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The city of Savannah asked police chief candidates a series of questions for being considered for the chief's job. Read the questionnaire of newly hired Savannah-Chatham Metro Chief Joseph Lumpkin.
The city of Savannah asked police chief candidates a series of questions for being considered for the chief's job. Read the questionnaire of newly hired Savannah-Chatham Metro Chief Joseph Lumpkin.
The city of Savannah asked police chief candidates a series of questions for being considered for the chief's job. Read the questionnaire of newly hired Savannah-Chatham Metro Chief Joseph Lumpkin.
WRITTEN INTERVIEW QUESTIONS FOR POLICE CHIEF APPLICANTS
APPLICANTNAME: __Joseph H. Lumpkin, Sr.
1. Police departments and law enforcement agencies throughout the country are finding it very difficult to attract qualified applicants for police officer positions. Discuss your philosophy and techniques relating to recruitment and retention of law enforcement personnel.
Effective police recruitment and retention of law enforcement personnel is one of the 12 critical tasks that a police chief must achieve and sustain to successfully lead an agency and its jurisdiction. My philosophy is to always Begin with the end in mind, as expressed by Stephen Covey. As an element of Savannah-Chatham County Police Departments written Corporate Culture Strategy for Effective Policing, I would vigorously apply best practices of the world to inclusively develop a Brand for the Department that will allow it to recruit, hire and retain officers that are leaders in their personal bearing, but also have a sincere desire to be service oriented law enforcement personnel.
It is not sufficient to just recruit and hire in the spirit of service. The successful police chief and crime reducing jurisdictions must also retain the highly competent and character based police personnel. This can be accomplished through the chiefs servant leadership attributes as well as the appropriate competitiveness of jurisdiction. The police chief and all focal leaders, civilian and sworn, must create the right internal environment that enhances motivation, satisfaction and performance of our personnel. Low attrition rates and retention of highly competent and educated personnel permits an agency opportunities to develop community oriented policing problem solving that is based in intelligence lead policing, which is rewarding to police personnel and fear reducing within the citizenry and visitors.
In 1996 the Athens-Clarke County (ACC) Manager set a written goal of 12% attrition rate for the Athens-Clarke County Police Department(ACCPD), which traditionally experienced a rate16% plus. As police chief, I have exceeded that goal for 17 years. Despite competing with the University of Georgia Police Department and Gwinnett County Police Department for the areas best and most promising talent in the last 10 fiscal years, the ACCPD attrition rate has been less than the general Athens-Clarke County Unified Government and actually averaged 7.52%over last10 years. The focal leadership culture we have established has produced such success despite ACCs less than desirable compensation and benefit package as well as ACCPD being the most demanding and grueling jurisdiction to police (poverty rate of 34%) north of Dekalb County.
As police chief of Savannah-Chatham County Metropolitan Police Department, I will use the above elements as foundational pillars of my recruitment Leaders Action Plan within the Corporate Strategy for Savannah-Chatham County. To develop my plan I will conference with a wide variety of Savannah-Chatham stakeholders to determine the right, proper and fitting brand for the police department. I will also develop a strategic strategy to recruit, hire and retain Savannah-Chatham County police personnel sworn and civilian. That strategic strategy as well as the operational and tactical components will be established within the brand we mature for the Savannah-Chatham County Police Department. Using applicable best practices of police agencies of the world, our personnel will have clear and concise guidance on how to accomplish their end goals. As the International Association of Chiefs of Police Governing Board representative of cities from 100,001 500,000, I have immediate access to the world best practices from IACP, The COPS Office, NOBLE, PERF, the Police Foundation, academic institutions and other body of research as well as individuals within key positions of law enforcement.
Although I cannot commit unequivocally to the specific tools I will use to recruit as the police chief of Savannah-Chatham County Metropolitan Police Department, some fundamental philosophical and logical principles are evident. A plan of community inclusion by listening, learning and leading will be actualized. Hopefully, we can recruit a majority of our applicants from the resident pool of Savannah-Chatham County. A reward plan to incentivize internal Department personnel as well as employees of the City of Savannah and Chatham County Government will be pursued. A significant recruitment emphasis will be directed toward local state job fairs that target Savannah State University and Armstrong State University as well as other Georgia Colleges and Universities. The military bases of the southeastern United States offer an exciting opportunity to recruit veterans, given those veterans possess and demonstrate a spirit of service temperament as opposed to a spirit of adventure conviction.
