by Joel Shults
I pride myself on guarding my words and feelings. I'm not unemotional but
I don't need the world to know that. I practiced for years to get my face
frozen in that authoritative "don't f*** with me" look. Sure I get chills
anytime I sing the National Anthem and I get misty eyed at most old hymns.
I get plain silly and giddy around my little granddaughter and at the half
century mark I have plenty of stories about how things were back in the
day. My wife and kids will tell you I don't say "I love you" very often,
and certainly not automatically at the end of phone calls or with any
frequency that would wear out the phrase. Every decade or so seems to get
the point across.
And yet, there I was, at a job interview no less (don't worry, my boss
doesn't read PoliceOne), answering a routine question about priorities. I
was telling them that my first customers are my officers. I explained that
if I don't serve them with the same care that I expect them to serve the
public then I can't hold them accountable for the way they treat their
customers. I rambled on and then dropped the L word just a easy as you
please. I said I love and respect my officers. Yes - love. Dang. What
happened to my tough guy persona?
I didn't get the job. But I did realize that I really do love my troops.
The ones I send out everyday. Cut the melodrama, but the reality is
there's no guarantee they'll finish their shift and get to go home to
untie their own shoelaces. If they call I'll come running and I know that
the same is true if I need anything from them. Maybe the boyscouts and
green berets and surenos have the same thing going for them, but I
wouldn't trade mine for anybody's.
But don't tell them I said that. I don't want them to think I'm getting soft.
Friday, November 27, 2009
Rules of Engagement
I've been gathering helpful hints from news accounts so here are the rules of engagement according to the media:
Never shoot anyone over 60.
Never shoot anyone under 18.
Never shoot anyone who has a disability.
Never shoot anyone on their birthday or the night before their wedding.
Never shoot anyone who likes children, was going to make something of themselves, or had an interesting hobby.
Never shoot anyone of a different race, gender, or culture than you.
Never shoot anyone unless they have a bigger, closer, and more visible weapon than you.
Always try to figure out why somebody wants to kill you; it's obviously something you said or did that provokes them.
Always give the person at least one chance to shoot or beat you first.
Tasers are evil but you may use them if the person has a gun.
Since you have unlimited back-up immediately at all times, two big strong police officers can always easily subdue another person due to your special training and other superpowers without harming them.
How hard can it be?
Never shoot anyone over 60.
Never shoot anyone under 18.
Never shoot anyone who has a disability.
Never shoot anyone on their birthday or the night before their wedding.
Never shoot anyone who likes children, was going to make something of themselves, or had an interesting hobby.
Never shoot anyone of a different race, gender, or culture than you.
Never shoot anyone unless they have a bigger, closer, and more visible weapon than you.
Always try to figure out why somebody wants to kill you; it's obviously something you said or did that provokes them.
Always give the person at least one chance to shoot or beat you first.
Tasers are evil but you may use them if the person has a gun.
Since you have unlimited back-up immediately at all times, two big strong police officers can always easily subdue another person due to your special training and other superpowers without harming them.
How hard can it be?
Five Ways to Listen to Your Brain
By Dr. Joel F. Shults
The problem with talking to cops about stress is that there’s a little too much touchy-feely going on in some of those discussions. So let’s talk biology. Our brain soup is not a hot tub with little bubbles of hearts and balloons percolating around just waiting to be nurtured. It’s a complicated but primitive mess of chemistry and tissue. Much of what we interpret and label as “feelings” are biological processes over which we may have limited control.
No tough cops want to think they have lost control of their feelings. I sure don’t want to think that. My job and identity are defined by self-control. I need it, I like it, I’m proud of it, and I’m not giving it up. But if I break a leg and it hurts and makes me limp, that has nothing to do with self-control. It’s just a limitation of biology caused by the stress of somebody’s bumper hitting me at 35mph (been there, done that!). The same is true with my brain being thumped by stress. I can deal with it now, or limp with it later.
Basically your brain is operating in two different worlds: the rational and the primitive. When it comes to stress there’s a part of your brain that is sneaking around like a naughty teenager. Nestled comfortably somewhere behind your forehead is your parent-brain sitting in the den placidly smoking a pipe and reading Plato. The brain in the back of your skull is the teenager down in the basement bedroom doing God knows what. Like any parent of a teenager, the calm, rational brain relaxing in the den and analyzing life with a cool, experienced hand doesn’t necessarily want to know what’s going on in the basement. Like any teenager, the primitive basement brain doesn’t think the rational brain needs to know all of its business, but still needs attention and sometimes acts up just to see of the parent gives a darn.
So congratulations on that teen brain of yours. There it sits, nestled in the brain stem, probably thinking about sex. Even if you’re an old duffer like me that impulsive, adrenaline fueled, hormone charged bundle of nerves still wants to run things and doesn’t know when to shut up and behave.
Chances are your goofy youngster is doing what it thinks is best to help us survive, but making us miserable in the process. Basement brain is selfishly worried about surviving right this moment; it has no sense of the future. It doesn’t care about digestion or fighting off disease or starting a family. It only cares about keeping nerves at attention to recognize threats and getting blood to large muscle groups to be ready to fight. Teen brain doesn’t realize that putting the body in a state of hyper-alertness damages the parent’s ability to relax, engage in emotional closeness, sleep well, digest food, have fulfilling sex, or concentrate on small details. The parent brain is too busy compensating for these icky feelings to pay attention to the stuff in the basement even though that’s really where the problem is.
Are you getting the analogy? Is it time for you to get in touch with your inner 14 year old – the one that’s stressing you out and you don’t even know it? Consider one or more of these suggestions:
1) Ask the people who know you best “Do you think police work has changed me?” Don’t be defensive. Listen and let them answer honestly. Ask at least three people and compare their answers. Your self-awareness will impress them.
2) Be a watcher and listener. Cut the bravado and big talk. If there’s a tough case a fellow officer just handled you don’t have to get your puppy dog face on and say “How did that make you feel?” Just listen. What you hear may tell you as much about yourself as it does about the other person.
3) Ask a younger version of yourself if you’re sadder, more tired, less connected than you used to be. Think about who you were a few years ago. We all toughen up – that’s a good thing; but when we grew our thick skin did we trap a cold heart in there too?
4) Casually ask your doctor about stress – both traumatic and cumulative – and see where you are on the checklist of warning signs. If you can’t manage to ask a professional then start Googling and find some good information about PTSD, stress, and healthy lifestyles.
