Page 1 Page 2 Page 3 Page 4 Page 5 Page 6 Page 7 Page 8 Page 9 Page 10 Page 11 Page 12 Page 13 Page 14 Page 15 Page 16 Page 17 Page 18 Page 19 Page 20 Page 21 Page 22 Page 23 Page 24 Page 25 Page 26 Page 27 Page 28 Page 29 Page 30 Page 31 Page 32 Page 33 Page 34 Page 35 Page 36 Page 37 Page 38 Page 39 Page 4022 AMERICAN POLICE BEAT: APRIL 2016 man. Often there are ways to defuse these confronta- tions without resorting to deadly force. Our recommendations are based in part on what we learned last November, when officials from 23 American police agencies traveled to Scotland to see how the police there resolve such situations. Most police officers in Scotland don’t carry fire- arms, so they have become expert in combining crisis intervention skills (such as learning how to com- municate more effectively with a mentally ill person) with tactics and equipment like sprays and shields for disarming people with knives. The key for the police in such circumstances is to slow things down: to ask questions rather than bark orders, to speak in a normal tone, to summon additional resources if nec- essary. Pulling out a gun on an anxious person may unintentionally raise his level of stress. In “suicide by cop” confrontations, this can make a bad situa- tion worse. We found that this ap- proach works — not only in Britain, where police officials say it has increased the safety of officers and the public, but also in plac- es like New York City and in Camden, N.J. In November, Camden County police officers re- sponded to a man on the street with a knife. Rather than rushing toward him and putting themselves in a position where they had to use deadly force, the officers followed the suspect down the street, kept at a distance and arrested him when he dropped the knife. No shots were fired and no one was injured. “Slowing it down” is not always possible. Police officers are sometimes at- tacked suddenly, as in the October 2014 assault on a group of New York police officers by a man with a hatchet. This attack lasted less than 10 seconds. The assailant was shot and killed. But in many encounters, officers can keep a safe distance and evaluate the situation. Toward that end, the country’s 18,000 police departments need to re- think their strategies for responding to situations that do not involve guns. In short, the use of force must be proportional to the threat. Officers should focus on calming volatile situations. They must intervene if they see colleagues using excessive force. First aid must be rendered prompt- ly. Shooting at vehicles should be prohibited. If officers are properly trained and equipped, they and the people they en- counter can walk away unharmed from many situ- ations that now end in po- lice shootings. Chuck Wexler is the executive director of the Police Executive Research Forum (PERF). Scott Thomson, the chief of the Camden County Police Department in New Jersey, is the president of PERF. Continued from page 14 Police receive a lot in the way of tactical training and firearms proficiency. But when it comes to training for the majority of situations police routinely find themselves facing, the amount of training is woefully inadequate. As the saying goes, “When all you have is a hammer, everything looks like a nail.” Making policing safer for everyone is the goal We didn’t sign up to become debt collectors We didn’t sign up to become debt collectors I n Montreal, officers have reportedly been offered performance bonuses based on sev- eral criteria, ranging from call response time to arrests and, controversially, the number of tickets writ- ten, according to a Montreal Gazette report. “We find this totally in- decent and unethical,” said Montreal Police Brother- hood president Yves Fran- coeur. “We’re not a company that sells hotdogs, we’re working in public safety.” The report suggests the program was implemented in response to a drop in ticket infractions and rev- enue, starting in summer 2014. The incentives are said to be worth up to eight percent of a senior officer’s base sal- ary, in some cases represent- ing $12,000 annually. Ticket quotas are explic- itly illegal in many U.S. states, including New York, California, and Illinois. Some departments have been accused of circum- venting the spirit of these regulations by considering ticket numbers as a way to measure officer ‘productiv- ity’ and ‘performance’ as- sessments. The city of Los Angeles in 2013 paid $6 million to settle lawsuits filed by LAPD officers who accused the department of implement- ing a secret quota system for traffic tickets. NYPD officers have also claimed the department enforces an unwritten rule, described as a “20 and one” requirement for 20 tickets and one arrest per month, but NYPD officials have denied the allegations. Critics argue that quotas pressure officers to harass innocent citizens. Such programs also foment distrust among the popula- tion as the officers’ roles in the community shift from policing to fund raising. “You have a policy that encourages police to create petty crimes and ignore seri- ous crimes, and that’s clearly the opposite of what we want our police to be doing,” Radley Balko, author of Rise of the Warrior Cop, said. Ticket quotas