Officers who work security at restaurants will tell you they have seen people come in for dinner and observe zero communication at dinner tables, often incommucado with their phone, other times not. It doesn’t matter if it’s a Gold Coast restaurant, Denny’s, or sadly, the home dinner table of some reading this. Cell phones routinely deprive loved ones and friends from the other’s attention. Nobody is talking; devices are taking over our lives and the creep has entered law enforcement.

Today’s officer is overloaded with distractions: radios, a computer, lights and siren controls, license plate scanners, etc., and those are work-related devices. There’s something else, more insidious, contributing to officer distraction … personal cell phones. At roll calls, half the room is on phones. I’ve seen officers, in the station, on an arrest; they are on their phone, unrelated to their duties. This is a safety issue as well as increasing the risk of paperwork and notification mistakes. Those reading this know who are the culprits regarding this. Is it you? Some officers are so engaged, they carry their phone chargers them. I wonder, what did officers do before the advent of cell phones? They had to talk to each other in the car, yikes!

I suspect this is a problem everywhere. Do you work with someone addicted to checking text messages and emails and social media while they’re shopping online? How safe do you feel? Doesn’t this behavior worry you? Tell them to “Put the phone down!” Your partner should have your back and looking down at a cell phone is a distraction. This distraction means slower response time in the event of something happening.

If you are addicted to your phone, think about the impact it has on those around you as well as you. That phone call can wait. Let it go to voicemail. Resist the urge to constantly check text messages or email. It’s not healthy to constantly be on the phone while at work, and especially when your office is a squad car.

Nicholas Carr explains in his book, The Shallows: What the Internet Is Doing to Our Brains, “The net is designed to be an interruption system, a machine geared to dividing attention” and “We willingly accept the loss of concentration and focus, the division of our attention and the fragmentation of our thoughts, in return for the wealth of compelling or at least diverting information we receive.”

Officers do not need more distractions. What officers do not realize is that they are addicted to their phones. Addiction is the relentless pull to a substance or an activity that becomes so compulsive it interferes with everyday life. Does a phone interfere with your ability to do the job? Some officers will continue talking on their cell phone during a traffic stop. I’ve seen it. Please put the phone down.

According to a recent survey, the average worker spends up to six hours a day on email. That doesn’t count time online spent shopping, searching or keeping up with social media. The brain’s craving for novelty, constant stimulation and immediate gratification creates something called a “compulsion loop.” Like lab rats and drug addicts, we seek more and more to get the same effect.

Don’t officers get enough stimulation at work? Too much stimulation creates cognitive overload. It’s as if our brains are a full cup of water; anything more added starts to spill out. Spend spending too much time on phones thins attention span.

We all know an officer who is on his phone too much. It’s unsafe and frustrating to the partner you are assigned to protect. I once offered to buy a guy on my team lunch if he put his cell phone away the entire shift. I didn’t buy lunch; the urge to answer the phone was too much.

I understand cell phones are necessary. Find a reasonable balance. And I challenge you to go a day without using it. Set rules with your family. Challenge yourself to fight the urge to answer every phone call, email, and text message when you hear the tones, dings and rings. Put the phone away and see what happens.

Brian Mc Vey, MAP, served the Chicago Police Department for more than 10 years. He has a master’s degree in police psychology from Alder University and is an adjunct professor. You can reach him at btmcvey@comcast.net.

By Thomas Cline

With constant calls from the media for more discipline of line officers, something often overlooked is that most of the time administrators are given a pass. After all, it is those administrators and their political taskmasters that set the overall tone of an agency. Discipline, though necessary, is really the lesser half of this equation. The question that should be asked is: Which line officer behaviors are rewarded by administration as well as by peers?

Too many rewards – formal and informal – tempt officers to lie to increase arrests and convictions, and officers who display patterns of problem behaviors are often transferred in large agencies; some even get promotions! In smaller agencies, bad officers are forced to leave with an “atta boy” letter that paves the way for a position in another place.

A few years back, a Chicago officer was killed in a car accident returning home after his shift because a suburban officer initiated a chase and was ordered on the air by supervision to stop chasing; he didn’t. The suburban bad apple had “left” five-to-seven local agencies in his 20-or-so years of carnage. Termination apparently was not an option in the agencies he left; administrative cowardice won.

Research done in the 1990s by Dr. Neal E. Trautman, Director of the National Institute of Ethics, showed that in every major law enforcement scandal, leaders ignored, tacitly approved of, and sometimes supported behavior that violated constitutional rights and abused power. Dr. Trautman said, “Based on my experiences instructing more than 600 integrity leadership seminars and working with severely corrupt organizations, most administrators fully understand what’s going on, but merely want to ‘get to retirement.’ One of the most common denominators in national scandals is that selfishness and cowardice of top leaders allow the misconduct to grow like a cancer and destroy innocent people.”

Dr. Trautman’s research discovered that there is an easily recognizable template that leads to scandal. He labeled it the “Continuum of Corruption”:

Phase 1: Administrative Indifference

Phase 2: Ignoring of Obvious Ethical Problems

Phase 3: Hypocrisy and Fear Dominating the Culture

Phase 4: Survival of the Fittest

In Phase 1, administrators, who are not negative role models themselves, devote zero resources to promoting and maintaining ethical standards.

In Phase 2, administrators know “something” is going on and look the other way, ignoring acts of indiscretion by workers even as they grow in severity and frequency. Some lack the courage to address the issues, while some refuse to act because those involved bring in numbers make them and their unit or department appear effective to the public.

