How to... Have an Effective Conversation with Youth about Your Police Department’s Practices

The value of improving communications between law enforcement and youth on the street is central to effective community policing. What makes it effective is that it keeps officers safer, helps officers develop relationships with youth that are in an of themselves preventive in nature and that often yield information that can be used to solve crime. Good communication also means simple interactions don’t escalate situations and result in unnecessary arrest, which also makes communities safer.

Most of the time such communications occur on the street. Sometimes, officers go to meet with youth. This “How To” offers strategies and tactics below are best practices for longer, in-depth conversations with youth. We propose two different approaches, depending on the officers’ goals for the conversation. It is assumed that a single conversation cannot address all issues and that it may take multiple conversations before youth and police can find common ground and understand each other’s perspectives. But a single conversation that is effective and respectful can lead to an interest and willingness to consider the conversation in the future.

[These suggestions were prepared by: Julie Kleinman, Strategies for Youth, Rhonda McKitten of the Youth & Law Enforcement Corp. (Philadelphia, PA), Anthony Meeks, Streetworker, Boston Youth & Family Services]

These Conversations will be Most Effective if Officers:

Do not engage with arguments and instead reframe disagreements or challenges from the youth by asking them questions about their statements
Stay positive, not defensive: be aware of your impulse to defend other officers’ behavior
Resist an “us vs. them” mentality and recognize the complexity of the issues,
Remember that youth “barks” are often louder than their “bites” and that a lot of youths’ language is just that—words—and does not define the youth as “bad” or “good”
Remember that youth in groups tend to protect each other against adults (even if they hated each other the minute before), so an adult’s apparent attack or criticism of a youth will galvanize the other youth against all officers in the room,
Use incentives when trying to find ways to partner with the youth. They work.

Before Having the Conversation Any Department Must Establish:

What is your goal?
Advising youth of a new policing initiative.
Asking youth to connect and partner in keeping an area safe.

What do you want youth to feel when you leave the room?

Frightened?
Aware?
Safe?
Re-assured?
Acknowledged and respected?

What incentives are you offering youth to partner with you?

Benefit of the doubt at the next interaction
Recognition at the next encounter
Offer to address a point the youth raises, and follow up

Which officers/partners are you asking to attend? Why have they been chosen?

Choose officers with excellent communication skills.

Are you putting an officer who has daily contact with the youth in a position of defending their daily activities with youth?

If so, don’t!

If Your Goal is Connecting with Youth and Asking for Their Support:

Be outnumbered: If there are 20 youth, bring only 2 to 3 officers
1. Delegate responsibilities among officers so that the leader decides when other officers may speak and alerts them when to do so and when not to do so
Sit. Do not stand.
Shake hands with participants.
Begin by asking for everyone’s first name and where they live; show your familiarity with the area (i.e. “Is your house/apartment right near Carmine’s restaurant?”)
Explain your goal is to understand why situations escalate into bad outcomes and to get help in stopping these bad outcomes
1. Assume that youth who volunteer or have been chosen to participate are “leaders”
2. Treat youth as “leaders”
3. Ask them to advise you
Ask for their ideas on why problems occur at X Station, corner, area, etc.:
1. Have at least one officer take notes on youths’ statements
2. Tally frequency of which themes are mentioned
3. Limit the time spent on this aspect of the discussion to 10 minutes and tell youth you are doing this to ensure there is focus on the solution
4. Ensure that everyone in the room is heard; ask youth who have not spoken if they have ideas they would like to share and pause to let youth respond before moving on
Ask for their solutions to improve the situation according to the role of the person involved, for example:
1. What can youth do
2. What can parents do
3. What can police do
4. What can schools do
5. What can store owners do
6. What can bus drivers do (etc.)
If the suggestions appear one sided, take another role – i.e. youth blame police for bad outcomes, ask youth what youth could do to prevent bad outcomes” or “Which other adults in the community have a role in preventing bad outcomes?”
Do NOT react to statements by refuting, dismissing, or responding to each of the statements in an argumentative fashion, simply note statements
End the discussion as follows:
1. Thank youth for respectful encounter
2. Thank youth for being open and honest
3. Reiterate plans to review notes taken and report on them to higher-ups
4. Give out business cards and invite youth to call with other ideas
5. VOW TO DO SOMETHING based on a criticism youth repeatedly raised:
  1. “I vow that the next time I see a youth I will say hello.”
6. Ask other officers to make a vow.
7. Ask youth to make a vow.
As youth leave the room, shake hands and say you hope to see them again.

