HOW BIAS CONTINUES TO ERODE EFFECTIVE POLICING

Incidents throughout the United States continue to erode the faith in cities’ policing practices and protocols, and call into question whether the institutional bias against African-Americans can really be remedied. Earlier this month, a 32-year-old black woman, Kamilah Brock, alleged that the New York City Police sent her to a mental hospital and forced powerful drugs upon her simply because of her race.

Another incident in Manhattan similarly saw the New York City Police tackling and handcuffing a young black man who they confused for the suspect in a crime. The young man they tackled turned out to be James Blake, formerly the fourth-ranked men’s tennis player in the world. Blake was detained for about 15 minutes until officers realized who he was, and suffered cuts and bruises from the attack. After the incident, Blake commented that, “it’s as simple as unnecessary police force, no matter what my race is. In my mind there’s probably a race factor involved, but no matter what, there’s no reason for anybody to do that to anybody.”

HOW SDR® CAN RESTORE FAITH IN POLICING PRACTICES?

These incidents in New York are representative of a larger and broader issue that plagues the entire policing system in the United States. Although it cannot be said that every officer acts upon their negative biases, there is certainly an apparent void of effective training that would provide a methodological basis with which to recognize biases, and the operational tools to guide measured and knowledge-based practices.

SDR® training can restore respect to policing while providing increased knowledge and a higher level of efficiency, making it more effective and unprejudiced, all while improving community relations. SDR® Academy is a methodology that is founded upon recognizing potential cases of violence, public disorder, illicit activities or lethal attacks, through behavioral profiling and analysis. As SDR® relies on behavioral indicators and analysis to identify threats, the training inherently negates ethnic profiling.  SDR® provides trainees with auto-critique and counter-bias tools that become a consistent part of their observation activities, thereby preventing actions based on automatic red-flagging of people of a particular gender, age, race, religion, or sexual orientation. In the cases described above, implicit biases likely played a role in why events unfolded as they did.

SDR® trainees learnhow to judge a person’s behaviors and potential threat level in just moments, and come to understand that no two circumstances are the same–there is no singular definition of who a suspect may be. SDR® is a heightened awareness training method based on observing people’s behaviors relative to their surroundings, as opposed to their physical appearance or an officer’s previous personal experiences. SDR® trains individuals to search their surroundings and observe what a state of normalcy consists of in that particular area, to detect people’s adherence to – or deterrence from – normal behavior (for that given area), and to choose the appropriate action.

WHY EVERYONE SHOULD RECEIVE SECURITY TRAINING

Most people associate the term security training with the various initiatives taken on by safety and security personnel in efforts to keep specific areas safe. But what about the various initiatives community members can take on in order to keep their entire community safe?

What many people overlook is how vital it is for all individuals to have heightened awareness tools. Last week, the central hall of Erasmus Medical Centre in Rotterdam, the Netherlands, was evacuated when a suspicious package was discovered in one of the hospital bathrooms. This incident underscores the need for all community members to receive a certain extent of training in order to assist in keeping their environments safe. Not only should security officials be trained to see and understand their surroundings, but so too should the general public, such as the janitorial staff of a hospital, clerks in a mall, a local citizen shopping in their neighborhood grocery store, etc.

SDR® Academy is a proactive security method and philosophy that focuses on effective prevention rather than reaction. SDR® training gives users the tools they need to detect deviant behaviors and illicit intentions before they become harmful actions. The operational tools that make up the SDR® methodology are applicable in any and every environment. SDR® training is not a one-size-fits-all technique; we develop tailor-made training programs for each client. The constant that SDR® training delivers to all clients, is the ability to heighten human awareness. Awareness is the key to prevention, whether on the part of hospital staff members, a local citizen walking in their neighborhood, or a security officer monitoring a crowd. SDR® brings the ability to better understand one’s surroundings and what constitutes normal or abnormal behaviors in any given environment. Making this training universal will only serve to improve how we respond and attend to potential security threats in the future.

FERGUSON AFTER-ACTION ASSESSMENT

WHAT DID WE LEARN?

The United States Department of Justice recently released the “After-Action Assessment of the Police Response to the August 2014 Demonstrations in Ferguson, Missouri.” This governmental evaluation provides insights into the lessons learned concerning the regional police response to the mass demonstrations that followed the fatal shooting of Michael Brown in Ferguson, Missouri one year ago.

Six key themes emerged regarding the police response during the first wave of the protests:

• Inconsistent leadership
• Failure to understand endemic problems in the community
• A reactive rather than proactive strategy
• Inadequate communication and information sharing
• Use of ineffective and inappropriate strategies and tactics
• Lack of law enforcement response continuity

Ferguson riots, August 2014.

The report details 48 findings and reviews more than 100 lessons learned as a result of the findings. The importance of these findings and the lessons learned should weigh heavily on law enforcement agencies throughout the United States. The memory of the fatal shooting of Michael Brown last summer, and the many similar incidents since, still resonates acutely throughout the United States. Unrest on the anniversary of the events in Ferguson resurfaced and again pushed the issues between local law enforcement and the communities in which they serve to the forefront of the news.

HOW CAN WE FIX WHAT IS BROKEN?

The national implications are amongst the most important considerations contained in the report. “History informs that a critical incident can happen anywhere and at any time. With this knowledge, law enforcement must always remember that the ability to respond to an incident effectively is formulated long before an incident occurs through investments in leadership, community engagement, training, and communication. Ferguson is a vivid reminder that law enforcement agencies must continually analyze their policing practices in relation to the communities they serve” (xxii, “After-Action Assessment of the Police Response to the August 2014 Demonstrations in Ferguson, Missouri”).

