Persuasion and effective Communication for Law Enforcement

Applications for Patrol, Investigation, Undercover Operations and Survival

Ph.D. Randolph D. Hicks II

• Publisher: Randolph D. Hicks II
• Year: 2020
• Edition: 1
• eBook ISBN:
  9781641117661
• Topic: Education
• Subtopic: Behavioural Management

CHAPTER 1

FRAMEWORK: PERSUASIVE COMMUNICATION AND LAW ENFORCEMENT

In the first paragraph of the first page of this book, your writer made a declaration that, in retrospect, should be given an award for the understatement of all time. He admitted that he himself did not invent or create this notion of the application of effective communication to law enforcement needs. In his own defense, he very much wants to set the record straight. Yes, it is true that he is of the Vietnam generation, but he was nowhere near My Lai. He was toting guns, all right, but only under the authority of a badge in the US. And he was in San Francisco but there too late to start the earthquake and fire. It wasn’t started by police, anyway—though we have been accused of worse. Admittedly, he was also working cases in Los Angeles—but Rodney King hadn’t even been born yet. All right, he has been suspected of being John Doe #2, but remember the federal government later stated that John Doe #2 didn’t exist. Your author is not, all in all, that bad, and he does have some redeeming qualities. Actually he was going to include them here, but the publisher said there wasn’t enough space.

Yet he did shave the truth a little to make himself look good. We will call such behavior an occupational hazard of being police. In truth, he was a little late in arranging the marriage of our profession to communication theory—about 2,500 years late. As we say, close enough for government work, right?

Hundreds of years before Christ was born, in ancient Greece, Aristotle taught his students almost everything that was known at that time. One of his students was Alexander the Great. He taught them about mathematics, about ethics, and about people. His Rhetoric is the most profound and practical explanation of human nature known to man. In it, he stated this: Communication is the capacity to discover, in any given situation, the available means of persuasion. No, sir. Your author did not invent or create this. It—the most valuable tool law enforcement will ever have—simply lay there to be picked up and put to use. But then, Aristotle was no police. So why should any of our types listen to him? He probably couldn’t even get through the academy and never would have completed probation with a “know-it-all” attitude like his. And what did Alexander the Great ever accomplish? Sure like to see him on a family dispute in progress call. Shots fired!

Since this came up, let’s see what kind of things our boy Alexander would encounter today. We’ll just call it a…“Task Analysis for Alex!”

Objective: To Protect and Serve

This is a fine motto-but by itself, of little use. It doesn’t tell us anything. The real questions are more like:

• What do we actually do out there?
• What specific subtasks, or little chores, do we really have to perform?
• What are the specific tools we have to use and which are most important?
• What specific skills and abilities do we have to develop and employ to use these tools and get these tasks done?

Somehow, these third grade–level revelations have escaped the minds of most of those enlightened ones calling themselves educators and trainers in our field. For those with some sense, they begin to point the way to what police work is, what a policeman is, and what appropriate training and education just might look like. But of course, such a picture might interfere with the agendas of the phonies trying to serve themselves rather than help you. Though George Kirkham referred to them as “subsidized dreamers,” there is some question. Most of this comes from deliberate selfishness, not airheadedness.

Let’s push this a little further: Using Wilson’s framework, what are some of these subtasks, or chores, that we have to get done and that create protection and service?

Service	Order	Arrests
Animal complaints	Field interviews	Search warrants
Stranded motorists	Investigative stops	Traffic citations
Found property	Unwanted subjects	Accident
Missing children	Assaults	investigation
Legal advice	Drunks	Drug possession
Bicycle safety talks	Landlord–tenant	Burglary in
Directions	disputes	progress
Messages	Loud parties	Serious assaults
	Family conflicts	Stolen vehicles
	Enforcement

To help Alexander out, it might be a good idea to clarify a little more of what is involved in order maintenance, service, and law enforcement. Law enforcement involves apprehension and the prevention of crimes that are in progress or appear to be in progress, making arrests and other activities that focus on whether a crime has been committed and who is guilty. Order maintenance may involve these things as an accidental or incidental by-product, but there are major differences. Order maintenance is concerned with behavior that disturbs the peace and involves face-to-face interpersonal conflict. Also, in maintaining order, blame must be determined. As James Q. Wilson so aptly points out, order is adequately defined nowhere, and what it constitutes is a matter of opinion and practice. It is certainly not a state of nature. Often, whether the law has been broken or not, the officer is usually confronted with disputants who all claim the problem is the other person’s fault. Often, there is no clear violation of the law. Service, on the other hand, takes in such a broad assortment of requests and needs from the citizenry for assistance that it defies clear description. The basic reasons for the police providing such service can be traced back to the history of American policing, when the police were the only governmental agency available on a twenty-four-hour basis in time of need. As a result, the public has come to rely on them for services of all kinds, and those services are free—or appear to be.