If Your Goal is Laying Down the Law, Do: If your goal is to introduce a new regulation or warn of reinforced enforcement of an existing rule:

Show your strength: bring many officers to indicate this is not negotiable.
Explain your goal is to make youth aware of new rules and how they will be enforced.
Describe the rules verbally. Provide the rules in writing.
Explain the reasons for the change.
1. Make presentation neutral, devoid of emotion
  1. Present the “just doing my job” face
  2. Re-iterate the logic behind the rule in a neutral manner
2. Cite proponents of the change (e.g. neighbors, school principal, specific groups such as the elderly)
Give a scenario involving the rules and their violation and demonstrate how an officer will respond
Ask youth if they have questions about the rules
Ask youth if they have questions about the enforcement
Don’t ask questions if you don’t want to hear the answer
1. Avoid verbal tics like, “Ok?” If it’s not “ok,” what will your answer be?
Anticipate the following reactions:
1. Rules are too broad and affect protected conduct
2. Enforcement is not pinpointed at real culprits
3. Officers over-generalize
4. Officers will “sweep up” youth who are not guilty
5. The plan is not fair; it’s part of some other scheme to hurt youth and enhance police power
Plan how you will respond to these reactions:
1. Complaint line?
2. Return to discuss impacts of implementation
3. Offer a neutral third party (i.e. youth-serving community based organization) to receive youths’
4. views and relay them to law enforcement.
Do not engage with direct challenges or try to refute the youth’s reactions. Listen carefully and note these reactions.
1. If a youth says, “This is bull. You’re full of it” the better part of valor may be to move on, ask “Any other thoughts?”

Remember:

The self-perceptions of both youth and police are not necessarily representative of how each group acts in reality: As often as you perceive yourselves as fair, impartial, respectful and youth-sensitive, youth perceive themselves as adult-like, respectful, innocent, and at-risk of being treated unfairly.
When youth raise issues that attack your perception of yourself and your colleagues, e.g. by calling officers racist or liars, it is natural to want to defend all police conduct. Similarly, when you raise issues that embarrass or threaten youths’ perceptions of themselves, e.g. by calling them hoodlums, youth typically want to defend all youth as a group.
What really matters—good outcomes for police, youth, and communities—gets lost in the scuffle.
As the adults in the conversation, you are best positioned to try to understand why youth accuse officers of certain behaviors. You can de-escalate the conversation by engaging youth who make these claims and spending the time to have youth describe the situations and the actions that led to these conclusions.
Listen and think before you respond. If you respond to youth’s statements with accusations or justifications, the “conversation” can escalate into a free-for-all. This response also prevents you from considering your actions and discovering more effective approaches to working with youth. It may also reinforce the negative stereotypes youth hold about police, which they might then use to justify negative actions.
When police seem to justify the actions of all officers without considering the concerns of youth, youth conclude there is no point talking to police and lose any incentive for positive behavior because they police already view them in a negative way.

Example of the Wrong Way:

Youth speaks up, in classroom with 6 officers standing at the front of the class, 3 in uniform and 3 not and 15 students, and accuses officer, “You wouldn’t tell a woman with 4 kids to get off the sidewalk the way you tell us.” An officer responds, “Yeah and how many women with 4 kids shoot other kids to death every week?” Result: Youth has confirmation that officers see all youth as dangerous.

Example of the Right Way:

In a classroom of 15 students, with 2 officers (not in uniform) sitting among the students, a youth speaks up, “You wouldn’t tell a woman with 4 kids to get off the sidewalk the way you tell us.” An officer responds, “Do you think that’s what happens?” The officer has shown the youth that he values and respects his opinion, and can use the discussion to demonstrate why an officer might react in a particular way and/or offer to investigate the action.