2. Community policing is a term used frequently in many law enforcement agencies today. What are the key elements and primary police practices associated with community policing? How would you go about instituting these policies in a climate of fiscal constraints?
Community Policing or Community Oriented Policing is a philosophy of delivering ALL police services by transforming the traditional police culture. That philosophy is grounded in the nine original concepts of the Peelian Principles. It is built on a foundation that the publics approval of the police is dependent upon the police constantly demonstrating absolute impartiality. Therefore, the police culture and the individual officer must understand the publics approval and support is dependent upon police officers treating all citizens and visitors with respect and dignity. As our country becomes less ethnic homogeneous particularly within the cities, treating all citizens and visitors with respect and dignity as well as the Peelian Principles will become more of a perquisite for effective crime control and order maintenance in America.
I personally have added Problem Solving to my Community Policing practice to develop what I term Community Oriented Policing Problem Solving. By emphasizing problem solving the citizens and visitors will have faith and trust in the police to solve their problems! It builds upon the Peelian Principles that the police exist to prevent crime, the fear of crime and disorder, but cannot be sustained without the development of a shared responsibility for crime between the police and the citizenry.
Many successful police chiefs have incorporated the Peelian Principles into their mission, vision and values statements. As a Department serving a very diverse citizenry and visitor base, I suggest that it inherently necessary for the SavannahChatham County Police Department (SCCPD) to ingrain the Peelian Principles into its mission, vision, values and culture, including practices and customs. The Peelian Principles are:
Principle 1 The basic mission for which the police exist is to prevent crime and disorder.
Principle 2 The ability of the police to perform their duties is dependent upon public approval of police actions.
Principle 3. Police must secure the willing co-operation of the public in voluntary observance of the law to be able to secure and maintain the respect of the public.
Principle 4. The degree of co-operation of the public that can be secured diminishes proportionately to the necessity of the use of physical force.
Principle 5. Police seek and preserve public favor not by catering to the public opinion but by constantly demonstrating absolute impartial service to the law.
Principle 6. Police use physical force to the extent necessary to secure observance of the law or to restore order only when the exercise of persuasion, advice and warning is found to be insufficient.
Principle 7. Police, at all times, should maintain a relationship with the public that gives reality to the historic tradition that the police are the public and the public are the police; the police being only members of the public who are paid to give full-time attention to duties which are incumbent on every citizen in the interests of community welfare and existence.
Principle 8. Police should always direct their action strictly towards their functions and never appear to usurp the powers of the judiciary.
Principle 9. The test of police efficiency is the absence of crime and disorder, not visible evidence of police action in dealing with it.
Community Policings most notable American advocate and practitioner has been Dr. Lee P. Brown, former Police Chief of Houston, Texas; Police Commissioner of New York City; and later as a member of President Bill Clintons Cabinet as Director of the White House Office of National Drug Control Policy. He ended his public service career by being elected Mayor of Houston, serving the maximum number of terms. There he applied the concepts of Community Policing to the entire government of the city, using the title Neighborhood Oriented Policing.
I have studied Dr. Brown since his days in Atlanta and I am a proponent as well as a practitioner of his advocacy. As Dr. Brown promotes, the structural objective is for officers not to spend more than 60% of their time answering 911 calls. The remaining 40% of their time should be spent in a directed patrol mode wherein officers leave their cars and work with the community on problem identification and problem solving. Although, this concept may not be intuitive, as officers leave their cars and form problem solving collaborations that prevent crime, less 911 calls will occur. Police Response time typically is not a defining characteristic of police effectiveness. To convince officers to leave their cars, consistent police training, expectations and supervision must reinforce that new normal. As officers leave their cars in a direct patrol mode to prevent crime, they engage citizens in their permanently assigned beat and refine their time management skills to work community problems. Thus, by leaving their cars, officers will create more productive time, get to know the people in their assigned beats of responsibility and develop collaborative relations as well as partnerships with those residents and business people. Also, regarding citizenry responsibility, the community will learn to develop a shared responsibility mentality to prevent crime in their neighborhoods as well as to prevent the fear of crime and disorder. Given proper management and supervision of a change management action plan, the citizenry-police collaborations will drive crime downward.