Phase 3 happens after many years of indifference and ignored ethical infractions. The majority of line supervisors follow the lead of administration, knowing that politics and hidden agendas decide who is promoted, ostracized, pushed aside or thrown to the wolves. Officers, feeling hopeless over unbearable working conditions, feel victimized and conclude that misconduct is justified. Eventually, resentment and bitterness surface in harsh criticism by many, and sometimes open defiance of administrators.

By Phase 4, employees and leadership do “whatever it takes” to survive; the

Code of Silence is condoned and privately encouraged. As scandal starts to cloud over the department, leaders “in the know” engage in subterfuge to protect their positions. Some place themselves at the head of investigations, thinking they can bury information implicating them. The top priority is hiding the story from the media. Those that deserve firing or arrest are allowed to quietly resign. Chief administrators, especially, hide misconduct, fearing they will be fired because it happened on their watch.

Interestingly, blame for malfeasance seems to escape those at the highest levels of government because they control investigative resources and decide on whom to use them. Low-level government agencies tend to get more scrutiny.

This high-level/low-level difference is not surprising if you examine the rewards and punishments in a politically correct culture that fears truth and punishes those who tell it. Recognition and prestige are so sought after that people trade integrity for them. If a system like CompStat is used to belittle leaders at meetings, the impetus is even greater. The fictional but very realistic HBO series The Wire demonstrated this well.

The way to avoid these scandals was promoted by the National Institute of Ethics, but few organizations have taken the solutions seriously. For law enforcement, they are as follows:

• Stringent entry standards and background checks
• High Quality FTO programs
• Fortitude to fight political interference
• Consistent, fair accountability
• Training in Non-Tactical Career Survival at least as much as in tactics
• A fair promotion process absent of politics
• Promotion of positive leadership role models
• Prevention of officers feeling victimized
• A fair employee-intervention process

Sorry, but I’m not holding my breath for this to happen anywhere any time soon. The best us we can do to survive in this climate is to check our behaviors against a set of standards daily and work on ourselves harder than the job.

Thoughts from real action guys and gals

“Obstacles are those frightful things you see when you take your eyes off your goals.”

~Unknown Author

By Danny McGuire

What coppers are thinking

For every article I pen, I enjoy talking to the men and women who are working in the field to gain their perspective on current events.

With that said, one early morning I was in a coffee shop located in the south burbs of Chicago, with zero intention of doing research for this article mind you, when a young male officer came into the shop. He looked fresh, however tired and almost wore out. I recognized that look and had great sympathy for it. I proceeded to pay for his order, thanked him for his service and then identified myself by showing him my identification, only because he looked at me like I was pulling his leg. Once he saw my name, the officer indicated he was familiar with my articles in Illinois Cops Magazine.

At that point I felt opportunity striking and asked him for a minute of his time as I was planning on writing this article about officer perceptions of the current climate. He said he would, but only if I left his name out of it. Of course I agreed and asked him how old he was and how many years of service he had. His reply: 30 years old, four years “on the job,” with three small children and a wife (which would explain his exhausted appearance).

I then enquired to his feelings about today’s climate involving police and the community. His response: “It seems like we just can’t catch a break, Doc. I go to work each night and can count on one hand how many ‘friendly’ conversations I have, but it takes all 20 digits and then some to count the negative interactions. It just wears on you. I am so, so tired of the negative. I feel beat up each morning when I get off to go home.”

His look of sincere frustration combined with defeat really struck a chord in my heart. I am looking at this young man with a long way to go, already morose and callous.

Everyday life

“Our fatigue is often caused not by work, but by worry, frustration and resentment.”

~Dale Carnegie

I asked him if he was taking steps to keep himself “OK.” He looked at me with bewilderment and answered, “What do you mean?” I then presented the question differently by asking if he sees a therapist, peer support team member and/or anything helpful like meditation or physical activities to keep his mind and body ready. His response was something I too often hear: “How, Doc? How? I get home from work in the morning, the kids are up. One is in Kindergarten, one is two and the other 10 months. My wife is exhausted; she has to work so we can pay the bills. I get home, she goes to work. I get a two-hour nap with the kids then pick up the Kindergartener. When she gets home at 4 p.m., I get another two-hour nap, then back at it.”

His look of frustration was intense. He continued: “Then on my days off, I just want to sleep. Forget friends, family parties and other stuff. God forbid if I have court, I get no sleep!” Again, the overarching appearance of fatigue and exacerbation was written all over this young man’s face.

Before I could respond, the officer continued: “Then, come to work, no one is happy here. People hate you, young kids calling you names because it’s ‘the cool thing’ today. Those kids’ parents do not hold them accountable. Ah, it’s all B.S., Doc!”

Now this officer’s facial expression went to anger and I began to wonder if he required some real assistance.

The question is “Why?”

“Today’s frustrations and disappointments are the footsteps leading to tomorrow’s successes.”

~Unknown Author

At that instant I reflected back to my young years and recollected something an “old timer” asked me during a moment like this. That “old timer” asked me, “Why did you become the police then?”

I realize my response may be different than this officer’s, but I had nothing to lose, so I asked him: “Why did you become a police officer?”

His expression changed from anger, frustration and exhaustion to a smile. His answer was not surprising at all. His reply: “It’s what I wanted to do since I could remember. My uncle was a Chicago detective and did 28 years. He never retired because he never lived long enough. He died at 49 years old of a heart attack. I loved his stories and thought he was so cool.” I smiled back telling him I thought that was very noble. He then stated, “After a while I felt like I was really helping people, ya know? It is an awesome job when you actually help!”

I explained to the officer that the “right now” of his situation may seem infinite; however, in the blink of an eye his kids will be grown, he will have 25 years of service and his situation will be different. At that point I handed the officer my card and told him to call me anytime, day or night, and we could do this again and shared the adage “life is a marathon, not a sprint.”