It was early 2018 in a Recruit School course at the Police Academy in Little Rock, Arkansas. The Commission on Accreditation for Law Enforcement Agencies (CALEA) standard addressed was “Biased Policing,” and the facilitator was Dr. Robert Strauss, a subject matter expert in intercultural communication.¹ A recruit raised his hand with a question, and Dr. Strauss granted permission to speak. The recruit stood to his feet, pushed his chair back under his desk, introduced himself, and asked, “If Lady Justice is blindfolded, why are we studying differences in people?”

That same year, Captain Marcus Paxton led the Little Rock Police Department (LRPD) Academy through its final phase of CALEA accreditation, a gold standard of excellence granted in July 2018. LRPD requires its officers to participate in a one-week in-service training each year. Typically, two hours during the week are devoted to the topics of diversity, inclusion, equity, and bias. Customarily, these topics are uncomfortable, and their delivery is challenging.

A year earlier, at the recommendation of the academy, Chief Kenton Buckner of the LRPD petitioned the Little Rock City Manager and Board of Directors to hire an outside contractor to manage these topics.

The course developed by the contractor, Cultural Diversity and Cultural Competency for Law Enforcement, pertains to CALEA Accreditation Standard 1.2.9/GO 117 addressing “Implicit Bias.” Going beyond a traditional approach to the topics of diversity, inclusion, equity, and bias, the course provided a fresh perspective through the lens of culture, not law or politics. The training was facilitated by consultants who were specialists in the field of intercultural communication and experienced in training law enforcement officers.

The seeming impossible challenge for police officers is to be both professional with each community member they encounter, “blindfolded” like Lady Justice, and simultaneously to see every person as an individual with clear, current cultural expectations of law enforcement. Said another way, the police officer treats everyone the same, whether conducting an arrest based upon probable cause, a detention based upon reasonable suspicion, or a consensual encounter with a member of the local community. At the same time, given that there are cultural differences among people, an officer understands different expectations, predicts culturally derived behavior, and appropriately adapts his or her approaches. This combination is the meeting place of legality and legitimacy.²

Borrowing from the science of criminology, four practices of procedural justice cultivate legitimacy across cultures:

1. 1. 1. Treating people in the intercultural environment with dignity and respect.
      2. Giving “voice” to people during the regulatory process.
      3. Displaying transparency in decision-making.
      4. Conveying trustworthiness in motives.³

These standards of excellence in relationships, plus insights from the President’s Task Force on 21st Century Policing, require cultural competence for law enforcement.⁴ The Little Rock Police Department Academy addresses these requirements through its programs of training.

Cultural Training Course Overview

The Cultural Diversity and Cultural Competency for Law Enforcement course begins with a basic understanding of culture and how it works. The starting point is the topic of culture, not diversity. The objective is to equip police officers with cultural competencies. The aim is not related to political activism. The attitude is one of respect, not denunciation. The training explains “cultural competencies.” Ultimately, cultural competencies are tied to practices of diversity and equity. Throughout the course, applications are made to law enforcement interactions in the local communities protected and served. Officers observe how conflict management is differentiated across cultures, especially in four overarching patterns of culture: justice, honor, harmony, and reciprocity.⁵

The course has two primary objectives for students:

• To understand (anew) cultural diversity among different populations of people

• To acquire cultural competency skills to interact with people of diverse cultures, especially in conflict management

Course Topics

Introduction

At the beginning of the course, the facilitator outlines and summarizes the training topics. Explanation answers why the academy training includes the topics. Goals are identified. Initial discussions include the training’s dissimilarity to political activism, its relationship to implicit bias, the polarities of a “blindfolded” Lady Justice and cultural diversity, and the topic’s application to law enforcement in Little Rock, Arkansas.

Culture

The facilitator does not lead with topics of diversity, inclusion, equity, or bias; instead, he or she leads with the subject of culture, exploring the following concepts:

• • • What is culture? It is learned and shared. It is patterned in the way one is raised. It pertains to how we think and behave, both often outside of our awareness. This lack of awareness is the direct tie to implicit bias.

