel Discovers a Set of “Pəblik Päləsē” Initiatives on Policing… and He’s not Good At It

If you have lived in Chicago since Mayor Rahm Emanuel began “indwelling” on the Fifth Floor of City Hall you know that he doesn’t do public policy. We’ve no evidence that he knows what it is. What he does is create public-private partnerships to create profit for his campaign investors, while reducing bodies on payrolls and in pension plans, so he can better monetize public resources while all the while reducing any and every public service to their lowest common denominator of delivery.

It could be called public policy on a financial shoestring but that is belittling the idea of a shoestring and none of the above is about public service… it’s about getting out of public service or maybe a better way to put it is… some private entity getting all they can out of the public coffers.

What this has meant for policing is that since 2011 we’ve had several variations of policing that have worked out badly for the safety of any African-American in a free-fire policing zone… I’m sorry Operation Impact/CAPS Renovation Renewal/Expanded Anti-Violence Initiative Program areas of operation Mayor Rahm Emanuel released a “Police Reform” package that augers badly for the very concept of public safety… but remember he’s not doing public policy… he’s just trying to it… badly.

The Chicago Police Department has decided that it will train every officer in the use of tasers and that every patrol car is going to have one on hand. There are studies that prove that tasers don’t reduce police brutality or shootings anywhere they have been introduced.

In fact one can make a good argument that expanding taser use here in Chicago is going to give us more not less police brutality. We may be “treated” to a lot of scary “compliance footage” of black folks jerking around like marionettes getting lit up by Chicago policemen. Oh joy, as a black man who spends a lot of time in places where the police have a history of acting on... um... impulse(?) this is news I take with a level of concern between damn and angry resignation.

Another “reform” is that after a police-involved shooting the officer is going to spend 30 days at a desk where they may decide to seek counseling, if they wish. This will also give the State’s Attorney’s Office and the Independent Police Review Authority (IPRA) thirty days to do an investigation instead of seventy-two hours.

Wait, what? Presently, apparently (IPRA) and the State's Attorney's Office only have 72 hours to investigate a police-involved shooting… Who’d have thought that there is a time limit on the investigation of a possible murder? Does this mean the (IPRA) and Anita Alverez have been investigating police-involved shootings in 72 hours or less? Huh, one would think a shooting is investigated until it is settled no matter how long it takes… didn’t they say something about the Laquaan McDonald Case taking a long time to investigate or have someone else investigate it? Honestly, one does not know what to make of this “reform” measure.

Finally they are going to implement a five-step de-escalation training. Which is probably the Verbal Judo Training model or it could be the S.A.F.E.R 8 to 5 training. I don’t think that this would hurt… if Mayor Rahm Emanuel had ever actually deployed any kind of public policy with adequate funding or an actual focus on delivering public service but since he has never done such a thing we are going to get some version of Public Policy Theater.

So IF we are lucky we are going to get this done on the cheap. It is likely that he is going to train a handful of officers who are going to then train the rest of the department.

I have forgotten more about de-escalation techniques than most people will learn. One of the many things I know is that if I train a bunch of trainers it takes between three of five years of extensive, hands-on, direct training to build a large enough cadre of skilled trainers for the culture to take hold within the entity being trained.

Another thing I know is that one-third of highly motivated trainers wash out when the program is vigorously supported and it takes tying the program to higher levels of advancement within the overall organization to make it a self-sustaining entity that keeps growing.

Finally, if the training program… and it has to be a program, does not become an elite formation within the organization that drives its culture the program fails. You really think that Mayor Rahm Emanuel and the Chicago Police Department wants the officers in its training program to become on the fast track to run the joint? The other thing you need to know about any kind of police training that stops at the Verbal Judo Training model or the S.A.F.E.R 8 to 5 training model does not deal with the full panoply of Crisis Intervention, Cross Cultural and Anti-Racism Training that they need to do their job… at least better but one would hope well.

What the Quality Policing Initiative Might Look Like Here

All of this proves at least three things. One, if Mayor Emanuel really wants to do something that is not in violation of the police contract he can just implement it.

Two, if we want police transformation it is going to mean directly addressing what’s in the police contract and that is going to be the mother of all throw downs because the police contract in terms of accountability, reciprocity and transparency, is a document that virtually exempts police officers from any of the above.

The contract is an anti-social behavior/violence generation protection device. Three, if we don’t get to asking for something concrete we are going to keep getting things like body cameras and tasers that will have minimal impact on bad police training and worse police culture.

A Quality Policing Initiative (QPI) demands reciprocal, professional, accountable and cooperative policing by holding police to standards of public service that match the fact that police have the power to arrest, assault and kill citizens. A QPI approach identifies and addresses all five areas of policing and though it has to be tailored to address the specifics of Chicago’s situation and police contract here are some basics.

That said part being that none of these reforms would ever occur to Mayor Emanuel, his present puppet-poppet the former First Deputy now Interim Superintendent John Escalante or the hilariously bad at its job Chicago Police Board.

Recruitment – Officers on the force should reflect the citizens it polices.

The Chicago Police Department should be aggressively recruiting minority and LGBTQ officers. It should also be working to recruit candidates from Chicago proper who have grown up in the city and from the city. It should be focused on recruiting officers who have conflict resolution and intervention backgrounds not former soldiers and private sector security experts.

If you want problem-solvers and community protectors you have to look for them. If you keep picking bullies and order-taking automatons then you will get a culture that reflects them. Which is what we have now.


Training – Officers should be oriented to aid citizens and have significant non-violent and unarmed skill sets.

It is not enough to train officers in “tactical communication”. Officers need to have crisis intervention training. Officers need to have cultural competency training. There needs to be a training program that replicates itself and sets a culture within the Chicago Police Department. If the training does not create and drive a new culture there won’t be a new culture.

Deployment – Officers should be deployed to engage communities not monitor and aggressively control them.

Our police should be demilitarized so we withdraw from federal programs that “up-arm” and “up-armor” or expand military-style training and tactics throughout our police forces. The implementation of field contact cards that chart every interaction with the community. Police deployed with the intent and instructions to help people not monitor and assault them, which is the opposite of sweeps, raids and hot-spots.

Remember, officers rarely stop crimes they usually respond to them and usually they are responding to the aftermath. Most of their time is spent moving around and through communities. If they are deployed to build goodwill and be of assistance over time that is what will happen.

Accountability – Officers should be held to such high standards that the use of any force is rare and deadly force odd.

There should be an Early Warning System that keeps a permanent record of officer behavior. If an officer has
(a) numbers and patterns of disciplinary complaints against each officer by citizens and police personnel;

(b) allegations of racial bias and domestic violence, civil actions against the officer;

(c) use of force as documented in the "use of force" reports;

(d), illegal entries and searches as documented in the "search and seizure" reports;

(e) other reliable indicia of "at risk" officers and which recommends increased monitoring, supervision, and/or counseling of the officer when the threshold for triggering action by the Early Warning System is reached. This is just one safeguard we could deploy.

Advancement - Officers should be rewarded for aiding citizens and protecting their rights not arresting and assaulting them.

Officers should be rewarded and advanced for learning and deploying well-honed communication and intervention skills and for having positive interactions with the public. We want to build the training and encounters with the public into their advancement.

If training is not tied to advancement and the use of force continues to be seen as a factor in favor of advancement there is no reason to believe the police force will or one should expect that it should change. There is of course more and we could go into a lot of details but that is for another day and like I said these are the basics.