I thought for a while.  Some of the immediate effects were obvious, a heightened sense of alert, lots of suspicious activity that was never suspicious before, a heightened awareness of people that didn’t look just like us.

For example, I flew to Toronto, Ontario several weeks after 9/11.  I remember having to get to the airport over an hour and a half earlier than I normally would have.  I remember seeing armed, uniformed military police everywhere.  This wasn’t the United States I remembered from just less than a month previous.  This impression was sealed when, as we waited to board the plane a random search was announced prior to boarding.  The first name called forward for the random extended search was a decidedly middle-eastern name.

All of these were immediate effects of 9/11.  The same type of effect as the renewal in patriotism, people flocking to places of worship, a renewed sense of kindness and oneness.  All of these immediate effects eventually faded into the background as life hummed along and people’s sense of hypervigilance, patriotism and renewed community subsided.

There were lasting effects though and this is what my pastor friend was getting at when he asked how law enforcement changed with 9/11.  Prior to 9/11 law enforcement and government service in general went something like this:  a) We’ll tell you what the problems in your community are, then b) we will tell you what we are doing to address those problems, then c) we’ll tell you how we did in solving the problem.  Public service prior to 9/11 came distinctly in the flavor of, “We are the government, we are here to help.”

After 9/11, and I mean immediately after 9/11, that all changed.  People began to define what the issues and problems are that we need to address.  Government could no longer afford to ignore problems that government did not see as important.  A new era of responsiveness began.

The concept of military and law enforcement intelligence also came to the forefront.  We saw terror alerts change colors frequently.  People began to demand information that would keep them safe, tell them where not to travel to and tell them who to look for.  Since then, we have seen the emergence of the world wide web, creating a new publishing forum for documents on the Internet, and a new responsiveness on the part of the government (it is not a surprise that the more user-friendly IRS emerged during this time).  A new era of accountability and transparency began.

These changes have been the standard since 9/11,but now there are different forces acting on government that are demanding new competencies to deliver government service as we enter the second decade of the 21st century. (courtesy Souder, Betances, and Associates, Inc.)

These major forces include:

• Globalization.  Government service and law enforcement in general is no longer about home town issues only.  What is happening in a person’s neighborhood is still what will impact quality of life and a person still remains much more likely to be the victim of a theft of liquor from their garage than a victim of terrorism.  While all this is still true, the people we serve are faced more and more with the threat of fraud originating in other places and even other countries.  Jurisdictional lines are blurring and collaboration and cooperation are of essence to efficiently deliver public service in the Internet age.

• Technological shifts.  Government and law enforcement traditionally function in a vertical system, from top to bottom with measures at every step for command and control.  The world however, including our society in the United States is functioning almost completely in a horizontal system where relationships trump systems in helping people get things done.  This is profoundly effecting society in general and entities that function vertically specifically.  The speed of technology is outpacing systems and laws for data accountability.  The exponential technological shifts we are facing will require a whole new way of thinking about data and how we in government share it.

• Demographic Changes.  Demographic changes come in two flavors, age and race/culture.  In terms of age, After 2010, the number of people over age 65 will grow dramatically as baby boomers reach this age bracket.  The very old population, those age 85 and older, will rise rapidly until 2010, after which its growth will slow, reflecting the low birth rates during the depression of the 1930s.  Today’s elderly population and an anticipated future elderly population will have an impact on the delivery of police and government services and the type of family structure in the community with a growing number of multi-generational households.  Elderly people not only will increase in number rapidly after 2010, but they also will account for a larger proportion of the total population.  As this rise in elderly people occurs, the dependency ratio – the ratio of the number of children and elderly to the number of working-age people – also will begin to go up.  A relatively small number of workers will have to support a large number of retirees and children, increasing the potential for inter-generational conflict.  In terms of race/culture, right here in Minnesota the percent of Minnesota’s population that is nonwhite or Latino is projected to grow from 14 percent in 2005 to 25 percent in 2035 with the numbers of Latino, black, and Asian Minnesotans projected to more than double over the next 30 years.  All regions of the state will become more racially and ethnically diverse than they are now.  The trends in my home state match the trends nationwide.  An increase of even 1% or 2% of any race other than white will have an impact on the delivery of government services and law enforcement.  A change in the racial demographic will bring unique cultural differences that will impact the delivery of police services.  The primary implication is in language.  It will be necessary for police officers to be at least familiar with different languages than English as the racial demographic changes.  In addition to language, changes in racial demographics bring issues with cultural differences in family dynamics and community interaction.  A cultural competency is critical.

Change is happening almost constantly now.  Are you ready?  Do you understand what competency gaps exist that need to be filled in order to serve effectively in the 21st century?

