Discusion To Paper

#1

Chuck Wexler: Police Executive Research Forum (PERF)

1. Evaluate the performance of the leader and describe the identifiable outcomes of that leader's innovation and success.

Chuck Wexler is an MIT Ph.D. turned international anti-crime strategist. Wexler has been devoted to his career since the 1990s directing the Police Executive Research Forum, a Washington-based group that works to develop best practices for America’s police forces. PERF’s underlying belief is that there’s much more police departments can do to de-escalate volatile encounters and, ultimately, repair trust with communities a view advanced in the group’s new set of 30 guiding principles rapidly being adopted by police forces around the country, from Baltimore to St. Paul. Wexler’s efforts for police to “do better” were spurred by his years as an assistant to the Boston police chief during the explosive years after the court-ordered desegregation of the city’s schools. His ideas haven’t always been universally accepted: Police unions already are fighting PERF’s latest recommendations for what they see as an attempt to impose a national standard on diverse forces. But Wexler is sticking to his guiding belief that it falls to law enforcement officials not just to limit violent crime in the communities they police, but also to avoid violence among their own ranks.

1. Evaluate the performance of the leader and explain what specific qualities, habits, beliefs and values does this leader display, that categorizes the leader as an innovator in their industry, give examples?

He’s attempting to draw ideas from a group of law enforcement officers, forensic scientists, and public health professionals about how to train police as they confront the country’s escalating opioid crisis. Wexler runs forums around the world; in 2012 he even got police chiefs from Israel and Palestine to meet for the first time. He is routinely called to troubled areas in the wake of conflict to smooth over relations between beleaguered police forces and an angry, edgy public. To identify best practices for resolving situations with people who don’t have guns, Wexler turned to research skills he honed while studying organizational change at MIT, where he says he learned to be rigorous and to apply controls even in settings where that’s difficult to do.

#2

1. Evaluate the performance of the leader and describe the identifiable outcomes of that leader's innovation and success. As an example you may use a single significant innovation or their success over the course of their career. Focus on the substance of the decisions, processes, policies or methods that resulted in the innovation or successful outcome/s.

Chuck Wexler is a civilian who’s managed to delve into the challenging profession of police work and earn the admiration of a tight knit community that is based off of an intricate culture and tradition.  For the last several years Chuck Wexler has challenged the some of the extremely difficult issues in policing that range from immigration and local policing to endangering civilians with the pursuit of criminals.   Mr. Wexler is the Executive Director for PERF (Police Executive Research Forum), which is a company that focuses on the development of best practices for law enforcement agencies across the United States. His company leads a staff which is completely immersed in policing research, management studies and consulting for police agencies. They also contribute to the publication of books and reports on critical issues in policing, police executive education, and policy development.  Chuck Wexler gained his street credibility from key positions in the Boston Police Department. Mr. Wexler was an operations assistant to the Boston Police Commissioner; he played a significant role in the agency’s efforts to prevent racial violence in the wake of court-ordered desegregation of the Boston school system.  The wide range of issues he has worked on are as follows:

· Strategies for rebuilding police-community trust;

· Recommendations for police agencies considering body-worn cameras;

· The heroin epidemic in many American communities;

· The role of local police agencies in preventing and investigating cybercrime;

· The response to critical incidents in Baltimore and St. Louis;

· Mass shootings and the police response to “active shooter” situations;

· U.S. Justice Department investigations of local police departments regarding civil rights violations;

· De-escalation of potentially dangerous encounters between police officers and persons with mental illness;

· Gun violence prevention;

· New technologies that are changing the nature of policing, such as security cameras, license plate readers, and crime analytics software;

· Police management of large-scale demonstrations and other major events;

· Improving the police handling of sexual assault investigations;

· Guidelines on police use of Electronic Control Weapons (2005 and 2011);

· Immigration policy: Since 2007, PERF has made the issue of immigration a top organizational priority. PERF has held national and regional meetings across the country and has developed points of consensus among police executives regarding the role of local police on immigration policy.

2. Evaluate the performance of the leader and explain what specific qualities, habits, beliefs and values does this leader display, that categorizes the leader as an innovator in their industry, give examples?

Chuck Wexler’s career revolves around how he can best reduce violence.  Mr. Wexler believes that “there is a great deal more that police departments can do reduce violent encounters and, ultimately, repair trust with communities they police”.  As I previously mentioned, Mr. Wexler’s think tank organizations’ goal is to find a better way to police then our current model in the U.S. In February 2006, Wexler was awarded an OBE (Order of the British Empire) for his extensive work with British and American police agencies. In 2016, he was selected by Politico Magazine as one of the “Politico 50,” an annual list of “thinkers, doers and dreamers” who are changing the way America polices.  In 2015, Chuck Wexler took a group of law enforcement leaders to Scotland to study the way they police without guns.  This type of alternative thinking in the U.S. would surely change the whole dynamic of policing as we know it.  Mr.Wexler sees a historic opportunity for American police officers to shift their thinking on culture, tactics and training. Whatever ideas law enforcement leaders emerge with, he said, one thing is clear, “We must do better.”

References:

https://www.nytimes.com/2015/12/12/nyregion/us-police-leaders-visiting-scotland-get-lessons-on-avoiding-deadly-force.html

https://www.policeforum.org/chuck-wexler