Running Head: PRESIDENT’S TASK FORCE 1

President’s Task Force

Shamsdeen Ali

Salt Lake Community College

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President’s Task Force

In 2015 President Obama gave a chance to the law enforcements to strengthen their ability

and training to keep our communities a safer place. This task force is needed because a lot of

communities were struggling with violence and losing trust between law enforcements and

civilians. President Obama signed and gave law enforcement a 90 day period to come up with a

better system, law enforcements teamed up with technical advisors, youth and community

leaders, and non governmental organizations. Their main goal was to keep it diverse so they can

see different perceptions of the public and achieve the best system possible. Keeping it diverse as

they want to hear lots of opinions and voices from different departments, when making a system

it’s best to hear lots of people coming from different backgrounds so it doesn’t end up being

biased. To strengthen the trust between police and civilians they came up with several

recommendations; law enforcements should have a mindset of a guardian, officers should

promote non enforcement activities in high rate crime communities, and law enforcements

engaging in non enforcement activities in school.

Law enforcement culture should embrace a guardian mindset to build public trust and

legitimacy. Toward that end, police and sheriff’s departments should adopt procedural justice as

the guiding principle for internal and external policies and practices to guide their interactions

with the citizens they serve(1.1). This explains that the main goal of officers is to protect which

is being the guardians of our communities. However, it seems like police are being trained like
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soldiers and their main goal is to conquer which are totally different goals. Protecting the public

is a huge responsibility and only those who are committed should serve our communities, an

officer's mindset has a huge role to their service. Second, officers are to make independent

decisions on the spot and every situation is different depending on the case. A soldier has already

given orders to follow which is the exact opposite of an officer. An officer's work ethics is very

important to the public because people want to have trust in law enforcements and it’s all based

on their work ethics. The public needs to feel not judged or controlled by the police but a

respected and trusted relationship between each other.

Law enforcement agencies should proactively promote public trust by initiating positive non

enforcement activities to engage communities that typically have high rates of investigative and

enforcement involvement with government agencies(1.5). In communities that have a high

number of people of color their crime rates are usually higher based on the statistics. These

crimes are usually gang related and drugs. Positive non enforcement activities to engage with the

public would reduce these crimes. These activities will really help the police understand what is

happening in their community. It also helps in reducing tensions between the minorities and the

police, only 5% of the police officers commit crimes against people of color and 95% of the

officers are committed to protecting everyone. This is a very bad misconception and it’s what is

making people lose trust in law enforcement. Non enforcement activities in public is a great way

of rebuilding their relationships with their community and reducing gang related crimes. Some of

the activities that law enforcements have tried across counties are coffee with a Cop and justice

workshops.
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Law enforcement agencies should create opportunities in school and communities for

positive non enforcement interactions with police(1.5.3). Agencies should also publicize the

beneficial outcomes and images of positive, trust building partnerships and initiatives. An

estimation that kids spend at least 60% of their time in school and they learn most of their ideas

and education from school. Now, most gang related crimes start from the ages of 15-20 which

means during their high school years. It would be great to start teaching kids who police really

are from an early age and what committing crimes can do to their future. From personal

experience I've never had any activities in school with law enforcement nor have I ever been

taught what happens when I commit something illegal. Activities in school is probably one of the

most important recommendations for a better system, it will make a better image for the police

and the students will gain trust in law enforcements. They will also learn the aftermath of the

crimes if they ever commit one. Education is key, it’s very unfortunate that schools don’t teach

anything about the criminal justice system.

When President Obama gave a 90 day period to law enforcement to create a system where

they gain trust between the public and law enforcement. Their goal was to make this project very

diverse so they included many organizations including non governmental organizations. These

law enforcements reached to a conclusion of multiple great ideas including where they wanted to

stop police training like soldier training. Police and soldiers have different goals because police

are here to protect us and soldiers main goal is to conquer. They also placed heavy community

engagement to see what the communities are going through and how they can reduce tensions

between the public and law enforcements. It was a great project with lots of diverse voices that

really wanted a change.

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References

President’s Task Force on 21st Century Policing. 2015. ​Final Report of the President’s Task

Force on 21st Century Policing​. Washington, DC: Office of Community Oriented Policing

Services

Office of Community Oriented Policing Services. 2015. ​The President’s Task Force on 21st

Century Policing Implementation Guide: Moving from Recommendations to Action.​ Washington,

DC: Office of Community Oriented Policing Services.

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