Teaching New Perspectives to Law Enforcement Executives in Hampton, VA
Hampton, VAChallenge
At the Professional Executive Leadership School (PELS) at the University of Richmond, Captain Michele Rhone of the Hampton Police Division teaches a course called “Urban Development in America”. The three-week program is for mid to high-level law enforcement executives. In this course, Captain Rhone describes to her students how city and neighborhood-level health and social conditions can impact 911 calls. In their discussion, they recognized a pattern in Hampton, VA, in which many of the city’s residents believe it is the police’s responsibility to respond to most 911 calls, including calls police are not trained to handle, like mental health emergencies and drug overdoses. However, Captain Rhone understands this is not the most effective way to help community members. Captain Rhone advocates, instead, for a collaborative model in which police work alongside community partners and other agencies, building sustainable solutions that address the root causes of emergencies and prevent future interactions with the criminal justice system.
According to Captain Rhone, this is a novel concept for many in law enforcement, that she is trying to instill in the police executives enrolled in her course. However, until recently, Captain Rhone has struggled to find a resource that visualizes health conditions across places in a way that is easy for her students to understand and apply to their police work.
Impact
Over the last three semesters the curriculum has relied on the City Health Dashboard. The Dashboard gives the police executives a more holistic understanding of the people and places they serve through metrics such as Opioid Overdose Deaths, Firearm Homicides, and Rent Burden, among others. Captain Rhone then asks her students to make connections to their experiences serving the community. They also identify systemic community issues that police are often called upon to address that would benefit from external partnerships or resources more specific to the emergency. Captain Rhone’s goal in using the Dashboard is to provide law enforcement officials needed additional context about the communities they work in and empower them to engage in more proactive and preventive measures before an emergency call comes in. Examples include partnering with local organizations to provide joint response to mental health-related calls or creating first responder-led diversion programs for drug overdoses. Capitan Rhone shared that the City Health Dashboard’s maps and visuals changed her students' perspective on how they lead their organizations, making it a vital tool in fostering more effective and sustainable community-oriented policing.