Teen and Police Services Academy

Beat Intro
Voiceover
00:00	This is the Beat—a podcast series that keeps you in the know about the latest 
community policing topics facing our nation.

Interview
Mora Fiedler 
00:08	This is Mora Fiedler with the COPS Office. With us today is Assistant Chief Brian 
Lumpkin from the Houston Police Department and Dr. Everette Penn from the 
University of Houston – Clear Lake. They are here today to talk to us about the 
Teen and Police Services Academy. Chief Lumpkin, what is the Teen and Police 
Services Academy?
 
Chief Brian Lumpkin
00:27	The Teen and Police Services Academy is a program that’s being funded by the 
COPS Office with the ultimate goal of coming up with a user guide that we can 
give to other law enforcement to implement in their agency. That user guide will 
be available in October of 2013. Right now we are currently working with these 
highly at-risk kids to get a better interaction between them and the real cops, the 
cops on the street. We bring in real cops as mentors; we team them up with the 
toughest kids in the community, the kids that—they’re not criminal but they’ve 
already made some really bad decisions and have gotten themselves in a school 
where they need some special attention. 

We’re ultimately trying to close down the social distance. We’re trying to figure 
out, “Where are you? Where do you see your police? Number 1, are you at a 1—
where you don’t like the police at all, or are you at a 10—where you love the 
police?” Then we’re going to go in there and see if interacting with them every 
week for 15 weeks can get them to feel a little better about police officers and 
about authority figures and arm them with some skills and abilities to go out 
there and navigate the journey of being a teenager. It’s tough; they’re under a lot 
of influence, a lot of peer pressure. They’ve already made lots of bad decisions. 
We’re going to help them turn that around a bit.

Mora
01:41	Can you describe the partnerships involved in the development and 
implementation of the TAPS Academy?

Brian
01:46	This makes this really special, this program, because without the partnerships it 
could not be possible. You have to be teamed up with a highly at-risk alternative 
school in your area. You have to have the academic people on board. You have 
to have the ability to evaluate and be willing to say, “You know what, this 
worked, but this didn’t, so let’s change next year. Let’s make adjustments 
semester by semester.” 

	It’s really crucial today when you’re going to take money—you want to make 
sure that you’re getting the best bang for your buck. The only way to do that is to 
truly partner up with universities like we did; Texas Southern University to do 
our evaluation, like we did with the University of Houston – Clear Lake, who 
actually came in and, not only added that academic research and said, “Where 
are we with these at-risk kids and where are we with the social distance?” but 
also the ability to make us, as police officers, look at it a little bit differently, look 
at it from the academic side.

Dr. Everette Penn
02:44	As Chief Lumpkin pointed out, it is extremely important in these days and times 
because of the economic strains that we’re under, to ensure that we are using the 
public dollar in the best possible way. The partnership that we have with the 
Houston Police Department, University of Houston – Clear Lake, Beechnut 
Academy, Texas Southern University, and our newest partner, Big Brothers and 
Big Sisters, allows us to use the best methods possible to ensure we’re spending 
that dollar correctly. This partnership is something the research says is right and 
we have found from our experience is right.

Mora
03:18	If the goal of the program is to reduce the social distance between at-risk youth 
and law enforcement, are you anticipating other positive impacts on community 
policing efforts as a result of the training?

Brian
03:30	Yes I am. Historically, community policing has done a really great job interacting 
with really great citizens. And the Houston Police Department, where I feel we 
could do a better job, is actually addressing this group. This is the group that is 
not criminal but is at a very tough age group to deal with and it’s very hard to get 
this group to meet with you. Fortunately we have principals that are willing to 
say, “You know what, I think it’s important that these kids meet with the police. 
Therefore we’re going to let you in our school; we’re going to let you have a 
classroom; and we’re going to let you have those students for an hour and a half 
to do this.” ‘Cause they see the value in it.

	So yes, I believe in this partnership and it does enhance community policing. It 
just takes it to a group that I feel that we probably haven’t spent a lot of time 
with. We do a great job talking to the civic leaders. We do a great job talking 
with apartment managers. We do a great job talking with the type of kids that 
want to be police officers. We do a good job in the D.A.R.E.-type programs, the 
G.R.E.A.T.-type programs. We’re talking to 95 percent good kids in those 
programs. We want to go after that 5 percent. That 5 percent is showing up in 
these alternative schools.

Everette
04:46	The Houston Police Department is a home base for community policing, so it’s 
right that this next chapter of community policing—going past the population 
that desires you to be there, the population that looks forward to you coming 
there—we are taking it to another level by going to a population that has a great 
social distance, that does not, perhaps, like police, and research and literature 
shows that.

	From this program, we are going to have it that the teens learn what is right from 
someone who has the authority, who has the experience, and has the care to tell 
them how to operate in a situation when you’re stopped by the police, when 
you’re approached by the police, and how to avoid some of the troubles that 
come every day for some of the youth that we participate with.

	Then second, and very important, the police officers get to learn about this 
population which they police. I hope that Chief Lumpkin will tell about some of 
the ideas that he has with getting these police officers to understand this 
population.

