By Patrick Robinson

What is your impression of police officers? If we took a poll in Seattle and across the nation, how would people say they feel about them? Pew Research did just that. Though the research is now seven years old, it points to a very simple truth. The police don’t see themselves as the public does.

https://www.pewresearch.org/social-trends/2017/01/11/police-views-public-views/

Only 8% of officers say they see themselves as enforcers – yet fully three times the share of the public or 29% see their local police that way.

People at large form their views about the police from 

1. TV shows and movies  

2. The news (which includes social media for many)

3. Personal interaction

The police form their views about their profession from

1. Direct experience and training

2. The news (again social media carries links and a lot of misinformation)

3. Life experience

The news.. that most critical aspect of gaining public cooperation, promoting esprit de corps, retaining valuable officers, and yes, reducing crime is almost completely left as an afterthought. There are Public Information Officers and Media people but very often news about crimes comes down to insider calls by journalists with access or relationships, or happenstance when an SPD Lieutenant or above is on the scene and has a moment and is willing to talk or the single media person for the county will say something more than, “I’m not at liberty to talk about that. It’s under investigation.” 

There’s Twitter, that most truncated of media forms where most commonly a tiny hint of a story is pushed out hurriedly and then might, i say might get a follow up tweet later on. Then there is the SPD Police Blotter very often missing context, seldom mentioning specifics and usually providing a kind of ‘sketch’ of what took place. 

There is almost no follow up, no revisiting a criminal incident, no clarity about cause and effect. It’s all left to the imagination. 

We are not working together, the public and the police, to arrive at a deeper understanding of police work, greater empathy on both sides, and not really striving for less crime through more complete information about events. people, laws and consequences. How do we expect it to get better if we don’t work toward that goal?

I believe we need a far more robust information effort that tells about the good work police do, and offers an equal provision of information about crime events in a timely, more fully realized form. It makes no sense to have a free for all approach to dispersing news. The questions about crimes shortly after they happen are predictable and answerable for everyone. 

It’s absolutely part of accountability and transparency. No favorites, no gotchas, no misinformation. We owe it to crime victims, and the public to provide accurate, timely information about crimes to build trust, prompt that much needed cooperation and shine up the police badges as the symbols of honor they deserve to be.