It’s said the road to hell is paved with good intentions. That may be true for many things, but far too often the road to hell is paved with evil intent, dishonesty and hidden motives. The same can be said of those who write and sign off on department policies.

Sometimes, policy writers develop policies because the department wants to make sure all officers are on the same page and following the same script when it comes to certain issues. This could include uniform policies, vehicle inspections, training requirements and the use of confidential informants, to name a few.

Unfortunately, far too often there is a darker side to policy implementation and enforcement. The most obvious result of highly restrictive policies is the loss of officer discretion. The other side of that same coin is that policies written without room for exceptions are often used as evidence during disciplinary actions. It can become impossible to function on the street without breaking one policy or another, even unintentionally. Then there are the policies that can be weaponized as personal attacks simply because a supervisor doesn’t like an officer. Ready for a few examples?

District integrity

I’m going to ruffle some feathers with this article, but let’s start with something simple before we get into the nuts and bolts of the dangers of restrictive policies. For many medium and large police agencies, their overall jurisdiction can be extensive. As a result, the city or county is often divided into districts, precincts or sectors to provide coverage. This can help divide the workload more equitably among officers and reduce response times to emergency calls for service.

The problem arises when supervisors or command staff create hard borders around those district lines. At one point in my career, officers were required to stay within their assigned districts regardless of the number of calls pending in adjacent districts. If an officer needed to enter another district to follow up on a case or interview someone, supervisor approval was required. This was a colossal waste of time and resulted in some officers being slammed by calls and reports while other officers kept busy doing more self-initiated patrol activities. Another problem was that cases needing additional follow-up investigation remained open for much longer than necessary, causing some victims to wonder if their cases would ever be completed.

Assigning districts and patrol areas is a good tactic, but requiring strict adherence to district boundaries is nothing more than micromanagement.

Policy cannot account for every possible circumstance, and attempts to do so often lead to ridiculous outcomes.

Policy cannot account for every possible circumstance, and attempts to do so often lead to ridiculous outcomes.

Use of force

Now we’re getting into the nuts and bolts of this article. When it comes to restrictive use-of-force policies, the politicians and command staff who advocate for these believe the results will be a safer, happier community with officers who clearly understand the acceptable application of force options. Unfortunately, the real-world result is far different than their utopian fantasies. These policies don’t make decision-making easier, and they don’t make communities safer. Instead, they cause hesitation and fear among officers on the street at the exact moment they are facing danger. Policies should clarify issues and help officers make sound use-of-force decisions without caving to agenda-driven groups or politicians.

Retired police officer and use-of-force subject-matter expert Kevin Davis told me, “Nowadays, it is, without any research or proof, quite politically correct to restrict officers’ use of force using terms that do not appear in the legal standards, such as ‘minimal,’ ‘necessary,’ ‘proportional,’ ‘after attempts at lesser force have failed,’ ‘officers must de-escalate,’ and on and on. The brilliance of Graham v. Connor, and reinforced by multiple court rulings since, is that force must be judged from the perspective of the officer involved, not in 20/20 hindsight. All of the voguish terms (‘minimal’ and ‘proportional,’ as examples) are hindsight-based after an incident.”

This is the area where there is the most room for liability. As bad as that “L-word” may seem, what is even worse is that this is the area where weak leadership is most likely to hang officers out to dry. Weak, cowardly leadership loves to pander to their political masters when it comes to use-of-force policy. As Davis says, “When agency policy exceeds the legal standards on use of force, it creates the conundrum whereupon an officer’s force could be within the law but violate policy. Never a great position to be in liability wise.” Which brings us to …

Policies for thee but not for me

“Policy is a guideline” — unless it’s not. This is the ecosystem of the cowardly. There are weak leaders who fail to recognize the hypocrisy of touting policy as a guideline rather than a rule, while combing the policy manual for every possible policy violation that may apply when an officer makes an honest mistake. Sometimes it’s a training issue, and sometimes it’s a disciplinary issue, but good leaders recognize the difference.

“Policies for thee but not for me” can move beyond the ethical arena and into the criminal space. In February of this year, the former New Haven, Connecticut, chief of police was arrested for larceny after allegedly embezzling more than $85,000 in public funds. Don’t you think the New Haven Police Department has a policy covering theft?

As I write this, the investigation in Madison, Wisconsin, is ongoing regarding its police department’s most recent officer-involved shooting. On July 23, during a press conference, the chief of police stepped aside and let a protester hijack the initial press conference while a second protester held a sign next to the podium reading, “Corrupt cops deserve to die too!!! F— you killers!!!” If the CEO of a department is too scared to stand up for himself in the middle of a press conference, what makes anyone think he will stand up for his officers?

I hope I’m wrong about this guy, but I doubt it. This is the type of weak and cowardly leadership that will gladly sign off on highly restrictive use-of-force policies for thee, using voguish terms such as “minimal” and “proportional,” while peddling the verbal diarrhea of policies being operational guidelines.

Bound by policy and discretion

In a world of problem-oriented or community policing ideals, officers are supposedly empowered to make decisions that help the people we serve. Once officer discretion is taken away, it greatly limits our ability to problem-solve and replaces it with a black-and-white “if/then” action. Policy cannot account for every possible circumstance, and attempts to do so often lead to ridiculous outcomes. A policy manual shouldn’t be like sitting down to read War and Peace, nor should policies be written to cover every single possible mistake an officer could make. There’s nothing wrong with a comprehensive policy manual. Let’s make certain the manual is there to help instead of hinder.