5) Email me. I want to hear you. I might even talk some sense into that teenaged brain of yours.
The problem with talking to cops about stress is that there’s a little too much touchy-feely going on in some of those discussions. So let’s talk biology. Our brain soup is not a hot tub with little bubbles of hearts and balloons percolating around just waiting to be nurtured. It’s a complicated but primitive mess of chemistry and tissue. Much of what we interpret and label as “feelings” are biological processes over which we may have limited control.
No tough cops want to think they have lost control of their feelings. I sure don’t want to think that. My job and identity are defined by self-control. I need it, I like it, I’m proud of it, and I’m not giving it up. But if I break a leg and it hurts and makes me limp, that has nothing to do with self-control. It’s just a limitation of biology caused by the stress of somebody’s bumper hitting me at 35mph (been there, done that!). The same is true with my brain being thumped by stress. I can deal with it now, or limp with it later.
Basically your brain is operating in two different worlds: the rational and the primitive. When it comes to stress there’s a part of your brain that is sneaking around like a naughty teenager. Nestled comfortably somewhere behind your forehead is your parent-brain sitting in the den placidly smoking a pipe and reading Plato. The brain in the back of your skull is the teenager down in the basement bedroom doing God knows what. Like any parent of a teenager, the calm, rational brain relaxing in the den and analyzing life with a cool, experienced hand doesn’t necessarily want to know what’s going on in the basement. Like any teenager, the primitive basement brain doesn’t think the rational brain needs to know all of its business, but still needs attention and sometimes acts up just to see of the parent gives a darn.
So congratulations on that teen brain of yours. There it sits, nestled in the brain stem, probably thinking about sex. Even if you’re an old duffer like me that impulsive, adrenaline fueled, hormone charged bundle of nerves still wants to run things and doesn’t know when to shut up and behave.
Chances are your goofy youngster is doing what it thinks is best to help us survive, but making us miserable in the process. Basement brain is selfishly worried about surviving right this moment; it has no sense of the future. It doesn’t care about digestion or fighting off disease or starting a family. It only cares about keeping nerves at attention to recognize threats and getting blood to large muscle groups to be ready to fight. Teen brain doesn’t realize that putting the body in a state of hyper-alertness damages the parent’s ability to relax, engage in emotional closeness, sleep well, digest food, have fulfilling sex, or concentrate on small details. The parent brain is too busy compensating for these icky feelings to pay attention to the stuff in the basement even though that’s really where the problem is.
Are you getting the analogy? Is it time for you to get in touch with your inner 14 year old – the one that’s stressing you out and you don’t even know it? Consider one or more of these suggestions:
1) Ask the people who know you best “Do you think police work has changed me?” Don’t be defensive. Listen and let them answer honestly. Ask at least three people and compare their answers. Your self-awareness will impress them.
2) Be a watcher and listener. Cut the bravado and big talk. If there’s a tough case a fellow officer just handled you don’t have to get your puppy dog face on and say “How did that make you feel?” Just listen. What you hear may tell you as much about yourself as it does about the other person.
3) Ask a younger version of yourself if you’re sadder, more tired, less connected than you used to be. Think about who you were a few years ago. We all toughen up – that’s a good thing; but when we grew our thick skin did we trap a cold heart in there too?
4) Casually ask your doctor about stress – both traumatic and cumulative – and see where you are on the checklist of warning signs. If you can’t manage to ask a professional then start Googling and find some good information about PTSD, stress, and healthy lifestyles.
5) Email me. I want to hear you. I might even talk some sense into that teenaged brain of yours.
Friday, November 20, 2009
LEOK – What The Studies Don’t Tell Us
By Dr. Joel F. Shults
As the 1992 FBI publication Killed in the Line of Duty states: “The specific factors that contribute to a particular law enforcement officer being placed in a particular situation that leads to his or her slaying remain unclear”. How helpful then, are the FBI’s publications on law officer assaults and line of duty deaths? Law Enforcement Officers Killed (LEOK) seminars are being presented throughout the country and are in high demand. These programs are made available by the FBI and are a chilling reminder of the savagery of attacks on police officers.
Scientific research always includes the researchers’ assessment of the limitations of the project both in terms of methodology and interpretation of the results. This article addresses concerns about the limitations of the LEOK research and seminars. The observations stated here is not a critique, but rather an objective exploration of where the value of these studies lies.
Data sets are not predictive of outcomes
Analyzing the past is challenging enough, predicting a future encounter and its outcome is much like predicting the weather – the perfect storm may somehow be related to the unseen flap of butterfly wings that swirl a set of molecules into motion. LEOK studies examine historical occurrences and while valuable in examining trends they should be used with great caution for establishing paradigms for predicting future assaults. There is some danger that officers will trade old inaccurate preconceptions of how they will be attacked for new inaccurate preconceptions.
Statistics and charts show what percentage of officers were engaged in certain activities, where attacks occurred relative to offenders’ homes, and the most prevalent season, day, and hour of officer murders. But the preeminent risk is that there is no hour, no season, no day, and no assignment which is unrepresented in officer murders. Will I behave differently when working day shift knowing that my chances of being murdered between breakfast and lunch are half that of being murdered between lunch and supper? Am I then to be half as cautious? Does a finding that the .45 ACP caliber of bullet killed the same percentage of lawmen as the .22 magnum determine how cautiously I deal with an armed offender?
Interviews with offenders offer only subjective assessments
No claim is made by the FBI or LEOK trainers that there is a singular profile of a cop-killer. Profiles are composites; an average of characteristics that seem to appear with some frequency. The psychopathic ramblings and life observations of caged cop killers make for interesting case studies, but there are limitations to the generalization of their comments to all or most deadly encounters.
Limitations include possible distortions in the offender’s recall of the deadly interchange. Sensory distortion in a violent incident is not limited to the victim officer; an offender is undergoing a traumatic event as well. Interviews are necessarily conducted years after the event, during which offenders may have reconstructed the entire sequence of events as well as their rationale and feelings at the time. Only consenting inmates were interviewed, which may have created a self-selecting research sample that differs in some way from a more inclusive sample. In other words talkers may construct their view of the world and themselves differently than the non-talkers whose tales are not told.
