Green Dot

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
Katherine McQuay
00:08	This is Katherine McQuay with the COPS Office. With us today is Dorothy 
Edwards. Dorothy is the Executive Director of Green Dot, and she’s here today to 
talk about what Green Dot is and how it applies to law enforcement. So, Dorothy, 
the obvious question: what is Green Dot? 

Dorothy Edwards
00:25	Green Dot is a community mobilization violence prevention strategy. It is 
predicated on the idea that, in addressing crime and addressing violence, we 
have more than just the victim and the perpetrator to work with. We actually 
have this third character, this third person in this scenario, which is the bystander. 
This is, in fact, the largest group in any given community. This is based on how 
do we effectively engage and mobilize bystanders to action and use that 
momentum, harness that force, to reduce violence.
	
Katherine
01:00	And how does it work? You’ve talked about the process. What is the process?

Dorothy
01:05	The conceptual model, the picture for lack of a better word, is imagining our 
communities as maps. On this map, every little red dot indicates one violent act. 
Every little green dot represents one of these bystanders doing something to 
make it less likely the next red dot happens. The basic goal is, how do we create 
more green dots than red? In understanding how culture changes, it really is that 
simple. When green dots begin to mobilize, begin to outnumber and displace the 
red dots, we will begin to see violence trend down.

	The strategy is based on identifying community members and equipping them 
with a couple of key skills. One is recognizing the “red dots” that we want them 
to respond to. What’s the violence we want them to notice/recognize and training 
them to recognize these warning signs. And then equipping them with green-dot 
responses—simple behaviors, manageable behaviors they could do to address 
those.

	The trick is, doing green dots is easier said than done. What is key to this strategy 
is understanding that in real life, anyone in any given community in some 
situations is going to find it hard to do a green dot, even when they want to. 
People don’t stand by because they don’t care. People stand by because maybe 
they don’t know what to do. Maybe they’re not sure what they’re looking at. 
Maybe they’re afraid to intervene. Maybe they’re concerned about peer pressure. 
What we’ve got to do is create a conversation that says, “What are the things that 
make it hard for you, as a community member, to do a green dot? Given those 
obstacles, what are different options that you could do?” 


Katherine
02:55	So what does your organization do? Is it a training? How do they work with 
folks?

Dorothy
03:00	It is. Right now we do two different things. There is the Green Dot Violence 
Prevention Strategy in and of itself. There are communities, there are state 
coalitions, there are individual universities, there are agencies—really any 
organization—can say, “We’d like to do the Green Dot Violence Prevention 
Strategy,” and then we come in and we train them. It’s a 4-day training, usually 
onsite, sometimes they come to us. We equip them to implement the strategy.

	The second thing we do is for folks that go, “I like a lot of the core ideas of 
Green Dot but gosh, the specific nuts and bolts don’t work with us. We really 
like what we’re doing.”  We can come in and consult and just go, “Here’s how 
you could integrate some of the knowledge we have about how to engage 
bystanders into the program that you’re already doing.”

Katherine 
03:45	What do you see is the relationship between community mobilization and 
community policing?

Dorothy 
03:52	The connection is that they are both predicated on effectively reaching these 
community members and building trust and building partnerships and moving 
folks from passive agreement that violence is wrong, that crime is wrong, to 
action. We face the same challenge. We’re trying to build those partnerships and 
engage our communities.

	Where we can inform each other is really, understanding. Where we learn from 
each other is what have we already tried? Where are the places that I’ve tried to 
engage the community and I’ve failed? Where are the places community oriented 
policing, where have they tried to engage and it hasn’t been successful? How do 
we learn from that and build? 

Katherine 
04:35	So, is that how the strategy can help law enforcement, because they’re just taking 
more of these tools to apply to what they’re already doing?


Dorothy 
04:42	Absolutely. It is about….Very often you see exasperated folks, whether it’s law 
enforcement or those of us in prevention. We throw up our hands and say, “Why 
aren’t people getting involved? Why aren’t people stepping in?” The beautiful 
thing is that does not have to be a rhetorical question. There is a body of research, 
there is a mature body of science, that actually answers that question. There’s a 
list of about five to eight things that prevent people from stepping in, getting 
involved, from stepping into a high-risk situation. Understanding what those 
things are, and what we can do, to get over those obstacles is key to both of our 
strategies.

	The core elements of Green Dot would simply add tools—whether you call it 
Green Dot or not—would simply add tools to the tool chest of law enforcement 
that is implemented community oriented policing strategies.

Katherine 
05:39	“Green Dot” – where did that come from?

Dorothy 
05:41	You know, I want to give you a really profound answer. It’s really based 
on…the red dot came from those epidemic maps that we’ve all seen spread out 
there. At the time I was working in Texas. The green was the ribbon for Sexual 
Assault Awareness month. That was my first job in the field. Plus, red and green 
just seem to go together.

Katherine 
06:01	How did this become such a passion for you?

Dorothy 
06:03	You know, mostly—I could talk about personal experience, I could talk about 
how it’s impacted my family, this kind of violence—mostly it’s because if I were 
to accept numbers like one in three, and one in four, and one in five, were just 
inevitable, I would be accepting something about the human condition that I’m 
simply not willing to accept. I feel like if we can’t rally around reducing how 
many of our brothers and sisters and sons and daughters and mothers and fathers 
are raped and beaten and abused, if we can’t rally around stopping that, what 
else is there? What else is there that defines us as human beings? It just seems, 
the core belief that this can be better than it is.

Katherine 
06:50	Let me ask you more of a practical question. So many of the things you just 
described—the rape and assault—so many of these things seem to happen in an 
isolated circumstance. So how can I get involved, be a green dot in those 
instances?


Dorothy 
07:07	Great! Well there’s two things. One is what we know from some research—you 
all know better than me probably, the body of research, but it was some federal 
body that showed that these kinds of violent crimes, 60% of them actually have 
bystanders, actually had people witnessing. That’s just the actual violence. That 
doesn’t count all of the warning signs leading up to it. Even if the actual rape 
happens behind closed doors, who was hanging around with the perpetrator on 
all of the steps leading up to it? When he was feeding her drinks, when he was 
talking about, “Hey I’m going to go out tonight and get myself some.” Who was 
hanging out with the potential victim as she was making the choice to go to the 
party, as she was drinking? Who had agreed to, “We’re all going to stay together 
and go home like that?”  Whether you follow the path of the potential perpetrator 
or the potential victim, there are countless possible points of intervention long 
before isolation.

	So the first is, we don’t just equip people to recognize an actual assault or an 
actual domestic violence incident, we cue them to recognize all of the warning 
signs, so we stop it before it ever gets that far. The second is, when we talk about 
green dots, we don’t just mean to react when you see something. We also mean, 
even if you never see a potential red dot, what are things you could be doing to 
make it clear to the people in your community, the people in your life, “ that you 
know what, violence is not OK with me and it matters to me that you’re someone 
that steps in.” How do we communicate those norms to the people that we care 
about? 

	Between those two examples, there’s lots of ways anyone could get involved, 
regardless of how exposed they are directly to a violent act.

Katherine 
08:50	And Dorothy, how can our listeners find out more about Green Dot?

Dorothy 
08:55	Our website is livethegreendot.com. If you go there, you’ll get a sense of the 
philosophy. There’s lots of stuff there you can, kind of, steal at will. Our contact 
information is there as well for folks that want more resources or additional 
information.

Katherine 
09:10	Terrific! Thank you so much for joining us today.

Dorothy 
09:12	You’re welcome. It was a pleasure.

Beat Exit
Voiceover: 	
09:14	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.


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