The crucial must have elements to implement Community Oriented Policing Problem Solving are: support of the appointing authority; development of a citizenry shared responsibility mindset base in collaboration and partnership including youth service efforts and educational institutions; and police leadership that is ethical, legal, and transparent within the Department. For these responses I am referring to IACPs definition of leaders as we teach (i.e., Leadership in a police organization is the process of ethically influencing human behavior to achieve organizational goals that serve the public, while developing individuals, teams, and the organization for the future." ). To truly be successful in Community Oriented Policing Problem Solving a police department must; empower all police personnel, explicitly each focal leader to do his/her job within the mission, vision, values of the jurisdiction and the Department; develop collaborative partnerships with other local government departments as well as state and federal request agencies; engage the business community including small businesses; engage the traditional media as well as social media opportunities; develop collaborative relations with elected and appointed officials; and develop commitment to problem solving by police personnel as well as local governmental personnel. Typically, problem solving involves SARA scanning, analysis, responding and assessing area of interests (i.e., an opportunity, a problem and/or decision that needs to be made) in a united and cohesive mode to impact and solve the interest. More difficult and systemic community-police problems very well may require Problem-Oriented Policing projects as advocated by Professor Herman Goldstein. Implementing and sustaining systems during climates of fiscal constraints is not easy, but it can be done with quality leadership. I accomplished it in Albany and Athens-Clarke County, Georgia. Many fiscal constraints can be minimizing via the productivity of collaborations and quality leadership, which employs data to ensure police are where they need to be by the hour of the day and day of the week. The Community Oriented Policing Problem Solving mode can be safeguarded and enhanced by requiring patrol officers to audio record their interactions with citizens as I did in 1997 or the higher tech solution of on-body video recording, which I commenced implementing in downtown Athens-Clarke County in 2012. Every policy decision must be considered in a context of its impact on Community Oriented Problem Solving for the citizenry and visitors as well as the safety of police officers. There are numerous tools used in Community Oriented Policing Problem Solving. Those tools are most effective when they are based on the results of an inclusive analysis that determines the needs of a jurisdiction per its culture, ordinances, leadership, demographics, fiscal status, environment, etc. Those tools can range from developing a number of precincts and substations to horse patrol versus bike patrols or walking beats as well as patrol cars equipped with bikes for periodic bike patrol. Recruitment, selection and promotion are key components to getting the right personnel in the agency and getting the right personnel in the right seats to assist in transformation. The tools ultimately applied should be based on a clear vision for the future; a trust building Leader Action Plan directed at each segment of the jurisdiction and their influencers; as well as precise and exact training for and empowerment of police personnel. The Community Oriented Policing Problems Solving tools applied must include overt accountability for the supervisory and management functions as well as the leadership responsibilities. Transforming operations for a sustainable future demands executive leadership that consistently reinforces expectations in an ever changing environment, but centered Peelian culture. Active transformational leadership will sustain the communitys substantial investment in its public safety and the corresponding influence on economic development.
3. In a diversity rich community like Savannah, cultural competency is very important. What experience do you bring, and what practices would you pursue to ensure a harmonious relationship between Savanah/Chatham Countys workforce and our diverse community?