Statistical averages have no mathematical predictive value
Remember the difference between mean and mode from you statistics class? A mean is an average. If you have a study sample of a killers that consists of a twenty year old male, a thirty year old woman, and an seventy year old female the average age of your group is forty even though no actual 40 year old exists. The mode is the most frequently occurring number or category. In our group, the gender mode is female. Neither of those statistics would explain nor predict an officer death at the hands of the 60 year old male. Averages and modalities make for interesting reading but do not provided an analytical tool for a given set of circumstances that may occur. Therefore average ages, average years of experience, average distances from the attacker are all of interest but do not provide answers for officers in their unique confrontations.
Officer profiles offer no predictive value
One of the most often cited results of the LEOK study is that the victim officers are characterized as friendly, well-liked, hard working, service oriented, less likely to use force, breaks some officer safety and policy rules, feels he can “read” people, looks for the good in others, and is easy going. This set of characteristics was found in the Violent Encounters study released in 2006 as well as the 1992 study. Trainers should be very cautious in the application of this finding. One problem is that if we assume that these traits are somehow causative or contributory factors to officer deaths then to be safe an officer should be unfriendly, disliked, avoid hard work and public service, use forces frequently, follow every procedure to the letter every time, make no assumptions about a person, assume the worst in everyone, and be constantly uptight.
We simply could not police this way. A second limitation is that these descriptive terms are too general to be useful and there is no study that indicates that these traits don’t describe most of the 700,000 police officers who survive every year. Police officers must be chameleon by habit and adapt to individual situations. We cannot know from these studies if the behavior characteristics of the victim officers were at play during the violent encounters studies, nor if those same behavior characteristics were actually very successful in previous encounters in preventing violence.
The 2007 FBI LEOK publication cites 57 officers feloniously killed in 51 separate incidents. Of these: 16 officers died in 2007 from felonious attacks during arrest situations, 16 officers died as results of ambush situations, 11 officers died during traffic pursuits/stops, 5 officers died while responding to disturbance calls, 4 officers died while investigating suspicious persons/circumstances, 3 officers died during tactical situations. We have no indication that the officers who died by ambush, and therefore had no way to prevent the attack, are profiled any differently than those who may have had a chance to avoid their own death with tactical or perceptual improvements. We can certainly believe that officers who die in tactical situations are among the highest trained, best equipped, and most aware of the circumstances into which they are called. Nearly half of the killers interviewed said that there was nothing the officer could have done after the initial contact to save their lives.
Regarding the trait of reluctance to use force we must question the scale used to measure such a trait. Rapid decisions about application of policy and procedure result in officers’ technically straying from guidelines on a daily basis. The contrast between the dead officers’ actions and the second guessing of officers reviewing the event is predictable and not instructive of any actual contrast between victim officers and the general police population in terms of use of force decisions. In addition, although failing to wait for back up is cited as a fault, almost half of the assaults on officers studied in the 2006 report occurred where more than one officer was present and it is not known to what degree back up was available in the remaining cases.
An aspect of survival that is noted in the analysis of selected assaults on officers in the 1997 FBI publication In The Line of Fire is the officers’ will to live. This condition, frequently alluded to in officer survival literature, is difficult to define and is often reverently regarded as essential to surviving. Without critiquing the fact that this characteristic is not quantifiable, an objective examination of this aspect – whether it is by nature biological, metaphysical, or psychological – suggests that it has a mythical quality about it. Anecdotal evidence of the value of the survival mindset is very strong, and has been acculturated in a generation of police officers. To imply that some officers die because they lacked a will to live is not a conclusion based on defensible logic.
These factors create a great deal of doubt as to the usefulness of officer victim profiles. It is probable that knowing the victim profile is of no particular value since it may simply be saying that police officers who are killed are like every other police officer in general. We have no balancing data relative to officers not included in the studies to assume otherwise.
Offender profiles offer no predictive value
The analysis of offenders provides no predictive tools to assess an officer’s risk in a particular set of circumstances, as attested in the 1992 report. We also have little data to show whether, among the relatively small sample of police killers among the vast number of criminals imprisoned (and the even larger sample of unidentified violent criminals), the characteristics of police killers are significantly different than other criminals or even the population at large. Even if we could predict with some accuracy the likelihood of a person killing a police officer the victim officer would not normally know this at the time of the encounter. We also know that offenders typically have had numerous non-lethal encounters with law enforcement prior the fatal one, making a contact as unpredictable with the profile knowledge as without.
Offenders interviewed apparently often mention that they sized the officer up and decided to resist or not based on those calculations. Commentators may be overemphasizing the role of the offender’s view of the officer as professional or unprofessional as a principle contributing factor to the felons’ decisions to attack. The fact that this element is mentioned by several offenders does not imbue their comments with credibility given these killers’ skewed sense of their world. Nor does it really instruct an officer how to give off that aura of confidence and competence to a person whose values are contrary to those of law enforcement. It is ironic that we give credence to an offender who “reads” an officer’s ability to handle a situation yet we contend that that same characteristic in officers is faulty and may contribute to their death.
Some of the most important data exists in that which is not studied
A major gap in research on use of force is an analysis of successful encounters to compare and contrast with the kinds of violent resistance that generates reports and documentation. In other words we study the failures and not the successes. Compliant police encounters offer up no data. A recent survey indicates that 60-80% of officers will make a deadly force decision in their career and yet we know that a small number of officers actually discharge their weapon during a career at a suspect. We do not systematically study the successful outcomes - the unpulled trigger, the holstered nightstick, the uninjured officer. While the Violent Encounters study interviewed surviving officers of serious attacks, we don’t fully know why similar situations vary in their outcomes, as is acknowledged in the preface to In The Line of Fire. We don’t know how many offenders wanted to or had the opportunity to kill an officer and decided against murder for whatever reason.
Despite good faith efforts to dissect the anatomy of a police officer’s line of duty death, these tragic events represent a sample size within the universe of all suspect resistance and police contacts. Police officers engage in hundreds of thousands of contacts every day. A tiny number of those contacts results in an officer death or in any use of lethal force. We don’t really know what is different about all those compliant outcomes compared to the deadly ones, other than the latter are highly investigated and the former are not. We can’t simply say that a peaceful arrest was when the officer did everything right and a fatal encounter is where the officer erred in some deadly way.
Another limitation of the flagship 1992 report is that it is based on incidents chosen for study that occurred between 1975 and 1985. As we approach the end of the first decade of the 21st century we realize that much about technology, society at large and the police profession in particular has changed since those events took place. The conclusions from those events may be different than the aggregate of police killings in recent years.
