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

Susan Shah:
00.08   Hello. My name is Susan Shah, and I'm a program director in the 
Center on Immigration and Justice at the Vera Institute of Justice.

In 2010, the Vera Institute and the COPS office partnered to produce a guide 
for law enforcement agencies who are looking to either begin or enhance their 
work with immigrant communities.

The guide is a national report titled "Engaging Police in Immigrant 
Communities: Promising Practices From the Field." This report profiles 
promising practices from 10 policing agencies across the country. This 
podcast is part of a series of recordings that accompany the report. Each 
podcast is in a Q and A format and provides practical advice from agency 
personnel who have been involved in the promising practices featured in our 
national report.

In this podcast, we are joined by Colonel Jim Stormes of the Palm Beach 
County Sheriff's Office in Florida. Colonel Stormes has nearly 30 years of 
law enforcement experience and is currently the Senior Executive Staff 
Officer of Law Enforcement Operations and Community Operations. He currently 
supervises the agency's Smart Policing Initiative Project, and he's here to 
share tips for selecting a good research partner.

Thank you for joining us, Colonel Stormes.

Jim Stormes:
01.22   Thank you. It's my pleasure to be here.   

Shah:
01.25   To frame this discussion today, could you please explain the agency's 
Smart Policing Initiative Project and how it got started?

Stormes:
01.33   Absolutely. First, just to give you a little background on Palm Beach 
County, Florida, it is an extremely diverse community and one specific area 
within our county has a large immigrant community. This is the city of Lake 
Worth. Lake Worth is in the southeast region of our county.

We have a big, largely undocumented population of Guatemalans as well as 
other groups. And one thing that we've noticed is that we had a lot of 
robberies in that area that were being perpetrated against the Guatemalan 
citizens. We wanted to address this problem in a number of different ways, so 
we applied to the Bureau of Justice Assistance for a Smart Policing grant and 
we received it back in 2009. The grant was obviously really important because 
it allowed us to hire a community liaison for the Latino community, a 
dedicated detective, as well as a research partner to help us develop the 
most effective response.

Shah:
02.30   What are some of the benefits of having a law enforcement agency 
partner with a researcher?

Stormes:
02.35   Well, I know when I went through my master's program, I learned a 
very valuable lesson that police can learn more from people in the community 
who are not law enforcement officers, particularly from people who are 
trained to systematically identify problems and use data to come up with 
appropriate responses.

I really believe it's all about working smarter, not harder. I've found that, 
over the years, cops sometimes have a very bad habit of working extremely 
hard but not being necessarily as smart as they should about the way they 
approach a problem. We can work a lot smarter if we collect and analyze data 
with the help of trained researchers.

This sometimes causes us to spin our wheels a little bit, but I know that 
having a trained, experienced researcher can bring a different perspective to 
law enforcement professionals. And many times their methodology can more 
effectively attack the problem. 

Shah:
03.31   How did your agency first select its research partner?

Stormes:
03.44   We looked at a number of different universities and ultimately we 
decided on Dr. Debra Ainbinder from Lynn University. She had worked with us 
on another project led by a local nonprofit, which dealt with narcotics 
overdose prevention. And we knew she did a great job with that project and 
there was a real trust with working with her.

Shah:
03.55   And what else is important when you're selecting a researcher?

Stormes:
03.58   Well, we wanted competence in terms of research, social justice, and 
social advocacy. We also wanted to work with someone who is passionate about 
the initiative and who believed in the goals of the project. We also wanted 
someone who had strong analytic skills. And, on a very practical note, we 
wanted an academic partner that was in close proximity to our agency and was 
available to come to regular meetings. It might be harder to have someone who 
is far away come to our agency on a more regular basis.

Shah:
04.29   What are some of the qualities that law enforcement looks for in a 
research partner, and why are these qualities so important?

Stormes:
04.36   Well, I think integrity and objectivity are both extremely important 
qualities in a research partner. A good researcher has to have integrity, 
which includes strong research ethics and the ability to let your agency 
know, as I mentioned, the good, the bad, the ugly about the progress of the 
project. Objectivity is important because even though the researcher is a 
partner in the initiative, they need to have an independent perspective in 
order to conduct their analysis.

When you have a truly objective researcher who has integrity, you have an 
opportunity to make valuable, data-driven changes to make your agency more 
efficient. You also have a foundation for agency buy-in.

Dr. Ainbinder has attended our CompStat meetings with command staff from 
across the agency. In those meetings we discuss strategies to address crime 
trends. And she comes in completely objective to provide a lot of data and 
analysis about our Smart Policing Initiative project. When she presents to 
the group, she provides a level of credibility that no one questions.

And that's incredibly helpful because we're able to take her findings from 
that one initiative and spread it through the entire agency.

Shah:
05.48   Can you share an example of this?

Stormes:
05.51   Well, I think we've changed our mindset a little bit as a result of 
some of the things that have happened with the Smart Policing Initiative to 
where we're really focusing more on data and evidence-based programs.

And the other thing I would say is, while we may not have the funding for an 
additional liaison like we do on our current project, we have adapted a 
little bit and made informal liaisons such as some of the chaplains in some 
of our other communities in an effort to really develop that relationship 
with the community.

Shah:
06.19   So, these changes, you know, seem like they're really important, but 
also very time-consuming. So, what are the benefits?

Stormes:
06.25   Well, it goes back to what I mentioned when you asked about the 
benefits of partnering with a researcher. We learn to work smarter. When we 
start to see documented evidence that something is working, it changes the 
culture of how our leaders do things throughout the organization and it also 
changes the way our deputies on the road work.

Shah:
06.44   So, now, let's talk about some of the steps in beginning a 
partnership. What's the first thing that you should do?

Stormes:
06.48   First, I think it's important to identify a university. If available, 
an up-and-coming university that cares about the mission of the project; if 
the university's dedicated to the mission then they will likely support the 
researcher. The university support opens up possibilities and resources. The 
researcher could get assistance from university students, like in our case, 
or other staff. And that also means the university would be more likely to 
allow the researcher to attend meetings and even travel out of state for 
other project-related meetings.

For us, Lynn University is interested in creating a positive image in the 
community, and it's extremely supportive of Dr. Ainbinder's involvement in 
the project, and that's really benefited our project and the partnership.

Shah:
07.35   So then once you have a researcher, how do you define what their role 
is going to be?

Stormes:
07.40   Well, it's extremely important that the agency should allow their 
research partner to feel they can share whatever they find: the good, the 
bad, and the ugly, as I mentioned before. And for this partnership to work, 
the research partner has to feel comfortable to come forward and say that 
something is not working.

For us, throughout this process, Dr. Ainbinder and our grantwriter have 
developed recommendations and some have led us to shift our program and how 
it operates. Our program wasn't failing, but it certainly has worked better 
as a result of that input.

Shah:
08.14   And then, you know, when you have a researcher, you define the role. 
When does the researcher actually get started on the project?

Stormes:
08.21   It's important that the agencies make sure that they get the research 
partner as early on in the program as possible. A researcher is very helpful 
in setting up the goals and the methodology, and that's important because it 
allows you to have an early assessment of progress and quality so that you 
can quickly adjust or make any necessary changes to make the project a 
success.

Shah:
08.44   Thank you very much, Colonel Stormes, for sharing some great 
practical tips and sharing your experiences.

Stormes:
08.51   Thank you for having me.

Voiceover:
08.53   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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