by

Bill Cottringer

There are three constants in life... change, choice and principles. ~Stephen Covey. 

     The only genuine shortcut to success is to look for, find and apply useful principles about how people and life really work.  And if a difficult problem in one field persists in spite of creative problem-solving strategies, it might be a good idea to look outside the property line for ideas. There are several principles from various sciences that have very useful applications for law enforcement, especially for approaching and de-escalating potentially dangerous situations, getting along with the public, improving general performance in crime-fighting, and conducting difficult investigations. A few of these are discussed below:

Physics

    Heisenberg’s uncertainty principle has wide application in general problem-solving. This principle tells us there is no guarantee of getting a desired outcome or results from any number of different approaches or efforts in any given interaction. This is because there are simply too many intervening variables and influences in each new and different situation to predict accurately, even in tightly controlled sub-atomic experiments. Even a passive observer to an interaction will have some degree of influence on the outcome. The best we can do is to understand what things are most likely to influence the desired outcome and focus our main efforts on those things, without throwing away anything too important. In a potentially violent law enforcement situation, that may mean using the best initial approach to the situation with a plan B in your back pocket. Or it might just be to listen first before talking, not being too intrusive or intimidating, or invading private space.

Physiology

     Neurology defines the brain’s main function as seeking rewards and avoiding pain. This is opposed to viewing the brain as being capable of discerning the truth. For us to get past being merely satisfied with near truths, we have to learn how to out-think our brains. The only way to do this is to employ critical thinking and mindfulness. Critical thinking is necessary to be able to see past what we are looking at, when as Al Pacino said in the movie The Recruit, “Nothing is what it seems.” In other words, try to avoid judging a book by its cover. Effective problem-solving requires digging deeper to uncover the core causes well below the noisy surface symptoms of the problem. Critical thinking helps us to be aware of cognitive and other biases, false cause and effect assumptions, and other irrelevant information. Mindfulness helps us to become more aware of what is going on around us now, rather than mind-wandering back to the past or off into the future, wasting valuable time now. Both these skills can help us find the best truth of a situation and this is very important in law enforcement investigations.

Psychology

     One of the most useful principles in psychology is that we humans have some very important things in common and also many individual differences. It is important to understand both commonalities and important differences in dealing with people. A few important commonalities include:

·         We are all trying to meet our essential needs like safety and security, physical comfort, belonging, love, self-esteem, meaning, purpose, and self-actualization.

·         We are all confronted with three basic conflicts which are us vs. life, us vs. others, and us vs. ourselves.

·         We are all pawns in a behavior modification matrix, to see what our response will be to a situation in which life moves us. Make the right choice and get rewarded but make the wrong choice and get everything else.

     On the other hand, there are virtually unlimited individual differences that make us unique. A few of these are:

·         Cultural, gender, age, ethnicity, religion, family upbringing, and geographical differences.

·         Differences in intelligence, personality, thinking styles, problem-solving and conflict resolution skills, habits, values, perspectives and beliefs.

·         The wide variety of life experiences, perceptions and perspectives we each bring to each new situation.

Philosophy

     The field of philosophy is rich with important but esoteric principles regarding things like reality, knowledge, dualism, truth and morality. And once translated into practical explanations, these principles become very useful in our interactions with life and other people. Philosophical arguments about the mind-body dualism can help us understand how these things can influence each other, just like thoughts, feelings, beliefs and behaviors can be both a cause and an effect. And discussions about illusions such as time can help us all improve our time management skills. By viewing time as being more psychological and fluid in nature, rather than sequential and mechanical, there seems to be more of it to use to get more things done. Furthermore, philosophical morality can help law enforcement officers deal with ethical dilemmas better by relying more on solid moral principles than assumed moral relativity. Of course, the value of all difficult decisions is always evaluated by the consequences of the decision, and the critical thinking of early philosophers is still the best way to expand the field of 360-degree vision and find the best truth available.    

Statistics

    Probability theory tells us something very important—that is each new either-or event will always be a 50-50 deal, without regard to what has happened in the past, which is true but counter-intuitive. This may be the one exception to the uncertainty principle of physics. At any rate, failed gamblers could benefit from knowing this principle to avoid thinking that just because they keep losing, they are bound to eventually start winning if they just continue. Of course, the good news is that each new play for the good or bad outcome would technically be a 50% chance. That is if the Casino, being a business, didn’t have their own system of probability. This useful principle can be easily applied in being more mindful in the present tense, and not so much remembering the past or worrying about the unknowable future. Best responses are usually planted in the now moment, where the most important influences are gathering. Another useful statistics principle is known as the regression to the mean. When anything happens frequently enough the gradual tendency is for it to become average or mediocre.

Math

     Math gave us the importance of the notion of equality with the simple = symbol and how to prove it by the equation process, like 1 + 2 = 3. We all remember the difficulty of solving ornery word problems like this one—If Car A travels 50 mph in the opposite direction of car B, which is going 35 mph, how far will they be apart in two and a half hours? Translating the words into numbers in an equation, makes it easier to solve. By applying these and the other scientific principles, law enforcement officers can simplify a plethora of data into a simple formula that is likely to get the best outcome. Given today’s information overload, any form of simplification becomes a valuable commodity as a time saver alone. Another useful contribution of math is the important concept of zero, meaning much more than just “nothing. Zero becomes huge when it references criminal justice statistics.  Furthermore, the math precepts of induction and deduction have always been used successfully in law enforcement as a means to spot critical details or see the bigger picture, and get at the truth.

Business

     The business world has always been fraught with best practices for government agencies to consider. Law enforcement organizations have adopted business models to manage their government budgets better and have been borrowing tools from business to deal with the VUCA world of volatility, uncertainty, constant change and ambiguity such as the P & L process, accountability, metrics to measure success, different leadership and organizational models, strategic downsizing and the use of self-managed project teams. And law enforcement agencies have avoided the Blockbuster disaster of being “Netflixed” by reinventing their business models with the spread of community policing and keeping up with technological advances to lower risks and augment virtual training. Finally, the tables are being turned around with businesses borrowing governments idea of “conscious capitalism” to create a triple bottom line focus on profit, employee satisfaction, and doing social good.

Anthropology

     Finally, Anthropology taught us the value of using a holistic approach to understanding complex human behavior. This is what eventually lead to today’s popular idea of trauma-informed care, as now used by both medical and behavioral health practitioners. The idea is to view each new case of PTSD as new and different in the total context package in which it appears. For law enforcement to deal with violence most effectively, violence itself needs to be understood by using this holistic approach of Anthropology. With this approach, knowledge of the cultural, social, economic, historical, political and environmental contexts of violence provides a more complete understanding, which helps get more positive outcomes with prevention and mitigation. Law enforcement officers can learn best directly from the people experiencing the problem behavior in the context that it occurs, as that is what anthropologists do.

   By looking for useful principles like these from other fields, law enforcement officers can greatly improve their response to the difficult scenarios they are confronted with. And like everything else in life, these variety of science principles are interconnected and inter-related, making them into a “systems” approach and more likely to achieve success. This coincides with another useful principle from psychology. The Gestalt Principle is what gave us the knowledge that the whole is much more than a mere summation of the individual parts. Team building is the preferred practice of both business and government today because we know from sports that the team can always accomplish much more than any individual team member can working alone.