Conclusion
The FBI and other scholarly studies on officer deaths and assaults must continue. The value of these studies may be seen in an increased awareness by officers of the dangers they face. The limitations of these studies in their methodology and in the assumptions and applications that are drawn from them must be carefully measured by users of the information. None of these studies makes a claim that any resulting information will be a predictor of a specific future event or prescribe specific responses to an extremely dynamic violent event. This important research must certainly continue but at present the predictive value of these studies provides only a dramatic reminder that murderous assaults can occur anytime, anywhere.
As the 1992 FBI publication Killed in the Line of Duty states: “The specific factors that contribute to a particular law enforcement officer being placed in a particular situation that leads to his or her slaying remain unclear”. How helpful then, are the FBI’s publications on law officer assaults and line of duty deaths? Law Enforcement Officers Killed (LEOK) seminars are being presented throughout the country and are in high demand. These programs are made available by the FBI and are a chilling reminder of the savagery of attacks on police officers.
Scientific research always includes the researchers’ assessment of the limitations of the project both in terms of methodology and interpretation of the results. This article addresses concerns about the limitations of the LEOK research and seminars. The observations stated here is not a critique, but rather an objective exploration of where the value of these studies lies.
Data sets are not predictive of outcomes
Analyzing the past is challenging enough, predicting a future encounter and its outcome is much like predicting the weather – the perfect storm may somehow be related to the unseen flap of butterfly wings that swirl a set of molecules into motion. LEOK studies examine historical occurrences and while valuable in examining trends they should be used with great caution for establishing paradigms for predicting future assaults. There is some danger that officers will trade old inaccurate preconceptions of how they will be attacked for new inaccurate preconceptions.
Statistics and charts show what percentage of officers were engaged in certain activities, where attacks occurred relative to offenders’ homes, and the most prevalent season, day, and hour of officer murders. But the preeminent risk is that there is no hour, no season, no day, and no assignment which is unrepresented in officer murders. Will I behave differently when working day shift knowing that my chances of being murdered between breakfast and lunch are half that of being murdered between lunch and supper? Am I then to be half as cautious? Does a finding that the .45 ACP caliber of bullet killed the same percentage of lawmen as the .22 magnum determine how cautiously I deal with an armed offender?
Interviews with offenders offer only subjective assessments
No claim is made by the FBI or LEOK trainers that there is a singular profile of a cop-killer. Profiles are composites; an average of characteristics that seem to appear with some frequency. The psychopathic ramblings and life observations of caged cop killers make for interesting case studies, but there are limitations to the generalization of their comments to all or most deadly encounters.
Limitations include possible distortions in the offender’s recall of the deadly interchange. Sensory distortion in a violent incident is not limited to the victim officer; an offender is undergoing a traumatic event as well. Interviews are necessarily conducted years after the event, during which offenders may have reconstructed the entire sequence of events as well as their rationale and feelings at the time. Only consenting inmates were interviewed, which may have created a self-selecting research sample that differs in some way from a more inclusive sample. In other words talkers may construct their view of the world and themselves differently than the non-talkers whose tales are not told.
Statistical averages have no mathematical predictive value
Remember the difference between mean and mode from you statistics class? A mean is an average. If you have a study sample of a killers that consists of a twenty year old male, a thirty year old woman, and an seventy year old female the average age of your group is forty even though no actual 40 year old exists. The mode is the most frequently occurring number or category. In our group, the gender mode is female. Neither of those statistics would explain nor predict an officer death at the hands of the 60 year old male. Averages and modalities make for interesting reading but do not provided an analytical tool for a given set of circumstances that may occur. Therefore average ages, average years of experience, average distances from the attacker are all of interest but do not provide answers for officers in their unique confrontations.
Officer profiles offer no predictive value
One of the most often cited results of the LEOK study is that the victim officers are characterized as friendly, well-liked, hard working, service oriented, less likely to use force, breaks some officer safety and policy rules, feels he can “read” people, looks for the good in others, and is easy going. This set of characteristics was found in the Violent Encounters study released in 2006 as well as the 1992 study. Trainers should be very cautious in the application of this finding. One problem is that if we assume that these traits are somehow causative or contributory factors to officer deaths then to be safe an officer should be unfriendly, disliked, avoid hard work and public service, use forces frequently, follow every procedure to the letter every time, make no assumptions about a person, assume the worst in everyone, and be constantly uptight.
We simply could not police this way. A second limitation is that these descriptive terms are too general to be useful and there is no study that indicates that these traits don’t describe most of the 700,000 police officers who survive every year. Police officers must be chameleon by habit and adapt to individual situations. We cannot know from these studies if the behavior characteristics of the victim officers were at play during the violent encounters studies, nor if those same behavior characteristics were actually very successful in previous encounters in preventing violence.
The 2007 FBI LEOK publication cites 57 officers feloniously killed in 51 separate incidents. Of these: 16 officers died in 2007 from felonious attacks during arrest situations, 16 officers died as results of ambush situations, 11 officers died during traffic pursuits/stops, 5 officers died while responding to disturbance calls, 4 officers died while investigating suspicious persons/circumstances, 3 officers died during tactical situations. We have no indication that the officers who died by ambush, and therefore had no way to prevent the attack, are profiled any differently than those who may have had a chance to avoid their own death with tactical or perceptual improvements. We can certainly believe that officers who die in tactical situations are among the highest trained, best equipped, and most aware of the circumstances into which they are called. Nearly half of the killers interviewed said that there was nothing the officer could have done after the initial contact to save their lives.
Regarding the trait of reluctance to use force we must question the scale used to measure such a trait. Rapid decisions about application of policy and procedure result in officers’ technically straying from guidelines on a daily basis. The contrast between the dead officers’ actions and the second guessing of officers reviewing the event is predictable and not instructive of any actual contrast between victim officers and the general police population in terms of use of force decisions. In addition, although failing to wait for back up is cited as a fault, almost half of the assaults on officers studied in the 2006 report occurred where more than one officer was present and it is not known to what degree back up was available in the remaining cases.
An aspect of survival that is noted in the analysis of selected assaults on officers in the 1997 FBI publication In The Line of Fire is the officers’ will to live. This condition, frequently alluded to in officer survival literature, is difficult to define and is often reverently regarded as essential to surviving. Without critiquing the fact that this characteristic is not quantifiable, an objective examination of this aspect – whether it is by nature biological, metaphysical, or psychological – suggests that it has a mythical quality about it. Anecdotal evidence of the value of the survival mindset is very strong, and has been acculturated in a generation of police officers. To imply that some officers die because they lacked a will to live is not a conclusion based on defensible logic.