    • How does culture work? It has four layers. Outward observable behavior is obvious. Below the surface are social institutions, value, and core assumptions that are not as obvious, but are powerful drivers of what everyone says and does.

    • What are the four overarching patterns of culture? How are they manifested in Little Rock? So what? How do they impact policing and enforcing?

    • What is cultural intelligence (CQ)? How do the four capabilities of CQ measure cultural competency? The capabilities are CQ drive, CQ knowledge, CQ strategy, and CQ action.

    • What are the six stages of development in cultural competency? Why are these important to law enforcement?

    • What is “auto-pilot”? When should it be turned off? How?

Diversity and Inclusion

In the second topic, diversity, the course facilitator leads participants in an exploration of the topic, asking them to consider the following questions: What is diversity? What is inclusion? In what ways does an understanding of culture change one’s perspective toward diversity and inclusion?

Conflict Management Across Cultures

Culture scholars Michelle LeBaron and Venashri Pillay) argue that culture and conflict are “inextricably intertwined.”⁶ If this is true, culture plays a central role in the conflict. It is always a factor. The course looks at the four overarching patterns of culture present in Little Rock, Arkansas, that dictate how people may tend to respond to law enforcement.

Generally, people have one or more of four goals in a situation of conflict—topic, relationships, identity, and process (TRIP).⁷ Often people in conflict cannot answer the question, “What do you really want?” They are on a trip, but they don’t know where they’re headed. Individuals who are skilled in conflict management are able to make explicit what may be very real but outside of people’s awareness. A culturally competent police officer is able to predict the expectation of the community member even if he or she cannot elucidate it.

Topic refers to the content of the disagreement. It is an objective issue. Topic answers the question, “What do we want?” In conflict, those who grew up in the United States generally focus on the topic. They are oriented by a justice pattern of culture.

Relationship has to do with collegial behavior, loyalty, and friendship. It is the “heart” of the goals. It answers the question, “Who are we to each other?” In many Latin America cultures and other harmony and reciprocity cultures, this is pivotal.

Identity has to do with the complex phenomenon of attaining and maintaining respect, both for self and others. It is a more intense stage of conflict management. It answers questions like “Who am I?” “Who are you?” and “Who are we?” Throughout Asia and some other regions, identity is of singular importance. This phenomenon has also been observed in gangs. In the United States, people from the South tend to be more honor oriented. Regardless of their origin, for these people, identity is the focus in conflict. No matter what the topic is, people expect respect.

Process involves the communication and management procedures used in conflict resolution. It answers the question, “How are we going to resolve this?” Engineers who specialize in project management may be endeared to process, as might others with analytical mind-sets.

If the police officer is not aware of how the people he or she encounters prefer to manage conflict, the officer is left inept. A prediction would be only a wild guess. Cultural competence equips the officer to know, for example, how a recent immigrant from Latin America might tend to react or whether African Americans are culturally justice or honor oriented? The cultural training course at LRPD provides an understanding of these concepts and customs. The training moves beyond political talking points related to diversity and toward effectively equipping police officers in real cross-cultural contexts.

Course Evaluation

In the first year of the course, an evaluation was administrated at the end of every in-service and Recruit School training.

The overall feedback regarding the training program was positive. One hundred percent of the participants said the delivery was respectful to the participants, law enforcement, and the police department. Ninety-nine percent of the participants said the diversity training was good, using descriptors such as good, great, informative, useful, better, much different, interesting, unbiased, entertaining, and applicable. GPC asked the participants, both recruits and in-service officers, about content applicability to law enforcement. Eight-seven percent of the recruits responded that the content was applicable to law enforcement, and 63 percent of the in-service officers said the content was applicable. Of the 31 percent of the in-service officers who stated that the content “may or may not apply” to law enforcement, 75 percent wrote positive comments about the training program. Six percent of the in-service officers judged the content as not applicable to law enforcement.