John Bermel, Influence International

From Chad Missildine at The Way it Could Be.

By Chad: I’ve been a husband for eight short years; a father for three. In this short span of time, I’ve figured out some great ways to “blow it” as a husband & father! A lot of the items on the below list I’ve done on my own, so my intent isn’t to discourage husbands or dads. Instead, the goal is to list behaviors & attitudes that are sure to send any guy down the wrong path. To join me & imperfect men around the world, be sure to work your way through this list of 50 Ways to Blow It As a Husband and/or Father:

1. Achieve success at work this week and drop the ball at home.
2. Don’t ever think intentionally about what you could do to be a better husband or dad.
3. Buy things that your family doesn’t really need, then work a lot more to make up for it.
4. Go into debt. If you are already in debt, go into more debt.
5. Stay in debt and don’t try to get out or believe you can get out.
6. Don’t ever figure out your personal values in life and how these may affect how you lead your family.
7. Hold on to your past forever and let it negatively affect your relationships with your family.
8. Don’t develop healthy relationships with other men who can encourage you and support you.
9. Be a loner.
10. Blame society for your shortcomings and don’t take personal responsibility.
11. Lead your family into the same patterns of blaming society.
12. Justify everything you are doing that you know is holding you back in life.
13. Don’t take your family to church. Choose instead to not focus on spiritual priorities.
14. Talk badly about people in front of your family and teach them to do the same.
15. Say certain things to your family often, then don’t ever back them up with your actions.
16. Raise your voice all the time. This will get you a ton of respect!
17. Don’t listen.
18. Don’t engage.
19. Don’t ask questions.
20. Don’t go on dates with your wife.
21. Don’t take care of your body.
22. Don’t save any money. Live way beyond your means instead.
23. Don’t create any memories with your family, just space out when you get home.
24. Don’t seek out help when you know you need it.
25. Check out women other than your wife. Try to do this everyday.
26. Put your kids’ needs before the needs of your spouse, this will ensure that your marriage eventually suffers.
27. Try not to contribute to your community in any way. Make life all about you instead.
28. Don’t take care of your finances.
29. Don’t pray with your kids.
30. Leave spiritual leadership up to your spouse.
31. Leave spiritual leadership up to your church.
32. Blame your church for everything and don’t take responsibility as a husband or father.
33. Care more about 20 yr olds playing with a ball (sports) than about your 2 yr old at home.
34. Don’t ever encourage. Complain instead about everything.
35. Don’t talk to your spouse about the health of your marriage.
36. Drink a ton of alcohol, and drink it often. This will make your problems and stress go away.
37. Disrespect your wife in public, this will really help her grow in confidence.
38. Have an affair with Facebook or Twitter.
39. Have an emotional affair with another woman at work.
40. Have a physical affair with another woman or a man.
41. Look at porn or anything that arouses you.
42. Work all the time and come home and give nothing to your family.
43. Don’t read to your little kids.
44. Don’t talk to your older kids.
45. Love business more than anything in life.
46. Don’t read or do anything to grow personally or spiritually.
47. Don’t ever help your wife around the house.
48. Don’t ever pick up after yourself, treat your spouse instead like your mother or maid.
49. Don’t dream with your spouse.
50. Don’t forgive yourself for not being perfect. Carry this weight with you always. Don’t let God heal you and change you.

Like me, chances are you’ve already blown it. You read this list and realize you are pretty good at many of the things on it. Listen….Don’t give up! We all have fallen short of who we are supposed to be!

Here are a few practical steps you can take this week to make a change:

1. Ask for forgiveness- from God, from your spouse, your kids if you have them. Pray for a change in your heart and in your life. Then forgive yourself!
2. Go through this list and find 3 ways you can improve this week as a husband and/or father.
3. Take the 3 items from above and write down the opposite (Don’t ever help around the house becomes, help out around the house every day).
4. For each item, write out 1-2 actions steps you can take to make a change (“I will start making the bed every day, helping with the dishes every night”).
5. Then, tell someone what you are doing and ask them to hold you accountable (“Billy Bob, here is my list of 3 things I’m doing this week to grow as a husband/father, will you ask me in a week if I followed through?”).
6. Set a time to check back with them in a week to see how things are going. (“Can week visit for 10 minutes Thursday night at 8pm,” or “Will you text me Friday to ask me how I’m doing?”)

Faith-Based Policing

A former agnostic weighs in

• Jeff Baker
• 2008 Jun 18

Noted conservative commentator and former Republican representative from Oklahoma, J.C. Watts, issued a rousing response to then-President Bill Clinton’s State of the Union address in 1997. A provocative quote from that transcendent speech was, “Character is doing the right thing, even when nobody is looking.”