These factors create a great deal of doubt as to the usefulness of officer victim profiles. It is probable that knowing the victim profile is of no particular value since it may simply be saying that police officers who are killed are like every other police officer in general. We have no balancing data relative to officers not included in the studies to assume otherwise.
Offender profiles offer no predictive value
The analysis of offenders provides no predictive tools to assess an officer’s risk in a particular set of circumstances, as attested in the 1992 report. We also have little data to show whether, among the relatively small sample of police killers among the vast number of criminals imprisoned (and the even larger sample of unidentified violent criminals), the characteristics of police killers are significantly different than other criminals or even the population at large. Even if we could predict with some accuracy the likelihood of a person killing a police officer the victim officer would not normally know this at the time of the encounter. We also know that offenders typically have had numerous non-lethal encounters with law enforcement prior the fatal one, making a contact as unpredictable with the profile knowledge as without.
Offenders interviewed apparently often mention that they sized the officer up and decided to resist or not based on those calculations. Commentators may be overemphasizing the role of the offender’s view of the officer as professional or unprofessional as a principle contributing factor to the felons’ decisions to attack. The fact that this element is mentioned by several offenders does not imbue their comments with credibility given these killers’ skewed sense of their world. Nor does it really instruct an officer how to give off that aura of confidence and competence to a person whose values are contrary to those of law enforcement. It is ironic that we give credence to an offender who “reads” an officer’s ability to handle a situation yet we contend that that same characteristic in officers is faulty and may contribute to their death.
Some of the most important data exists in that which is not studied
A major gap in research on use of force is an analysis of successful encounters to compare and contrast with the kinds of violent resistance that generates reports and documentation. In other words we study the failures and not the successes. Compliant police encounters offer up no data. A recent survey indicates that 60-80% of officers will make a deadly force decision in their career and yet we know that a small number of officers actually discharge their weapon during a career at a suspect. We do not systematically study the successful outcomes - the unpulled trigger, the holstered nightstick, the uninjured officer. While the Violent Encounters study interviewed surviving officers of serious attacks, we don’t fully know why similar situations vary in their outcomes, as is acknowledged in the preface to In The Line of Fire. We don’t know how many offenders wanted to or had the opportunity to kill an officer and decided against murder for whatever reason.
Despite good faith efforts to dissect the anatomy of a police officer’s line of duty death, these tragic events represent a sample size within the universe of all suspect resistance and police contacts. Police officers engage in hundreds of thousands of contacts every day. A tiny number of those contacts results in an officer death or in any use of lethal force. We don’t really know what is different about all those compliant outcomes compared to the deadly ones, other than the latter are highly investigated and the former are not. We can’t simply say that a peaceful arrest was when the officer did everything right and a fatal encounter is where the officer erred in some deadly way.
Another limitation of the flagship 1992 report is that it is based on incidents chosen for study that occurred between 1975 and 1985. As we approach the end of the first decade of the 21st century we realize that much about technology, society at large and the police profession in particular has changed since those events took place. The conclusions from those events may be different than the aggregate of police killings in recent years.
Conclusion
The FBI and other scholarly studies on officer deaths and assaults must continue. The value of these studies may be seen in an increased awareness by officers of the dangers they face. The limitations of these studies in their methodology and in the assumptions and applications that are drawn from them must be carefully measured by users of the information. None of these studies makes a claim that any resulting information will be a predictor of a specific future event or prescribe specific responses to an extremely dynamic violent event. This important research must certainly continue but at present the predictive value of these studies provides only a dramatic reminder that murderous assaults can occur anytime, anywhere.
Monday, August 24, 2009
Taking a Beating in the Press
With a chilling coldness the man sank his knife into the woman’s belly and sliced her open. I wanted to rush over and help her as she locked her eyes straight up at the ceiling in fear, but she was surrounded by his people and I knew it would be foolish to intervene. He lay aside his bloody instrument, reached in to the gaping wound and, with a little tug, pulled out a small bundle of flesh and asked me if I wanted to come over now and see my new son as he clamped the umbilical. The way a story is told makes all the difference in the world, doesn’t it? It’s a good thing that doctors still have a decent amount of credibility with the press otherwise the headline would read “Doctor cuts woman, removes fetus, slices lifeline”. Police officers seldom get the same professional courtesy. Instead of the headline “Officers Justified in Arrest of Suspected Shooters”, the reports from Philadelphia proclaimed “Grand Jury Clears Officers in Taped Beating Case” (Associated Press, August 6, 2009).
The grand jury report said "… the design of the force applied by the police was helpful rather than hurtful…The kicks and blows were aimed not to inflict injury, but to facilitate quick and safe arrests. We found that the kind of force administered was completely consistent with police training and guidelines and the laws of the commonwealth." In other words, despite the fact that the officers involved were summarily fired, there was no beating. There was an arrest of three men suspected of shooting into a crowd.
Despite common perceptions even among police officers, the infamous case of Rodney King was not a beating, but an arrest. After two trials it was determined that one or two blows seen on that dramatic video were deemed unnecessary, yet 17 years later the word “beating” is inseparable from the case. Headlines imply that beatings are rampant as though every cop has some kind of Tourette’s Syndrome that causes them to randomly smack people for no reason. While cops and their bosses remain silent while the case is under investigation, politicos and irate hate-baiters have free reign to get their hostile verbiage into headlines. The vast majority of investigative outcomes vindicating the officers are unreported, underreported, or make new headlines only when the objective findings outrage the haters afresh.
The apparently pervasive attitude reflected in the media that the cops are guilty until proven innocent may on the one hand be an important social control on state sanctioned force, but it also may increasingly hamstring our profession in ways that could spiral into a tragic reluctance to engage the bad guys in safe and effective ways. The ACLU and Amnesty International continue propaganda against Tasers despite their life-saving benefit. Nervous administrators seem quick on the draw to dismiss accused officers before they can be exonerated. Race-baiting opportunists continue to ignore the quantum leaps of progress in unbiased crime fighting while ignoring deeper, more entrenched problems of inequality. Long term risks include an increase in defiance and non-compliance, intrusive and hostile political oversight of police investigations, and calls for more federalization of law enforcement.