I possess and exhibit the knowledge, skills, abilities and willingness to listen, learn and lead, while interacting with all individuals and groups in every environment. As the police chief, I am the police chief of all within my jurisdiction and I personally represent the mission, vision, and values of my jurisdiction. If one views my work and personal history, it is easy to discern that I have always made myself available and sustained memberships in a wide variety of groups throughout my 43 year public service career. I learned early on that the cross-cultural interactions refined my understanding of and communication with individuals and groups that I did not know well or that mistrusted the police. Additionally, it allows those individuals and groups the opportunity to get to know me and voice their concerns and perspectives. Therefore, I have made and continue to make myself available to and interact regularly with groups from the public housing complexes to the Rotary Clubs, Country Clubs, Chamber of Commerce Board and others. That was my history in the Athens Police Department before I became a police chief 21 years ago. It was also my behavior in Toccoa, which is a working-class industry based town with approximately 80% of the population white. I continued that performance in Albany, where the population was majority minority and working class, but with a high poverty rate as well as a high crime rate. To truly listen and hear, one must display a natural, empathetic demeanor that actually transmits to the other parties a genuine manner of sincerity toward them as well as the subject matter. This openness is quite often accomplished by genuine attempts and efforts to understand important and subtle communication and messaging associated with the subject matters cultural norms. One does not develop the trust required to be trustworthy by different cultures without genuine effort, openness and interactions in non-crisis times. I purposefully devote time to building trust as an investment in my community with good faith deposits. As an individual that was born into a family that owned a funeral home, I learned early in my life the necessity to be respectful and sensitive of others and their trials as well as their ordeals. My respect runs the length of the socioeconomic spectrum as well as it does through other topics that tend to divide our communities - educational issues, sexuality issues, heritage issues, ethnicity issues, etc. My intrinsic respect for the dignity and worth of all human beings unhesitatingly supports my ability to positively engage those that may not share my convictions. Thus, over the years I have built trust with and been awarded by numerous faith cultures from the Islam Mosques Imam to the Rabbi at the Temple, although my faith is Baptist. If one views my awards for the last 43 years, it is easy to determine that all cultures of my jurisdictions, except the racist, have awarded and recognized my service. I also demand my immediate staff acquire the ability to listen and learn from and with the cultures of our community and I do not tolerate throw away comments made in the performance of duty that are detrimental to the proper delivery of police service within the Constitution of the United States provisions. Although my present jurisdiction (I.e. Athens-Clarke County) does not possess the historic record of Savannah-Chatham County; the cultural and demographic mix is similar and verified via the U. S. Census. Both counties serve as the Core Based Statistical Area of their Metropolitan Statistical Areas. They are the commercial, cultural, educational, hospitality and medical hub of their region. They are diverse communities of the 21 st Century that demand a quality, harmonious workforce that is reflective of the cultural differences in our society. I am a leader that desires to lead in such a community. To that end for the last seven years the Athens-Clarke County Police Department (ACCPD) has taught an internationally recognized leadership course and opened half the seats to leaders from around the country and internationally. The IACPs sponsored Leadership in Police Organization Course has prepared approximately 50% of the ACCPD personnel for leadership in the West Point Academy model. For the last two years the ACCPD has taught internally and to some members of our citizenry, including the NAACP, UGA faculty, and Latino leaders a Fair and Impartial Policing course. These two courses deal directly with cultural and other differences as we prepare our workforce and community for the constant change of the future. In addition to the standard community based outreach programs such Neighborhood Watch, Crime Stoppers, COPS and POP Projects, Weed and Seed Continuation Meetings, J unior SRO Program and other School District Programs; the ACCPD per my leadership teaches a Youth Citizen Police Academy for the youth of our county. We purposefully target and recruit youth from less privilege areas to ensure harmonious, consensual police interactions with our youth. Also, after our recruit officers complete the State Mandate Training Course, the ACCPD returns our recruits to an eight week classroom and practical exercise setting within the ACCPD. This course is titled New Officer Basic Training. It teaches recruits how to police culturally in Athens-Clarke County as well as the high expectations and standards required by the ACCPD. I am and will continue to be a recognized leader in new ways of thinking about police leadership, cultural inclusion and the issues of biased based policing.
4. What can the Chief of Police do to ensure ongoing courtesy and respect between police officers and the community members with whom they have contact?
A successful police chief of any community will demonstrate a leadership and management duality. A police chief is the peoples representative within the department and the police chief is the police officers and departments representative with the citizenry and visitors of the community. The police chief is accountable for the motivation, satisfaction and performance of police employees and ultimately, the relationships the police department establishes and sustains with its citizens and visitors. Thus, the police chief must be a team builder within both constituencies, always only exhibiting a bias toward what is right, fair and transparent. When the police chief daily approaches this duality with commitment, the police chief will demonstrate over time to both constituencies that ultimately what is good for the police is good for the public and what is good for the public is good for the police an associated Peelian Principle.
As police chief, I utilize research-based principles and procedures to transform strategic, operational and tactical areas of interests such as internal and external culture. I require my personnel to conduct themselves within the Mission, Vision and Values of the Athens-Clarke County Unified Government as well as the Mission, Vision and Values of the Athens-Clarke County Police Department. Those expectations are clearly and concisely expressed to them during the employment interview as well as in letter format upon employment and in the New Officer Basic Training Course. Thus, the ACCPDs expectations of courtesy and respect as we engage external and internal customers are explicitly articulated and understood by line personnel and focal leaders.
