Policing & Service: What’s Your Blueprint?
Author: Tay Jones - Owner/Consultant, Law Enforcement Product Solutions
Right now, a motto synonymous with policing is being projected to communities along the city streets and backroads of America. Police cruisers across the country have been graced with this motto, or some variation thereof; a summary of the work that’s done day in and day out by the uniformed servant sitting in the front seat.
The motto: Protect and Serve
Not only are these words a succinct interpretation of the duties of law enforcement, but they also represent what communities expect from those who have sworn to do the job. Communities expect to be protected and served, simultaneously.
That’s a tall order, but not impossible.
Law enforcement is a special and interesting career. To both protect and serve, the men and women of the force need to be warriors with a heart of gold, and servants with a warrior mindset. Some have both; some have only one or the other. As an agency who’s sworn to protect and serve, it’s important you fulfill both promises.
Officers use force, and it is a necessary part of their police duties. Necessary force often protects the person it’s used upon, as well as the collective community. However, sometimes actions that facilitate protection also bring a dark cloud upon the goal of service. If this dark cloud releases, it can wash away and erode the trust of the community you were trying to protect in the first place.
A washing away or full erosion of public trust after an incident can be a sign that a strong, established foundation with your community is either missing or its strength has degraded over time. With a lack of foundation – a sense of true service within your community – even a gentle storm on a warm spring day can have disastrous effects. A strong foundation, however, stands against the storm and provides a solid structure for the process of rebuilding, if needed.
A strong foundation of service takes prior planning and strategy, and once the foundation is poured, it continues to solidify through time and consistent effort. You need a blueprint. Without a blueprint of the finished product – a vision for the future – the house you build on top of the foundation is more easily susceptible to collapse.
The time to build is before the storm.
Do you have a service strategy? A blueprint for service?
The service you provide your community – your customer service – is hard to quantify, and it entails more than you may think. Law Enforcement Product Solutions’ Touchpoint Method™ of customer service is a four-part framework that helps you better understand how you’re showing up for your community and provides a blueprint for one of the most important aspects of law enforcement: SERVICE.
If you’re a police chief, sheriff, or other command level, law enforcement leader, and would like your police agency to better understand these concepts, learn more about our Customer Service for Law Enforcement training.
You can’t do it all yourself, but we can do it together.
With you
For you
Together