We can complain about the unfairness but on a personal level we must be mentally prepared to deal with a controversial use of force event. We give lip service to preparing for an officer involved shooting, but lesser affairs can be just as devastating in their after effects. Are you establishing professional credentials to help you weather accusations of poor training or poor attitude? Are you documenting your reputation for being reasonable and cool headed? If you don’t have concrete evidence of your agency’s likelihood of support and objectiveness do you have an advocate who will stand with you? Will your prosecutor drop the case like a hot rock regardless of its merit if it becomes a public relations liability? Like any aspect of police work, planning ahead and mitigating the threat is always wise. We need to survive every encounter with our bodies, minds, and careers intact.
The grand jury report said "… the design of the force applied by the police was helpful rather than hurtful…The kicks and blows were aimed not to inflict injury, but to facilitate quick and safe arrests. We found that the kind of force administered was completely consistent with police training and guidelines and the laws of the commonwealth." In other words, despite the fact that the officers involved were summarily fired, there was no beating. There was an arrest of three men suspected of shooting into a crowd.
Despite common perceptions even among police officers, the infamous case of Rodney King was not a beating, but an arrest. After two trials it was determined that one or two blows seen on that dramatic video were deemed unnecessary, yet 17 years later the word “beating” is inseparable from the case. Headlines imply that beatings are rampant as though every cop has some kind of Tourette’s Syndrome that causes them to randomly smack people for no reason. While cops and their bosses remain silent while the case is under investigation, politicos and irate hate-baiters have free reign to get their hostile verbiage into headlines. The vast majority of investigative outcomes vindicating the officers are unreported, underreported, or make new headlines only when the objective findings outrage the haters afresh.
The apparently pervasive attitude reflected in the media that the cops are guilty until proven innocent may on the one hand be an important social control on state sanctioned force, but it also may increasingly hamstring our profession in ways that could spiral into a tragic reluctance to engage the bad guys in safe and effective ways. The ACLU and Amnesty International continue propaganda against Tasers despite their life-saving benefit. Nervous administrators seem quick on the draw to dismiss accused officers before they can be exonerated. Race-baiting opportunists continue to ignore the quantum leaps of progress in unbiased crime fighting while ignoring deeper, more entrenched problems of inequality. Long term risks include an increase in defiance and non-compliance, intrusive and hostile political oversight of police investigations, and calls for more federalization of law enforcement.
We can complain about the unfairness but on a personal level we must be mentally prepared to deal with a controversial use of force event. We give lip service to preparing for an officer involved shooting, but lesser affairs can be just as devastating in their after effects. Are you establishing professional credentials to help you weather accusations of poor training or poor attitude? Are you documenting your reputation for being reasonable and cool headed? If you don’t have concrete evidence of your agency’s likelihood of support and objectiveness do you have an advocate who will stand with you? Will your prosecutor drop the case like a hot rock regardless of its merit if it becomes a public relations liability? Like any aspect of police work, planning ahead and mitigating the threat is always wise. We need to survive every encounter with our bodies, minds, and careers intact.
Modern policing: The New Vietnam?
The Iraq war has evidenced a culture shift in America’s perception of its soldiers, sailors, airmen, and marines. For the generation that watched the bitterness of the Vietnam war extend to a hatred of the soldiers who fought in it, there is a great relief that we have learned to respect the troops regardless of our agreement about the politics that lead to war. In the Vietnam era, as those in uniform during the time will attest, those who marched for peace were associated with anarchy at home that extended to bombing of ROTC offices on college campuses, and to greeting returning combat veterans with chants of “baby killer”. Vietnam veterans were scorned for their maladjustment upon returning to the states where dysfunctional vets made the news on a regular basis, compared to the stoic WWII vets of the “greatest generation”.
The Carter administration’s Iran Hostage Crisis with its yellow ribbon campaign supporting the release of the captive servicemen and others heralded a new patriotism that flowered during the Reagan years and continued with our “good” Gulf War under George H. W. Bush. These events restored national pride in our armed services. A national repentance over the mean spirited treatment of our Vietnam era solders seemed to take place so that by the time of the 9/11 terrorist attacks our military was in such high regard that even the eventual loss of public support of the Iraq War did not diminish our desire to “support our troops”.
The police profession should learn about this cycle of contempt and respect because we are entering, or have entered, an era where the conditions are ripe for a long season of public contempt for our police. If we fail as a profession to recognize the origins of anti-police sentiment and fail to conduct ourselves wisely in response to it we risk, as a nation, a descent into the same kinds of violence that marked the decades of the Vietnam, Watergate, and civil rights riots of the 60s and 70s.
So who is hating the cops and why? Based on my analysis of news reports and blogs the primary instigators are clustered among five groups: anarchists, activists, attorneys, academicians, and arrested persons’ relatives.
Anarchists are comprised of extremists associated with the environmental movement, those who oppose drug prohibition, and may include other anti-government groups who are discontented and advocate revolution. While there are certainly moderate thinkers who share some philosophical roots, the anti-government ideologues believe that current governance violates principles of individual liberty or are so corruptly influenced by big corporations and institutionalized racism that its police power is illegitimate and should be resisted and even preemptively attacked.
Activists are opportunistic individuals or groups who attach themselves parasitically to sensational news reporting of alleged police misconduct. The typical response is an extended tirade that generalizes the allegations to all police officers. They leverage the reported event against all previously reported events and tend to cite the Rodney King arrest as illustrative of all police activity.
Attorneys have a pecuniary interest in fostering claims of police misconduct because doing so attracts plaintiffs, indoctrinates potential jurors, and creates settlement revenue in cases where litigation would likely exonerate the officer but would be too exhausting for a defendant to contest. Many attorneys have blogs or websites disguised as expert commentary but designed to advertise their services. The commentary is typically over-generalized, biased, predicated on broad presumptions and unsupported by facts.
Academicians with leftist leanings are inclined to cite theoretical suppositions about police culture, state sanctioned violence; and historical use of law enforcement to break strikes, capture escaped slaves, harass civil rights workers, and violently attack protesters. They extend those historical abuses to an assumption that today’s police officers are part of an inherently brutal system. They are often sought out as media commentators and cite unreliable research, such as the contention that police officers are grossly over-represented as domestic violence perpetrators.
Another common face seen on television is the relative of the arrested person. The emotional appeal of the crying mother, girlfriend, or brother wondering “why they had to shoot him” can often diminish the impact of the actual facts. Indeed an arrest or other use of force is always an occasion that represents a sad failure of individuals and society. The impact of the pathos generated by upset advocates of the “victim” are multiplied if the person had a mental health problem, was young or old, or was celebrating his or her birthday or wedding; or if the person had a sympathetic background story as an animal lover or loving big brother, etc.
