Constitutional Policing
February 2015 
Voiceover: Beat Intro
00:00	
This is the Beat—a podcast series that keeps you in the know about the latest community policing 
topics facing our nation.
Nazmia Comrie
00:08	
Hello and welcome. My name is Nazmia Comrie and on behalf of the COPS Office, I’d like to introduce 
you to Chief Scott Thomson of the Camden County Police Department. Chief Thomson is here today to 
discuss Constitutional policing. 
Chief Thomson, Camden city’s shootings are down 43 percent in two years and violent crime down 22 
percent. What do you attribute to your success?
Chief Scott Thomson
00:30	
What we’ve been able to do over the last two years was to leverage the greatest force multiplier that 
we have in reducing crime. And it’s not technology, it’s not equipment, and it’s not training—it’s to be 
able to empower and get the people to come out of their homes to occupy their neighborhoods, their 
streets. And we had tipping points in public safety wherein we’ll have more good people on the street 
than we will have bad people that are out there. For far too long, the people in the city of Camden 
have been held hostage in their own homes. They’ve had to look out the bars on their windows and 
watch criminals and drug dealers operate with absolute impunity in their neighborhoods, which has 
negatively defined the lives of people that live there on that street. But when we deployed walking 
beat officers that literally were going up and down the block during daylight hours knocking on the 
doors, introducing themselves to the people that lived in the neighborhood, asking them what were 
the issues that were negatively defining their lives for the last multiple years, and how can we work 
with you to address those issues—when we started to do that, what we found were that people came 
out from behind their doors, sat on their front steps, allowed their children to play out and ride their 
bikes in the street. And not only did it enhance the communication of neighbor to neighbor, but it 
greatly enhanced the communication between the community and the police. 
Nazmia
02:00
Thank you. How have you been able to engage a community that has a history of mistrust toward the 
police?

Scott
02:07
Well, we’ve certainly had our challenges in the city of Camden. Over my course of years with the 
Camden City Police Department, we had put over 11 officers in jail. There was a point and time when 
we put five officers in federal prison for a series of violations of the law and the public’s mistrust. So 
when we started our new police department on May 1, 2013, we were starting in a deficit with regards 
to how the community viewed people that were charged with protecting and serving them. So to 
bridge this gap as quickly as possible, we employed tactics and strategies that enhanced—in fact, in 
some regards, mandated—human contact, interaction between the officers and the people. The only 
way I could get cops to truly empathize with the people that lived in the neighborhood and get the 
people that live in the neighborhood to truly trust our officers, was to have as much human contact 
and interaction as possible. So we deployed those types of strategies and techniques, and it worked 
tremendously. The people that live on the streets, when they saw our officers engaging the children 
out in front in foot races and push up competitions, playing—our cops were the steady quarterbacks in 
the street games of football, basketball leagues—particularly through the youth, we were able to build 
a tremendous amount of trust and good will with people in our city. 
Nazmia
03:36
And how has the culture of your department affected the way your officers interact with the 
community?
Scott
03:41
Well, the impact on our culture has been just amazing. Now one, again, with the new police 
department, I have the luxury of building culture as opposed to the challenge of changing it. I can tell 
you, when I became chief of the Camden City Police Department in 2008 when I would require officers 
to get out of their squad cars and to walk down neighborhoods and talk to people, you know, that was 
against the status quo. That was not something that was routinely being done for quite some time and 
it just seemed to be outside of the mindset of many of the officers and even some of the good 
officers. But when we started the new police department, everybody came in with the understanding 
and expectation of what the mission was and the creed in which we would perform our mission. 
So our mission in very simplest terms is to reduce the number of crime victims and to make people 
feel safer. Every member of my organization can recite that to you. And our creed, which is actually 
emblazoned on our badge and has been incorporated in our oath of office, is “service before self,” 
meaning we will subjugate our own needs for the greater good. So with this as the starting point and 
being able to have the officers engage with the people that live in some of the most challenged 
neighborhoods in this country, it really strengthened the empathy that needs to be there in the officer 
that’s working within that neighborhood. The officer needs to understand, and I believe that most of 
ours truly do, that we need the consent of the people for us to be efficient and effective and that the 
laws that are there for us to enforce are not for us to enforce on the people but to enforce with the 
people; meaning that we just don’t indiscriminately apply zero tolerance types of tactics and 
strategies. Right? Zero tolerance is zero common sense. And it immediately polarizes the people. As 
does the militarization of neighborhoods—taking a bunch of cops and putting them in riot gear or 
putting a command post out on a corner and have officers walking around holding rifles—does not 
enhance people’s feeling of safety and well-being. In fact, it can have the complete opposite effect, 
notwithstanding the fact that that tactic will essentially not have any violent crime occur while we’re 
there, but it’s not sustainable. So again, leveraging the greatest force multiplier there is which is the 
people themselves, when we’re able to connect with them, the culture within the organization is that 
the officers understand that this is the absolute prerequisite to having safe, healthy communities, it 
gives us a tremendous, tremendous return on our investment and it makes our public safety gains that 
we have sustainable for the future. 
Nazmia
06:19
Thank you for your time and expertise today. 
Voiceover: Beat Exit
06:22	
The Beat was brought to you by the United States Department of Justice, COPS Office. The COPS 
Office helps to keep our nation’s communities safe by giving grants to law enforcement agencies, 
developing community policing publications, developing partnerships, and solving problems.
Voiceover: Disclaimer
06:39
The opinions contained herein are those of the authors and do not necessarily represent the official 
position or polices of the U.S. Department of Justice. References to specific agencies, companies, 
products, or services should not be considered an endorsement by the authors or the U.S. 
Department of Justice. Rather, the references are illustrations to supplement discussion of the issues.