For many years, police “diversity” or “cultural competence” programs focused on presenting characteristics of certain racial or ethnic groups.

That approach is inadequate and can be quite harmful if the presentation focuses on external characteristics and tries to describe the “Black experience” or “Navajo culture” or the “Sikh people in America” as all having unitary experiences, perceptions, needs for police services, and communication styles.

When an officer recalls a well-intentioned statement made in a training session that “Latinos are less likely to report a crime or cooperate with police because of a fear of being deported,” what assumptions may the officer make to fit an encounter into the stereotype? How will the officer treat the person in the context of fitting a stereotype? Officers risk being so preoccupied with trying to segment community members into categories to apply some technique learned in a “cultural diversity” course that they lose sight of the needs of the person at the center of the call for service.

The West Jordan, Utah, Police Department took a unique approach to preparing officers to deliver policing services to the many different communities in the city. In the span of just a few short years, the growth of the LatinX and Asian/Pacific Islander communities far outpaced general population increases in the city. Within the past year, the state’s largest mosque opened in West Jordan to accommodate the explosive growth of Muslims in the city and surrounding areas. Beyond implementing a recruitment program to better represent the community composition and placing bilingual officers in school resource programs and other specialty assignments, the West Jordan Police Department shifted its training focus to better equip officers to have more effective communication with all members of the community served.

You Matter Like I Matter

To shift their officers’ mindset to more fully understand the community members’ behaviors and thoughts, the West Jordan Police Department provided training for all officers through Developing and Implementing an Outward Mindset, a course created by the Arbinger Institute to teach the difference between inward and outward mindsets.¹ The core principle of the philosophy—“you matter like I matter”—is often heard in training, coaching, and daily conversation. Officers learn to see the other person’s needs, goals, and objectives in each encounter. They’re taught to see and measure their own impact and to adjust their efforts accordingly. Believing that mindset drives behavior, officers and supervisors participate in outwardness training scenarios related to common calls for service in quarterly in-service sessions and in shift briefings.

Working closely with the Arbinger Institute staff, in 2021, the agency launched Diversity, Equity and Inclusion in Policing training.² The department is now in the process of coupling active bystandership training with their outward mindset training program. Before the active bystandership training provided by the ABLE Project was launched, leadership met with the local leaders of groups such as the local NAACP branch, the Islamic Society, as well as representatives of the Latinx and Pacific Islander members of the community.

Developed at the Georgetown Law Center for Innovations in Community Safety, in partnership with the Sheppard Mullin law firm, the active bystandership training teaches officers how to effectively intervene when a fellow officer may be about make a costly mistake that could bring harm and end a career. The ABLE Project builds on the highly successful Ethical Policing Is Courageous Peer Intervention Program created by Dr. Ervin Staub and experts within the New Orleans, Louisiana, Police Department. Before an agency can receive the no-cost training and support resources from the ABLE Project, the agency must commit to promoting “a culture of active bystandership and peer intervention through policy, training, support, and accountability.” Program standards require letters of support from community advocacy organizations, the agency’s chief executive, and the top leader of the jurisdiction served by the department.³

Community-police relations are strongly influenced by intentional proximity. Mistrust of police breeds fear of police and fear fuels contempt for police. Creating intentional proximity naturally grows trust and new relationships. In the agency’s pursuit of support for implementation of the ABLE Project, law enforcement met with civic and advocacy groups and explained policies related to the duty to intervene in unnecessary force and other potential misconduct. The use of force review process was described and an example of a complaint of unreasonable force had been provided, discussing each investigation and review step from beginning to end, sharing body-worn video recordings of the exemplar incident, and answering a host of questions. The chief shared the department’s commitment to continuous improvement and an open invitation to attend community advisory board meetings and hear the department account to the public.

Working with school leadership and a local gym owner, the department hosts an ongoing series of intentional conversations with thought leaders from local high schools. In the First Steps to More Trust series, non-police volunteer facilitators lead officers and students in conversations about issues impacting their lives, including how officers police the community. Intentional encounters like these help the officers hear the voices of those who may have experiences that could define problems, guide solutions, and enable progress.