Additionally a chilling component of articles and blogs regarding police matters is the cluster of typically anti-police vitriol in the comment sections. Certainly it can be claimed that the malcontents are a self-selected group opportunistically attracted to the subject matter, but if those rantings reflect an undercurrent of popular opinion the implications are frightening. Because a dramatic police event “caught on tape” (the suggestion is that our secret activities have been discovered!) is media front-loaded, the public police response is always either in the defensive mode or the lawyer’s “no comment”. This kind of professional objectivity and patience does little to counter the rabid media coverage and the resulting “expert” commentators that guess at circumstances and get edited to sound bites.
With nearly twenty thousand police agencies across the country it will be a challenge to develop a unified strategy to deal with what appears to be an increasing backlash against law enforcement. Typical responses of line officers and police advocates voice a need for sympathy for the police. The talk is of the dangerous streets, laying lives on the line everyday, and heroism. These emotional arguments mean nothing to the five categories of critic identified here. Administrators, supervisors, and line officers need to be aware that passive silence in the face of attacks on professional integrity is not an effective response.
The Carter administration’s Iran Hostage Crisis with its yellow ribbon campaign supporting the release of the captive servicemen and others heralded a new patriotism that flowered during the Reagan years and continued with our “good” Gulf War under George H. W. Bush. These events restored national pride in our armed services. A national repentance over the mean spirited treatment of our Vietnam era solders seemed to take place so that by the time of the 9/11 terrorist attacks our military was in such high regard that even the eventual loss of public support of the Iraq War did not diminish our desire to “support our troops”.
The police profession should learn about this cycle of contempt and respect because we are entering, or have entered, an era where the conditions are ripe for a long season of public contempt for our police. If we fail as a profession to recognize the origins of anti-police sentiment and fail to conduct ourselves wisely in response to it we risk, as a nation, a descent into the same kinds of violence that marked the decades of the Vietnam, Watergate, and civil rights riots of the 60s and 70s.
So who is hating the cops and why? Based on my analysis of news reports and blogs the primary instigators are clustered among five groups: anarchists, activists, attorneys, academicians, and arrested persons’ relatives.
Anarchists are comprised of extremists associated with the environmental movement, those who oppose drug prohibition, and may include other anti-government groups who are discontented and advocate revolution. While there are certainly moderate thinkers who share some philosophical roots, the anti-government ideologues believe that current governance violates principles of individual liberty or are so corruptly influenced by big corporations and institutionalized racism that its police power is illegitimate and should be resisted and even preemptively attacked.
Activists are opportunistic individuals or groups who attach themselves parasitically to sensational news reporting of alleged police misconduct. The typical response is an extended tirade that generalizes the allegations to all police officers. They leverage the reported event against all previously reported events and tend to cite the Rodney King arrest as illustrative of all police activity.
Attorneys have a pecuniary interest in fostering claims of police misconduct because doing so attracts plaintiffs, indoctrinates potential jurors, and creates settlement revenue in cases where litigation would likely exonerate the officer but would be too exhausting for a defendant to contest. Many attorneys have blogs or websites disguised as expert commentary but designed to advertise their services. The commentary is typically over-generalized, biased, predicated on broad presumptions and unsupported by facts.
Academicians with leftist leanings are inclined to cite theoretical suppositions about police culture, state sanctioned violence; and historical use of law enforcement to break strikes, capture escaped slaves, harass civil rights workers, and violently attack protesters. They extend those historical abuses to an assumption that today’s police officers are part of an inherently brutal system. They are often sought out as media commentators and cite unreliable research, such as the contention that police officers are grossly over-represented as domestic violence perpetrators.
Another common face seen on television is the relative of the arrested person. The emotional appeal of the crying mother, girlfriend, or brother wondering “why they had to shoot him” can often diminish the impact of the actual facts. Indeed an arrest or other use of force is always an occasion that represents a sad failure of individuals and society. The impact of the pathos generated by upset advocates of the “victim” are multiplied if the person had a mental health problem, was young or old, or was celebrating his or her birthday or wedding; or if the person had a sympathetic background story as an animal lover or loving big brother, etc.
Additionally a chilling component of articles and blogs regarding police matters is the cluster of typically anti-police vitriol in the comment sections. Certainly it can be claimed that the malcontents are a self-selected group opportunistically attracted to the subject matter, but if those rantings reflect an undercurrent of popular opinion the implications are frightening. Because a dramatic police event “caught on tape” (the suggestion is that our secret activities have been discovered!) is media front-loaded, the public police response is always either in the defensive mode or the lawyer’s “no comment”. This kind of professional objectivity and patience does little to counter the rabid media coverage and the resulting “expert” commentators that guess at circumstances and get edited to sound bites.
With nearly twenty thousand police agencies across the country it will be a challenge to develop a unified strategy to deal with what appears to be an increasing backlash against law enforcement. Typical responses of line officers and police advocates voice a need for sympathy for the police. The talk is of the dangerous streets, laying lives on the line everyday, and heroism. These emotional arguments mean nothing to the five categories of critic identified here. Administrators, supervisors, and line officers need to be aware that passive silence in the face of attacks on professional integrity is not an effective response.
The Moral Imperative of Forgiveness
Look in the self-help or religion section of the bookstore and you’ll find a number of books dealing with forgiveness. They will all agree that forgiving is essential to mental, spiritual, and physical well being, but they aren’t talking about cops are they?
Policing is a business of dealing with wrongs. We deal with victims of misdeeds, negligence, ignorance, and downright evil as the bread and butter of our existence. It would be unthinkable if at every call we said “Aw that’s OK, I forgive you” and left all the parties with a hug and song. The default conclusion is that forgiveness is just not a component of law enforcement. Is there no place for forgiveness with offenders or with our fellow officers, especially those whom we may supervise?
I believe everyone can benefit from a forgiveness management plan. Here are some myths about forgiveness that might keep police officers from engaging in the important life skill of forgiveness.
1. You have to forgive and forget. Many folks mistakenly believe this is a Biblical imperative but it is found no place in the Good Book. Those of you familiar with other sacred writings might enlighten me about its presence in other guides, but the Judeo-Christian ethic makes no such requirement. Our brains are very good at remembering threats whether they are a menace to our physical well-being or our emotional well-being. Remembering is how we avoid danger and respond effectively to warnings. Sometimes we can get stuck in those responses and generalize our anger or avoidance to situations that subconsciously remind us of the unpleasantness. It is this overgeneralization that we must take care to manage.
