Best Practices in a New Economy March 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. Kimberly Brummett 00:08 Hello and welcome. My name is Kimberly Brummett, and on behalf of the COPS Office, I’d like to introduce you to Chief Will Johnson of the Arlington (Texas) Police Department. Chief Johnson is here today to discuss the best practices in a new economy. Welcome, Chief. Chief Will Johnson 00:23 Hello. Kimberly 00:25 Chief, it’s my understanding that Arlington has a particularly active volunteer program that includes citizens on patrol. What types of duties do your citizens on patrol perform? Will 00:35 Well, we try to open up the department for our citizens on patrol to perform a variety of functions. You know, there are many different citizens-on-patrol programs throughout the country but what we try to do is build upon what traditionally some agencies might have done out in the neighborhoods but also open up the police department internally for them to be able to volunteer in all different types of capacities, whether it’s in investigations or doing research online and also patrolling our neighborhoods and our schools in marked citizens-on-patrol vehicles. Kimberly 01:07 For chiefs who have a reluctance to put uniformed citizen volunteers in marked cars on patrol, what advice do you have based on Arlington’s experience? Will 01:15 Well, first, I would say that I totally understand where they’re coming from. We’ve been through a series of evolution of decision making and questions and working with other areas within the city government to determine whether or not it was permissible to do this. And after really looking at it, we came to a clear recommendation: we do not believe that we have any greater risk by allowing citizens to participate in this program than we do any other normal employees that are operating on the city’s behalf out into the community. And so, although everything we do in the government has some degree of risk, the risk-reward equation is so much more weighted on the rewards side for the amount of contributions that citizens on patrol are able to provide and return to the community. And I have some figures to back that up. So in 2013, we logged over 38,000 volunteer hours within the police department in our community with the savings of just slightly less than $600,000 in salary savings. That’s real dollars that are benefitting our community and the tasks that these volunteers are doing is making a noticeable difference in the quality of life of our community. Kimberly 02:33 To shift gears to another best practice, Arlington also has a very proactive social media strategy including the tweet-along program. First, what exactly is a tweet-along? Will 02:44 Well, a tweet-along is a virtual ride-along. So for years, law enforcement has offered the community the opportunity to ride next to a police officer and learn more about what they do during the course and scope of their duties. And a virtual tweet-along maximizes people’s opportunity to do that even if they don’t have the ability to physically participate. What that really helps us do is reach a broader cross-section of the community where people that have an interest in their community and/or their police department—to understand the type of activities and the types of calls and the types of work that their police department is doing. So it’s been highly successful, and it’s been replicated across many different police departments since we first launched it. Kimberly 03:30 You face some unique challenges in Arlington. You’re located in the heart of the Dallas/Fort Worth metroplex and are home to sports venues for both the Dallas Cowboys and the Texas Rangers, as well as Six Flags over Texas. As a result, you have very large short-term population influxes. Can you talk about this in the context of a new economy and relay any practices you’ve found to be successful in managing such a population? Will 03:55 Well, the realities of the new economy are this: that all segments of the community and, particularly, all segments of city government have to be focused on making sure that the community's financial health is robust. And so we embrace these special events because it really contributes to the amount of visitors that come to spend their disposable income on entertainment within our community. This is really our direct and relevant participation in the economic development strategy for our community. And we do this by focusing on what we call tourism-based policing. And that is, everybody needs to be prepared to defend against degrees of criminality that may be attracted to special events or mass gatherings. But the reality is people are attracted to the uniform. People are drawn to officers as they’re working, and they may ask them a question about, you know where is an ATM, or where is a good steakhouse, or how might I get to my hotel for driving instructions. And to the degree that our workforce is educated on these type of questions and to be able to provide them with quality answers, to be friendly, to be outgoing, and to maximize people’s “game day experience,” if they’re talking about a football or a baseball game, really improves people’s perception of our community and it improves the likelihood that they’ll want to return back to Arlington to visit us and visit our entertainment district. Kimberly 05:27 How do the cost of managing these large special events affect funding or your ability to provide service to Arlington residents? Will 05:34 Well, I think there’s two things. One, our elected leadership made the commitment before these facilities were built that police service delivery would not be compromised within the neighborhood if special events were taking place. What that forced us to do was to tour the United States conducting site visits for communities that had special events and mass gatherings, and we harvested best practices throughout the nation and were able to build and assemble the Arlington model by which we could host these events in the most economic fashion. It’s not uncommon for us to have a 100,000 person event taking place at AT&T Stadium and a 50,000 person event taking place at the ball park in Arlington. And so being able to effectively plan in a NIMS environment, command and control elements, and then also manage these spikes in work load through strategic off-duty employment through the vendors helps to reduce the financial cost within the community to where the venues are paying for required security services to host their event. Kimberly 06:46 Thank you, Chief, for your time and expertise today. Voiceover: Beat Exit 06:51 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 07:07 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.