Intentional proximity takes work and a commitment to sustaining the nearness and the conversation. When officers listen with the same intensity with which they want to be heard and continue to listen when the story hurts, when the emotion is raw, and without defaulting to defending, they earn back the respect and trust that many community members have lost for police officers in the past.

Limited English Proficiency (LEP) Requirements

Meeting the legal requirements of providing bridges to language barriers and complying with consular notification treaties are vital to effective policing in a multilingual, multicultural community. A police department serving a burgeoning multicultural population has certain legal responsibilities under U.S. federal law. Federal law requires agencies that receive federal financial assistance to take reasonable steps to provide meaningful access to persons with limited English proficiency.⁴ Those funds obligate the department to work to mitigate language barriers that can preclude meaningful access to police services.

Departments receiving federal funds must have a written LEP policy and plan to take reasonable steps to ensure “meaningful access.” The plan must consider at least the following four factors:

• Identifying persons who need language assistance to obtain police services
• Identifying ways in which the department will provide language assistance
• Training staff on resources and policy
• Providing notice to persons with LEP of their rights, including the right to make a complaint about accessibility

The department should identify an LEP Coordinator to coordinate efforts to comply with LEP legal requirements and to identify and execute specific tasks required by federal statutes and Executive Order 13166.⁵ The policy should be available on the department’s website or other public access site.

Departments serving communities with foreign-born persons are more likely to encounter situations in which the Vienna Convention applies.⁶ The Vienna Convention requires that officers advise arrested foreign nationals “without delay” that they have the right to have their consulate notified of their arrest. If an arrested foreign national requests consular notification, the officer must promptly inform the consulate of the arrest.⁷ The U.S. Department of State has training materials available for departments that outline the requirements of the Vienna Convention.⁸ A department should also ensure that it has a policy fully compliant with current law and State Department guidance.⁹

Conclusion

On a recent cold Utah winter night, several busloads of refugees from Afghanistan made their first stop after arriving at the airport. They crowded into the West Jordan mosque to receive clothing and other essentials and to meet individuals helping them find their place in the community. It was a community of communities; each presentation was translated into three languages. The Imam pointed to the police officers present and told the tired crowd, “You are safe. Here the police are our protectors and our friends.” Intentional relationships—nurtured with deliberate proximity, supported by sound policy and training, and a belief that “you matter like I matter”—built that.d

Notes:

¹See the Arbinger Institute website.
²See Arbinger Institute, “Police, Community, Trust,” YouTube video, July 9, 2021.
³See Georgetown Law, Center for Innovations in Community Safety, “Program Standards.”
⁴42 U.S.C. 2000d, et seq.
⁵See Exec. Order No. 13166, 65 Fed. Reg. 159 (2000).
⁶Vienna Convention on Consular Relations, 21 U.S.T. 77, T.I.A.S. No. 6820. a.k.a. “the Vienna Convention.”
⁷The United States Supreme Court has not determined whether violation of the Vienna Convention’s consular notification provision creates a personally enforceable right and the federal circuit courts disagree on the question. Medellín v. Texas, 552 U.S. 491 (2008). There is also international dispute over the precise requirements of the consular notification provision. See LaGrand (Germany. v. United States), 2001 Intl. Court of Just. 466 (June 27, 2001). Rather than becoming embroiled in an international dispute, the best course of action for a department is to ensure consular notification when requested.
⁸U.S. Department of State, Consular Notification and Access, 5th ed. (2018).
⁹For example, see West Jordan Police Department Policy 411, Arrest or Detention of Foreign Nationals in West Jordan Police Department Policy Manual.

Please cite as

Ken Wallentine, “An Outward Mindset Powering Multicultural Policing,”  The Brief, Police Chief 89, no. 4 (April 2022): 100–103.