Ponder that.

Opportunities to slip toward or into malfeasance in our profession abound, so how do we as individual officers behave when nobody’s looking? Are we acting righteously and honorably away from the eye of the mobile video system? When we prepare our reports? When we testify? Are we being as honest and forthright as we should be given our stated oath? Are we, as the congressman’s definition demands, doing the right thing when nobody’s looking?

Or could it be someone  is looking when by all worldly indications we’re alone with the smelly indigent who lay crumpled in a public park?  Is someone looking when the comely female motorist expresses a willingness to do anything to avoid being arrested for DUI? Or maybe on a more common but no less insidious level,  is someone looking when we supervisors set a poor example by running down the chief or turning a blind eye to unpopular policy?

Faith didn’t come to me overnight, nor did its interface with my work. The product of an areligious upbringing, I spent much of my adult life as an unbaptized agnostic, only entertaining cursory thoughts of a creator just in case one existed.

After an intense, year-long personal investigation into the matter of faith as an adult, I believe in the God of the Hebrew Old Testament. I believe God is a Trinity of persons: Father, Son and Holy Spirit. Therefore, I’m Christian, specifically, a Roman Catholic Christian.

While I remain imperfect, my faith is the cornerstone of my life, my marriage, and ethical decisions I make at home and at work. I find it easier to be a good ambassador for the law enforcement community as a believer. I fellowship with friends and family from other expressions of the faith, so ecumenism is an aspect of my Christian growth and maturation.

I convey these thoughts to the reader in order to lay a foundation for what I’d like to broach in this article: the connectivity between God and cop as seen through the eyes of a brother paladin who himself struggles with bouts of pride, self absorption, and sin.

Before and after
I was recently asked what work was like  before faith, a time when I viewed mankind through secular glasses and a correspondingly suspicious gaze. The honest answer? I wasn’t as patient, polite or professional a police officer then. Yes, I’m still a “Type A,” inasmuch as I don’t shy away from a challenge or wanton disregard for the law, but I’m a  kinder cop today; more often than not, I’m able to see past the bad behavior and accept that somewhere underneath lies a person, another member of God’s creation.

Not always easy to do, I realize. The various dregs of society we deal with may have been born in goodness, yet there could be myriad genetic predispositions, environmental conditions, substance abuse problems, and issues relative to socioeconomics and upbringing which can poison people who -different time and place- might well have been productive members of society.

Thus, a “God’s children” ideology in dealing with the public only goes so far; violence is the exclusive language of a small percentage of our clientele, so you must stand ready to communicate on that level as well. It’s a bit primal at times, but the truth is we deal with evil, not evil as a metaphor for man’s internal struggle to do the right thing, but  evil as a manifest reality . So I make no bones about it. I believe in God, therefore I believe in the devil. It’s plain to see both are at work in our world.

Faith’s intangibility makes it a decision. A gift, yes, but also a  decision which can, at times, leave one in a state of spiritual flux. For instance, in December 2007, I was among the first responders to the worst mass shooting at a mall in U.S. history. The call provoked me to reflect on my mortality, priorities, commitment to training, and my conduct as a sergeant responsible for a crew of officers. The event also caused me to dwell on the Lord and why He might let something like this happen in my hometown (fodder for an article in and of itself).

My wife, who inspired me to take the first step on my faith walk, is unaware of the most intimate details of my Von Maur experience, what it felt like to step inside anticipating a meeting with my God or the devil. She didn’t take in the graphic imagery that still bounces around my head at times. What my wife  could see in the days after the call was a somewhat withdrawn, brooding husband. She was Christ to me anyway, renewing my hope, and I am truly blessed and grateful for that.

Obviously then, our faith and communal hope was pivotal in my getting through one of life’s dark valleys. Together we hope and pray for the eight murder victims. We hope and pray for something beyond a wrenchingly violent and bloody end to their earthly lives that day. We hope and pray for their families, friends, neighbors, and co-workers.

That’s the new pivot point for me, hope. It’s Christianity’s essence, for us to decide through free will and of our own volition to be steadfast in hope for and in Him despite the sadness, sickness, death and despair which pockmark our passage through time.

I began my law enforcement career in 1988. Most days, I still thoroughly enjoy being a police officer, particularly a  Christian police officer who has at least a dim intimation of the eternal implications of his actions and decisions.

In the final analysis, the role of peacemaker is more than zero tolerance enforcement, fire teams, vehicle pursuits, and kicking ass, so I challenge you to search within yourself to identify those opportunities to be more than a rigid, protocol-driven uniform in your dealings with the public. Please pray for our vocation, and that all law enforcement professionals throughout the world be emboldened to know, love and honor God.