The boy Alexander would be quite busy, wouldn’t he? Imagine being resurrected from the dead, almost 2,500 years old, and having to deal with things like this. We should at least give him the tools a modern officer would have at his disposal. How about a sidearm? Scratch that—give him a shotgun. Pepper spray wouldn’t hurt either, especially with a Taser for backup. He’ll need a notebook and a pen or a pencil; a computer in his unit, with a translation program for ancient Greek; handcuffs and a flashlight might be good—maybe even starlight and heat imaging too. Lots of tools and toys. How about a regular list so that after computerizing it, he can go “die-rectly” to the nearest police supply house and commandeer what he needs:

Sidearm and shotgun

Baton Notebook Pens Flashlight

Handcuffs Chemical spray Portable radio Rubber gloves

Uniforms Extra ammo Lunch (no time to stop!)

Please go back and look again at the list of encounters and the list of tools. Really study this—for you. What do you not see? How about some hints: What do you actually do to find out what this animal complaint is about? Now look at your tools. Pick another one. How do you even find out who the complainant is and who the unwanted subject is? What do you actually do? Look at your tools again. Traffic accidents and enforcement. Ever heard of the seven-step violator contact procedure? Look at your tools. The tool you must use in virtually every one of these situations is not on the list. You cannot see it on an officer, but recruit Alexander is not going to be able to function at all without it. It is invisible, but it is there. Unlike every other tool on our list, it will be used every time. Yes, interpersonal communication. Consider this:

1. You are going to have to use it for every contact and task.
2. Your ability to use it will be the most significant determinant of the quality of job you are able to do…and how safe you are going to be.
3. This thing is double edged: you can cut yourself with it, and it can be taken from you.

Apparently our Greek friend Aristotle sensed he was on a roll and was determined to get as much mileage out of it as he could. He was not about to leave things alone. He added that crucial to his message was the notion that persuasive and effective communication must begin with and proceed from an analysis of the person with whom you are dealing. It was this very necessity that launched Aristotle into developing his searching and practical analysis of how we as people operate. He adopted training in communication to the permanent and unchanging nature of people. He created something that worked. And it will work for you. The man standing on the corner in ancient Greece was not fundamentally different from the citizen, suspect, witness, or brother officer with whom you deal every day and in every encounter. The existence of the Easter Bunny is more likely than the changing of human nature.

There is one—and only one—criterion for us to learn something from someone else. They don’t have to be in law enforcement. Nor do they have to be our friends, on our side, people we trust, or even those we like. They do not have to be as smart as us or as honest. The only question is this: Does this person know something that I do not know and that is useful to me? That is it. That is all. We need to learn from them. You are not being stupid to do so; you are being stupid to not do so. Aristotle was brilliant beyond words. But learning what he said and applying it took some work. Genius though he was, he was captured in his time like each of us. The nature of people was not different then; the circumstances of their lives were different from yours and mine. Aristotle taught communication to help people deal with their needs. Basic rules of communication founded in human nature have not changed. Many of the needs that communication must be used to serve have changed. In Aristotle’s time, ordinary citizens solved a myriad of their personal problems and issues by literally appearing before gatherings of their fellow citizens and addressing them from their hind legs—public speaking. (Remember that in school!) Issues were commonly put to a public vote. Today, they call us when they have difficulties—the cops. We deal with these problems. In doing so, we make few public speeches, but we certainly have to talk. Basically, we ask people to cooperate and comply. This almost never occurs in formal public-address settings but rather in a myriad of short-range interpersonal interactions referred to as dyads and triads, usually involving from one to a small handful of people. Aristotle’s explanations did not address our needs. They did not exist then. Addressing our needs is your writer’s job and the focus of this book. First, a lot of adaptation and modification had to be done. Clint Eastwood’s character in Heartbreak Ridge said it best: “Improvise…adapt…overcome. Survive!”

If you had to suffer a speech course in school, it is probably your impression that communication is only slightly less complicated than the theory of relativity. You probably hated it, hated the teacher, and came away with an enhanced appreciation for the school’s ability to completely waste your time. The author is quite sure that he got this right, because it is exactly the way he felt until he got into graduate school and was able to study the subject on his own. Once he did so, he was shocked at its usefulness to us. He was even more shocked at th...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Title
• Copyright
• Contents
• Preface
• Introduction
• Chapter 1 Framework: Persuasive Communication and Law Enforcement
• Chapter 2 Principles
• Chapter 3 Uniformed Patrol Applications
• Chapter 4 Investigation Applications
• Chapter 5 Undercover Applications
• Chapter 6 Survival Applications
• Chapter 7 Courtroom Applications