Police2Peace ® is a research-driven organization that creates demonstrably positive changes in the way communities and departments engage with one another. With police reform top of mind for so many, we see a key aspect of reform as uniting communities and police around solutions that uplift and heal them. One way we do this is by offering departments the opportunity to self-review and then following-up with programs to create greater community engagement. Request a self-review. Department self-reviews can be performed together with our 7-Steps to Positive Policing program which any community can undertake. For more information, click here.
“We wanted our community to realize that we were more than just law enforcement—we were peace officers.”
Sheriff Leon Lott
Our national non-profit was formed with the idea that the daily exchange and use of words create more peace and harmony for communities and greater public trust for police services. What does a peaceful community look like? It’s one where departments and communities are getting along, both officers and citizens are treating one another with respect, co-producing public safety with the community, and working on reducing use of force.
To operationalize this on a national level, we work with cities and departments around the country to deliver programs that support them for the purposes of cultural change, procedural change, operational change, and departmental alignment. All of these changes are rooted in the notion of PEACE OFFICER as the big, overarching, next generation idea for policing.
We begin by giving each department and community the opportunity for self-review of how citizens view the department and its officers, how the officers view the citizens, and how the officers view themselves and their department. Request a self-review.
Our programs deliver high impact initiatives intended to develop community engagement and lower the barriers between police and the community. These programs then have the effect of changing behavior and perception of behavior for everyone. From assessing the relationship between the department and community members to fostering greater collaboration, our programs are intended to change hearts and minds. All of this is to help bring about a more fair, just, and equitable society for all. Click here for a list of these programs.
In departments and communities around the country, research indicates that the way officers and citizens view themselves and one another can change over time and with certain interventions, for example resulting in a shift in officers’ views of their jobs. In some studies, before the PEACE OFFICER wording is introduced, officers report seeing themselves and being seen as tamping down problems that develop; after the introduction of the wording they report seeing their roles as creating peace in the community. Community members report similar shifts in their views of officers as peacekeepers, lowering fear, generating more trust, and greater willingness to reach out to officers when there is an issue.
The programs draw on established social science work including Priming, Language-Augmented Cognition, Social Tuning, Procedural Justice, and Cognitive Resilience Training. Each of these techniques contributes to changing hearts and minds through fostering compassion and building greater public trust.
Benefits to Departments and Communities
The benefits to departments and communities are far-reaching for both officers and community members. For departments, the Police2Peace ® programs can make officers’ jobs easier, improve officer wellness, ease recruitment, reduce stress, and create more satisfaction. For communities, the programs stimulate collaboration between the police and citizens. The department, city, state, and federal government incur no expense whatsoever for the programs, research and the release of the resulting studies.
Proven Results for a Change
With growing media coverage of police-citizen encounters, departments and communities around the country are taking the opportunity for self-review. Then by employing other programs such as the PEACE OFFICER initiative, departments and communities can transform perceived problems into a collaborative effort for greater peace and security. Greater collaboration between citizens and officers lowers mistrust and creates more willingness for citizens to reach out to officers when there is an issue. This has the result of changing the mindset of officers and citizens from “us versus them” to one of collaboration resulting in lasting change for both the department and the community.
Police2Peace ® Research Study: Richland County, South Carolina | Click To Download
Police2Peace ® is a non-profit corporation granted public charity status by the IRS. All donations are tax-deductible to the fullest extent of the law.
