Chief James McMillen: Changing the direction of our policing, part 1

Last year, at the June 8, 2020, Sikeston City Council Meeting, I proposed a program to help DPS build relationships with community members. Many residents were in attendance as Council voted unanimously in favor of the program designed to change the direction of our policing.

It is one year later, and I want to write a series of articles that focuses on some ideas that I feel are important to policing today. This is the first part of that series,“Change the direction of our policing.”

If you read that above, you likely considered what this meant and may have even thought this is a bad idea. This last year some citizens, some former officers and others have criticized this relationship-building effort.

When you set out to make changes, many people are just going to resist. It’s hard to look in the mirror and say to yourself: “What is it that we are doing (or not doing) that is contributing to the lack of police relationships in our community?”

In the police academy, you learn about the “father of modern policing” — “Sir Robert Peel.” Peel established the London Metro Police force in 1829, and with that, developed ‘Three Core Ideas’ that are still very relevant today.

No. 1 - Peel said the goal is to prevent crime (or lower crime rates) and not just catch criminals. This sounds a bit scandalous coming from a Police Chief and I realize that. In fact, this is where some opposition comes from, wrongly assuming this equates to weak law enforcement. Let us think about this: if we can prevent the crime before it takes place, then we become more effective with what resources we have. It is a difference of being proactive or reactive. Many say I am foolishly optimistic. But our philosophy and response toward this fact will determine if our crime rate crime maintains, increases or decreases. I would hope any Chief or Sheriff would have a philosophy that works to decrease the crime in their community and not just respond to it. So, the system of measurement of our success in policing should be low crime rates as opposed to high arrest stats.

Q. But how do we prevent the crime before it takes place?

A. By Officers building relationships with citizens.

No. 2 – Peel went on to say that we must gain public support to prevent crime. I mean, does it surprise anyone that the very area that we tend to see more crime is, in fact, the same area where our agency seems to have a poor relationship? Peel said that every community member must share the responsibility of preventing crime. It is important to point out the obvious, that citizens will only accept this responsibility if the community supports and trusts the police. Lowering the crime rate in point No. 1 suddenly does not sound so impossible if we have numerous community members actively working with us. A citizen may not call the police, but they might call “Officer Jones” … if they have built a positive relationship. The familiarity and trust can drive that citizen to call when they see an argument erupting on a parking lot or when they hear that violence will be going down at the club later that night, or some other information that helps get our resources in the right place, at the right time.

No. 3 – This is the point that we can sometimes struggle: earning public trust. Without public trust, all this falls apart. Officer relationships with citizens are few and far between. Without trust, we move from a proactive agency to a reactive one, and the community suffers.

We are making a great effort to work with our citizens to stop those who are victimizing others. My job is to see the department works to prevent crime and solve cases, among other things. This is nearly impossible without having a partnership with our citizens in all areas of the city. Success will be determined if our officers and citizens are able to build these relationships that we must have to make this work.

This success will be instrumental in lowering our crime rate. A friend of mine said: “We have to move forward as a community and make sure that no part of our community is left behind.” Everyone has a right to live on a peaceful street in our city, regardless of the area of town. I ask for your continued support in this effort.

(Part 2 will be another topic and will be forthcoming)

James B. McMillen is the chief of Sikeston Department of Public Safety.