I instigated respecting the dignity and worth of every individual as a departmental value for the ACCPD in 1997, when I became the ACCPD police chief. As the Albany Police Chief, I first developed and adopted as a Departmental value respecting the dignity and worth of every individual. It has paid dividends. Every leadership endeavor by the police chief typically requires a management procedure to ensure what is expected becomes the sustained culture. The management of the respecting the dignity and worth value included equipping all sworn personnel with audio recorders to memorialize engagements and the expectation of supervisory review. In 2012 we enhanced that management system by commencing the deployment of officer on-body cameras. The Peelian Principles, as stated previously, supports these reasonable management systems.
5. Through the City Manager's survey of the community, a key theme heard was that the next police chief needs to be a leader who displays honesty and integrity. However, at times, the public perception is that these qualities are lacking. How will you work to change public perception and gain their confidence as a leader who is honest and maintains integrity?
As police chief, I would immediately establish and enforce written directive protocols that govern ethical expectations from recruitment standards to behavior throughout an employees career. These character standards for recruitment and training benchmark standards as well as rules and regulations for members and focal leader enforcement will be constructed from the industrys best practices. I would develop an appropriate reference to our character and integrity efforts in the SCMPD and deliver that reference in all of my public appearances until the City Manager and I agreed we have properly addressed the perception.
Written directives would require agencies such as the GBI and/or FBI to conduct investigations regarding illegal and/or conduct that threaten the integrity of the department. Safeguards that protect the Departments integrity must always be followed including investigations of any ranking member(s) of the Department, inclusive of the police chief. I have used one simple rule to maintain Departmental integrity in 21 years as a police chief. Any allegation that is directed at or involves the police chief must be immediately reported to the City Manager, as my focal leader. The receiving party is explicitly ordered by rule to report and adhere to the City Managers direction.
Thus, if any allegation of misconduct is received by any employee, that employee knows he or she has the authority of the Department to thoughtfully, reasonable and prudently report said allegation to the proper source. For issues that do not threaten the agencys integrity such as a domestic violence complaint on an employee, an appropriate procedure would require the reporting be done immediately to a Department member one rank higher in the chain of command than the involved employee. Thus, focal leaders will be accountable for actively doing their job or bearing the consequences.
I am a leader who displays honesty and integrity as well as demands the same from my personnel. As Rich Martin wrote in the FBI Bulletin, While leaders certainly play an integral part in forming the overall climate of the organization, they alone cannot ensure that high levels of integrity are maintained. During a national symposium on police integrity, one speaker noted that it still is "our sergeants, lieutenants, and captains who have the daily and ongoing responsibility to ensure that the appropriate workplace standards are maintained. But, while ethical supervisors help maintain an ethical workplace, the opposite also remains true: uncaring and incompetent officials actually can promote misconduct. Unfortunately for the profession, I have lead in the arresting of police personnel for crimes of murder, bribery, gun trafficking, child sexual assault, drug trafficking and distribution, domestic violence, etc. When corruption is discovered, I have the courage to confront it professional, timely and transparently.
One of the keys to preventing police corruption and the accompanying Departmental trauma as well as the loss of public confidence is to ensure police sergeants, lieutenants and captains are actively performing the full scope of their job descriptions. I prefer to use positive discipline and job enhancing structure to encourage supervisory and managerial success. I am not hesitant to use motivation through consequence to ensure all supervisors and managers do their jobs or I will seek to remove them from service. The fiduciary and trust responsibilities of a Police Department demand that we safeguard the publics confidence, another Peelian Principle.
I am a leader. I have served on and chaired numerous councils and boards during my career. To list a few, I have chaired the Governors Criminal J ustice Coordinating Council, served on the NOBLEs national board as Region III Vice President, served on the Governors Commission on Family Violence, served on the national Hospitality Resource Panel Board, and currently serve on the International Association of Chiefs of Polices Executive Committee (i.e., the Governing Board) representing cities of the world with populations of 100,001 500,000.
By actively functioning outside of the four walls of the office and in the publics view on a daily basis, the citizens and visitors of Savannah-Chatham County will observe first hand my character and competency. The background investigation that Savannah conducts into my past and present will produce the same results as other background investigations, after which I have entertained police chief employment offers from Myrtle Beach, Toccoa, Albany, Chatham County, Macon and Athens-Clarke County.