Imagine, for a moment, a world in which police departments act not only as enforcers of the law but also as healers of the woundedness in their communities. Envision social and health issues being addressed in a much more comprehensive way where tens of thousands of people offer their gifts, talents, expertise, generosity, and goodness to respond to those who are less fortunate and willing to learn. What if police departments and communities could work in partnership like this so that healthy interdependence prevailed? What if police departments and communities awakened to the perspective that they themselves were more than enough to bring about necessary change and to repair and heal their own harm and wounds?
The School of Statesmanship, Stewardship, and Service (SOSSAS) has been granted resources to utilize its extensive curriculum to assist police departments across America in learning how to shift the nature of their internal cultures that incorporates practical responses while enabling them to work with their communities in ways that foster healthy, meaningful, and sustainable partnerships.
SOSSAS will be working with two national police organizations, the Law Enforcement Action Partnership (LEAP) and New Blue, across our country to assist cities in shifting the nature of police culture and community culture.
Since the events in Ferguson, Missouri in 2014, Minneapolis, Minnesota in 2020, more recently in Memphis, Tennessee, and in many other cities across our country in which police actions sparked tragedy, unrest, and virtually upset the equilibrium in those communities, ideas have been implemented in an attempt to help change the cultures in police departments. And while these efforts have been well-meaning, they have not amounted to more than band aids. Some have said we are now ‘swimming in band aids.’
SOSSAS’ approach vis the vis its very own curriculum will offer a much more in-depth, thorough, practical, and experiential approach to help cities, including mayors, city managers, police chiefs, citizens, and others understand the nature of organizational culture and what’s required to change cultures not only in police departments but also in communities. A tall order indeed but one in which there are examples and models already available to learn from and to bring life to these possibilities.
There are nearly one million paid and auxiliary police officers and approximately eighteen thousand police departments in America – a ready-to-go structural resource. Let’s begin to teach them they can, without much difficulty, leverage and activate the gifts, talents, resources, skills, and expertise that resides so abundantly, but mostly hibernating, in their communities to help bring about much greater levels of safety, and to help heal the social and health wounds that persist in their neighborhoods.
SOSSAS, along with LEAP and New Blue, will begin this generational project in 2024. If anyone reading this has questions, you are welcome to inquire through our contact page or email [email protected] directly.