Participants expressed negative opinions of previous diversity and inclusion trainings, so the key hurdle in the first year of this training was overcoming these perceptions in order to open minds to the new course.

For the 2018 in-service trainings, a 10-question assessment was administered electronically through clickers at the conclusion of the session. The anonymous responses of officers were displayed and discussed. Responses have been stored electronically for each session, and an overall assessment was made available at year-end to the LRPD chief and command staff.

Next Steps

Don Kirkpatrick, considered the foremost expert on training evaluation and past-president of the American Society for Training and Development, recommends asking these four questions about training:

1. 1. 1. Did they like it?
      2. Did they get it?
      3. Can they do it?
      4. Does it make a difference?⁸

The first question is basic to the effectiveness of any training. Trainers must gain the interest of participants. Research shows this is largely tied to trainer personality and presentation skill. Thereafter, do the participants understand what is presented? Then, are they able to put it into practice, both within the training context and later in real-world practice? (The latter is more difficult to measure.) Finally, an organization should assess whether the training makes an overall difference in fulfilling the mission of the organization, which is challenging to measure due to multiple mitigating variables.

During the first year (2017), significant effort was dedicated to recovering from reactions to past trainings related to diversity and generally gaining the attention of the LRPD officers and recruits. The statistical feedback from 2017 indicates that these objectives were accomplished. What began with overall standoffishness ended with more widespread respectful attentiveness.

In 2018, the content moved more toward application, especially to conflict across cultures. The post-session questions and answers indicate that in-service officers displayed a noteworthy understanding of fairly complex cultural differences that make a difference in field-service relationships. Did they get it? Yes, for the most part. They know that there are overarching patterns of culture in Little Rock in which various members of the community have different expectations of law enforcement officers.

In 2019, the course incorporates analysis of video-simulated scenarios and live role-playing to specifically address what and how to communicate in situations of conflict. While justice is blind to all forms of differences, police officers in Little Rock will see the diversity in local community members and respond with cultural competence.

To ask questions and obtain more detailed information, please contact Captain Marcus Paxton at mpaxton@littlerock.gov.

Notes:

¹ CALEA is the Commission on Accreditation for Law Enforcement Agencies based in Gainesville, Virginia.

² Legality is granted through state certification, and legitimacy is conferred by a local community.

³ Craig Fischer, Legitimacy and Procedural Justice: A New Element of Police Leadership (Washington, DC: Police Executive Research Forum, 2014).

⁴ Final Report of the President’s Task Force on 21st Century Policing (Washington, DC: Office of Community Oriented Policing Services, 2015).

⁵ Four overarching patterns of culture are described in the book Four Overarching Patterns of Culture: A Look at Common Behavior by Dr. Robert Strauss, forthcoming.

1. 1. 1. Justice – Dominant throughout the Global West, people in a justice pattern of culture “see” the world through a legal lens and expect clear written standards.
      2. Honor – People who are honor oriented protect the reputation of their families and communities. They expect respect based on markers of identity. Codes of honor might not be fixed.
      3. Harmony – In harmony cultures, people “save face” and seek out relationships of concord with others, including the supernatural world.
      4. Reciprocity – In reciprocity relationships, there are people who control access to resources and others who are dependent on them. This pattern is common in the Global South.

⁶ Michelle LeBaron and Venashri Pillay, Conflict Across Cultures: A Unique Experience of Bridging the Differences (Boston, MA: Nicholas Brealey Publishing, 2006), 16.

⁷ William Wilmot and Joyce Hocker, Interpersonal Conflict, 7th ed.(New York, NY: McGraw-Hill, 2007).

⁸ Don Kirkpatrick, Evaluating Training Programs (San Francisco, CA: Berrett-Koehler Publishers, 2006).

Please cite as

Marcus Paxton and Robert Strauss, “Cultural Diversity and Cultural Competency for Law Enforcement,” Police Chief Online, March 20, 2019.