Brian
05:49	Let me just add about some of the other positive impacts. We’ve already seen 
preliminarily that we are having an impact, and they do feel better about the 
police. We do see the police getting a deeper understanding about where these 
kids’ heads are, which is great because when you—our officers are our mentors, 
are true police officers working evenings and night shifts and are out there 
possibly running up against some of the kids we’re interacting with or the groups 
of kids that they’re interacting with. They’re able to share this information of 
what they’ve learned through this experience.

	It also has an officer safety component. Our feelings are if a teenager can feel a 
little bit better about the police and authority figures, he’d be less apt to be 
disrespectful, even taken as far as to assault or injure an officer. That is just a 
hope and a dream of mine right now; I have no solid literature to prove that. But 
that is something I feel can happen and I feel, ultimately, will happen. We see it 
all the time at citizens’ police academy. We have people come in and they’re not 
really pro-police but by the time they get through the citizens’ police academy 
and they see all the different aspects that police work does, they get a deeper 
understanding of our walk. That’s what these kids are doing with these classes. 
They’re getting a little understanding about our journey, our walk as police 
officers, the diversity of our department, all the different things that police can 
do, different agencies, divisions, investigative units. At the same time we’re in 
their tennis shoes, walking with them, saying, “Oh, it’s not easier being a 
teenager. It’s not easy dealing with the issues these kids have to deal with 
today.”



Mora:
07:21	Dr. Penn, have you seen any results that support the program goal of reducing the 
social distance between at-risk youth and law enforcement?

Everette
07:29	Our model is based on literature, literature that has come from years of 
criminology and criminal justice research. Our model is one in which we believe 
that if we can reduce the social distance between police and this at-risk 
population, legitimacy will increase, social bond will increase with these teens, 
and therefore eventually reducing of crime. So social distance, legitimacy, and 
social bond—reducing of crime. We’re getting there.

	With that, we have a team from Texas Southern University conducting our 
evaluation. Evaluation is so very important these days. What we’ve seen from the 
pre-test, post-test question—just some of the information. More information is 
available on our website, tapsacademy.org. We asked the question before the 
program began, “Do you like the police? Do you trust the police? Do you respect 
the police?” Pre-test responses for like were 35.1, post-test jumped to 64 percent. 
Trust, 51 percent, jumped to 84 percent at the end of the program. Respect, 60 
percent at the beginning of the program. At the end of the program, these teens 
said—92 percent said that they respect the police. And then, their thought on 
“Do the police respect me?” 43 percent of the teens thought that at the beginning 
of the program, 68 percent at the end of the program. From this academy, from 
our first time, we are seeing that we’re having an effect in this 15-week program 
and we think we can only do better in the future.

Mora:
08:59	Chief, what lessons have you learned from the first class?

Brian
09:02	The biggest lesson that I personally learned, and I believe that my officers would 
agree because I attended every single class that we put on this year, is that this 
type of student is tired of being threatened and lectured. They’re tired of people 
pointing fingers at them and saying, “You’re going to be nobody. You’re going 
to jail. You keep it up and you’re not going to be somebody.” They all want to be 
somebody. They’re all crying for attention. There’s not a shy one in the group. 
They all seem to have skills but they’re doing it in dysfunctional ways. What I 
realize that they really want out of us is they want to be listened to, which is a 
big component. We spend as much time listening to them as we do talking to 
them. 

Also, they want people that care. They don’t want a person one day to give them 
a motivational speech and walk out of their life. They liked that these cops were 
showing up every Tuesday, every Thursday, every Tuesday, every Thursday, 
same cops, getting in there, with them, hearing their issues, hearing what they 
think about the issues that they face, everything from cyber-texting crimes, to 
bullying, to domestic violence, to conflict resolution, kind of getting what sets 
you off and what are some of the things we can arm you with in the future to 
have better outcomes, with not only your peers and your teachers and your 
parents, but with the police.
 
Mora
10:20	Dr. Penn, where can people find additional information about the TAPS 
Academy?

Everette
10:25	Tapsacademy.org is the place online. We also are on Facebook and we really 
want to see that interaction between police officers and teens. We put and 
prompt questions on our Facebook page that we hope will produce the dialogue. 
We’re still learning. This is a grant, a test program that we hope that in 2013 we 
have kicked out just as many of the bumps and difficulties as possible so that this 
can be implemented around the country. One of the things that we learned along 
the way, revisions that we’re making for our future classes, is that we’re adding 
Big Brothers, Big Sisters, so that mentorship component can be as strong as 
possible. These kids are looking for someone, as Chief Lumpkin pointed out, to 
be the person who has the answers for them, and also these officers are learning. 
We’re glad to have them as partners on board. We do have Vistra 
Communications, our public relations firm that gets the word out there, as this 
grant, this RP required us to have a strong public relations forum. We hope that 
people will come see us online.

Brian
11:29	We’re really encouraging even other folks. If you think you have something to 
offer our teens or police officers or their parents, let us know, send us an email 
and we’ll add you to our website as a link.

Mora:
11:41	Thank you so much for providing us with your expertise and your time.

Everette
11:44	Thank you.


Beat Exit
Voiceover: 	
11:45	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.



Disclaimer
12:02	The opinions contained herein are those of the authors, and do not necessarily 
represent the official position or policies 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. 

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