2. If I forgive I’m excusing bad behavior. I was knocked unconscious by a perpetrator on a car stop. When I filled out the victim impact statement from the prosecutor’s office I was clear about the importance of jail time for the offender. I had already forgiven him personally (in fact he apologized a few years later), but that didn’t mean I felt he should be off the hook. It’s true with subordinates as well. We can be empathetic with those who have erred and failed, but it doesn’t keep us from imposing discipline or even firing them. The practice of forgiveness is about how the forgiver processes the impact of the offense, not how the system processes it or how the offender processes it.
3. If I forgive I’m cheating the other people who were hurt. You can’t forgive what someone did to someone else. My brother’s son was murdered and when people ask if he’s forgiven the killer he responds “He didn’t kill me, so I can’t forgive him for that”. What he can struggle with is forgiveness for what the killer did to his life and heart. We have no obligation to forgive on behalf of others. When I was assaulted on duty, I believe everyone who wears the badge was assaulted as were the citizens who entrust me with my job. I couldn’t forgive him on behalf of the law or my colleagues; I can only settle the affairs of my own mind.
4. Forgiveness must be immediate and complete. Forgiveness is a process during which we learn much about ourselves and the world around us. If we wait until we can achieve the perfect package of soul-cleansing forgiveness we may never get around to it. Start where you can even if it’s only the realization that it might be possible. Remember that forgiveness is separate from other consequences. You might still be preparing a law suit, preparing for trial, filing for divorce or getting a restraining order, or suffering pain from the offense. It’s OK to forgive from a distance. You don’t have to embrace, love, or re-engage with the offender although that might be a great thing. It could take several years of work so take whatever small steps you can.
5. I can’t forgive unless they apologize. Forgiveness, in the most merciful degree, absolves a person of their obligation to repent or make up for their offense. We might not be able to achieve that level of forgiveness. We may be merciful as a matter of a greater social good. That is, if someone asks for forgiveness, we grant it knowing that this may be in society’s best interest and important for the reformation and restoration of the individual. If neither of these altruistic motives evokes an attitude of forgiveness a very practical level of forgiveness is to say that you expect nothing in the way of revenge; that some natural justice will occur and that carrying a grudge will only give the offender a continued controlling presence in your life.
Forgiveness is a deliberate matter of the will and has practical consequences. You can be a forgiving person and still hold people accountable, still be an authority figure, and still keep yourself physically and emotionally safe from people who have offended or hurt you. Forgiveness may have great significance in your religious belief, or it may simply be an essential for your emotional health and survival. At the very least forgiveness is forgiving yourself from the need to hold a vengeful place in your life where an offender still holds power over you.
My guess is there is somebody you can start forgiving right now.
Policing is a business of dealing with wrongs. We deal with victims of misdeeds, negligence, ignorance, and downright evil as the bread and butter of our existence. It would be unthinkable if at every call we said “Aw that’s OK, I forgive you” and left all the parties with a hug and song. The default conclusion is that forgiveness is just not a component of law enforcement. Is there no place for forgiveness with offenders or with our fellow officers, especially those whom we may supervise?
I believe everyone can benefit from a forgiveness management plan. Here are some myths about forgiveness that might keep police officers from engaging in the important life skill of forgiveness.
1. You have to forgive and forget. Many folks mistakenly believe this is a Biblical imperative but it is found no place in the Good Book. Those of you familiar with other sacred writings might enlighten me about its presence in other guides, but the Judeo-Christian ethic makes no such requirement. Our brains are very good at remembering threats whether they are a menace to our physical well-being or our emotional well-being. Remembering is how we avoid danger and respond effectively to warnings. Sometimes we can get stuck in those responses and generalize our anger or avoidance to situations that subconsciously remind us of the unpleasantness. It is this overgeneralization that we must take care to manage.
2. If I forgive I’m excusing bad behavior. I was knocked unconscious by a perpetrator on a car stop. When I filled out the victim impact statement from the prosecutor’s office I was clear about the importance of jail time for the offender. I had already forgiven him personally (in fact he apologized a few years later), but that didn’t mean I felt he should be off the hook. It’s true with subordinates as well. We can be empathetic with those who have erred and failed, but it doesn’t keep us from imposing discipline or even firing them. The practice of forgiveness is about how the forgiver processes the impact of the offense, not how the system processes it or how the offender processes it.
3. If I forgive I’m cheating the other people who were hurt. You can’t forgive what someone did to someone else. My brother’s son was murdered and when people ask if he’s forgiven the killer he responds “He didn’t kill me, so I can’t forgive him for that”. What he can struggle with is forgiveness for what the killer did to his life and heart. We have no obligation to forgive on behalf of others. When I was assaulted on duty, I believe everyone who wears the badge was assaulted as were the citizens who entrust me with my job. I couldn’t forgive him on behalf of the law or my colleagues; I can only settle the affairs of my own mind.
4. Forgiveness must be immediate and complete. Forgiveness is a process during which we learn much about ourselves and the world around us. If we wait until we can achieve the perfect package of soul-cleansing forgiveness we may never get around to it. Start where you can even if it’s only the realization that it might be possible. Remember that forgiveness is separate from other consequences. You might still be preparing a law suit, preparing for trial, filing for divorce or getting a restraining order, or suffering pain from the offense. It’s OK to forgive from a distance. You don’t have to embrace, love, or re-engage with the offender although that might be a great thing. It could take several years of work so take whatever small steps you can.
5. I can’t forgive unless they apologize. Forgiveness, in the most merciful degree, absolves a person of their obligation to repent or make up for their offense. We might not be able to achieve that level of forgiveness. We may be merciful as a matter of a greater social good. That is, if someone asks for forgiveness, we grant it knowing that this may be in society’s best interest and important for the reformation and restoration of the individual. If neither of these altruistic motives evokes an attitude of forgiveness a very practical level of forgiveness is to say that you expect nothing in the way of revenge; that some natural justice will occur and that carrying a grudge will only give the offender a continued controlling presence in your life.
Forgiveness is a deliberate matter of the will and has practical consequences. You can be a forgiving person and still hold people accountable, still be an authority figure, and still keep yourself physically and emotionally safe from people who have offended or hurt you. Forgiveness may have great significance in your religious belief, or it may simply be an essential for your emotional health and survival. At the very least forgiveness is forgiving yourself from the need to hold a vengeful place in your life where an offender still holds power over you.
My guess is there is somebody you can start forgiving right now.
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