The other day a retired friend called to say that one of the outstanding young officers from one of my old agencies had been killed in an accident the night before. It seems he had been ejected through the windshield because he didn’t have his seatbelt on. My retired friend and I talked about how officer safety wasn’t as critical a part of law enforcement culture today as it should be, given all the other issues pressing on young officers in this “woke” world.

Officer safety has certainly evolved since my rookie days. We carried revolvers, wore no body armor, used rudimentary tactics, and exercised poor communication methods. What we did have, though, was a ton of military veterans who lent their training, experience, and maturity to the profession. They jumped on the concepts of High-Risk Stops, Slicing the Pie, Quick Peeks, and Moving Tactically.

Source of the Department’s Culture

Back then my agency’s culture was professional, safety-driven, and reinforced from the top-down and the bottom-up. That is the nature of any type of culture; it is a way of thinking, disciplining, and training. But culture has to be protected in order to remain effective and healthy, or it will begin to erode in many of its facets.

Culture & Word War II Vets

What were the roots of this culture brought to law enforcement by the vets among us? After World War II, the people of America were sick of war and suffering, and we reduced our military strength, discipline, and training dramatically. A young Army recruit could complain to his congressman about boot camp and the Army would have to respond. Then came Korea.

Suddenly, as Communist tanks rolled across the border between the North and the South, U.S. officers and sergeants began to die in great numbers; these were the veterans of the war in Europe and the Pacific who knew the ways of combat and therefore were the sharp end of our defenses. Driven back and suffering terrible losses the Army and Marine Corps began recalling vast numbers of veterans, but the combat element that swung the war was the Marines.

Marine Corps Culture Key to Victory

In T. R. Fuhrenbachs’ outstanding book “This Kind of War,” he explains how the Marine Corps’ culture proved essential to victory: “In 1950 a Marine Corps officer was still an officer, and a sergeant behaved like good sergeants had behaved since the time of Caesar, expecting no nonsense, and allowing none. And Marine leaders had never lost sight of their primary—their only—mission, which was to fight.” This is high praise, especially coming from an Army officer.

The Marines recognized the importance of culture and how supervisors and leaders needed to nurture and support it. The sergeant’s and supervisor’s role in culture has long been recognized as the essential element in organizational performance, and training and development of those positions around the values, habits, and attitudes desired for agency performance is critical.

Culture Can Deteriorate if Not Maintained

Once established, it must be remembered, an overall culture is prone to deterioration and decay if the values and mission are not reinforced. The behaviors that get rewarded, both formally and informally, will be retained; the ones that are chastised and punished will be extinguished. It is the responsibility of leadership to evaluate the performance of personnel, evaluate feedback from accidents, analyze complaints, conduct evaluations, and pay attention to griping, to evaluate how well the culture is holding up.

Too often, politicians, media, activists, and other forces, affect the heart of our agencies. Beer sSummits, high-profile shootings, riots, and the constant drumbeat of the media often dishearten and distract our people. Day to day, things like safety and tactics are put on the mental back burner when public scorn and the loss of department funding and resources cause an entire staff to become distracted and discouraged. This erodes the professionalism and performance of the entire organization.

Losing a young go-getter to a terrible event, a survivable accident, should tell the department to nip this trend in the bud. If, in fact, younger crime fighters are neglecting basic survival attitudes and tactics it is time to refresh these from the top down. Sergeants need to chastise, praise, and comment on their officers’ performance in order to constantly reinforce the mission of protecting the public, each other, and ourselves. Never wait for someone else, or some committee, to initiate the process of building or maintaining a culture of safety, professionalism, and service.

Training is Part of a Strong Culture

Training can refresh skills, attitudes, and morale, which makes your training staff a key component of your agency. A chief qualifying with all the troops on the range is a symbol of values and support. Command staff doing driver’s training refreshers shows professionalism and pride. So many things, big and small, many costing nothing from your budget, can provide huge incentives toward building positive, safe cultures. Be creative, shape your agency’s culture, and stay safe.

Read More: Officer Safety and Wellness, The Missing Link