Remedying the mistakes of the past requires local safety, security, and policing agencies to address the findings of this after-action report and truly analyze their practices. SDR® Academy’s methodology and trainings address many of the key themes presented in the Ferguson report.

SDR® equips its trainees with the tools they need to better understand their environments and heighten their awareness, thereby providing them with the nuanced capability to distinguish when a person’s behavior signifies a potential threat, and when it does not. Such nuanced understanding, along with SDR® communication skills can prevent both false positives and false negatives. The SDR® trainings are based on local behavioral indicators and operational auto-critique tools which negate discriminatory ethnic profiling in policing.

Furthermore, SDR® focuses on proactive prevention of – rather than reaction to – harmful events and security threats. Proactive prevention in the SDR® methodology and training highlights the importance of making knowledge-based decisions rather than simply relying on pre-emptive measures that often rely on knee-jerk reactions (often influenced by individuals’ biases). The unique operational tools learned through SDR® training allow trainees to better understand human behaviors, focusing on behavioral abnormalities and therefore inherently negating ethnic profiling. In this way, SDR® is working towards bridging the gap between conventional policing and the communities these agencies serve. Proper training of students how to differentiate between actionable behaviors and innocuous ones is at the core of SDR®.

By restoring the trust between the community and the local police force, SDR® also promotes social cohesion, ameliorating the overall safety environment in a given area. The population must feel that they can turn to their local law enforcement without fear of bias, trusting them to act according to ethical guidelines and local laws, procedures, and protocols.

In the wake of Ferguson and other similar events that transpired this year, policing practices need to change. They must incorporate the findings of the after-action report recently released, and perhaps look to incorporate new trainings and procedures to improve the state of the art.

Check the SDR® Academy Site for New Content!

The SDR^® Academy now features new content where visitors can test their biases through tests provided by Project Implicit^®, “a non-profit organization and international collaboration between researchers who are interested in implicit social cognition – thoughts and feelings outside of conscious awareness and control.”

SDR Academy training and methodology underscore why it is so important to recognize latent biases in order to better protect citizens from unlawful policing practices. SDR teaches trainees to search for behavioral indicators that look out-of-the-ordinary for the local environment rather than allow specific personal biases to influence the way in which officers and security professionals decide who to approach.

Visit the SDR website now to test your biases with Project Implicit.

SDR®: Protecting Citizens from Unlawful Biases

“Ferguson, Mo., is a third white, but the crime statistics compiled in the city over the past two years seemed to suggest that only black people were breaking the law. They accounted for 85 percent of traffic stops, 90 percent of tickets and 93 percent of arrests. In cases like jaywalking, which often hinge on police discretion, blacks accounted for 95 percent of all arrests.”

The statistics revealed by the investigation of the police department in Ferguson, Missouri conducted by the United States Justice Department’s Civil Rights Division, were so disparate they caused the Justice Department to conclude that the Ferguson Police Department had been routinely violating the constitutional rights of its black residents. The disparity of the statistics are indeed striking and are highlighted by the report’s six-month investigation which reveals emails circulated amongst Ferguson government officials stating, “Barack Obama would not be president long because ‘what black man holds a steady job for four years?’ Another email included a cartoon depicting African-Americans as monkeys. A third described black women having abortions as a way to curb crime.” The appalling nature of the content in this report underscores the need for a security training mechanism which can negate ingrained biases in police and law enforcement officials.

How Can SDR^® Help Negate Unlawful Biases?

SDR^® Academy trains and teaches a methodology which inherently negates discriminatory ethnic profiling in policing practice. Instead of looking for specific suspects, which can be described differently by every person depending on their personal and professional biases,the SDR method teaches trainees to look for abnormal behaviors for a given environment and equips them with operational auto-critique tools that ensure that they are making fact-based decisions relevant to their specific environment. In this manner, rather than specific personal biases influencing the way in which officers and security professionals decide who to approach, they are made to search for behavioral indicators that look out-of-the-ordinary for the local environment. Using this approach, SDR is able to restore the trust between the citizens of a community and the local law enforcement that serves them. Citizens in areas where SDR training has been implemented can go about their daily routines without a fear of bias from their law enforcement officers. By establishing a framework by which officers’ decisions are backed by relevant facts and behavioral indicators, SDR operational auto-critique tools simultaneously protect the rights of the public—by negating discriminatory ethnic profiling in policing—and of the officers by providing data with which they can defend their decisions.

The U.S. Department of Justice has placed more stringent restrictions on federal law enforcement agencies to limit the ability to profile on the basis of religion, national origin, and other characteristics, however, it is possible that the policies simply may not be enough to mitigate pre-existing biases. SDR can provide trainees with the more nuanced training they need with the added value of countering the effects of biases.

Rebuilding Trust in Our Communities

“People don’t trust the police, and the police don’t trust the people.”

Nationwide protests in the wake of police brutality cases throughout the United States, continue to bring to the forefront of the country’s consciousness, the need for a reexamination of the relationship between security forces and the communities in which they serve. Further, the country finds itself thrust into race and justice issues which have become even greater sources of tensions within local communities.

How can we learn to restore the faith between civilians and their local law enforcement agencies? For minorities in many communities, a general mistrust of police and security has developed, as well as a lack of confidence in the police forces more broadly.

Combined 2011-2014 data measuring Americans’ confidence in the police shows that 59% of whites have a great deal or quite a lot of confidence in the police, compared with 37% of blacks.

A 53 percent majority of all Americans think police in most big cities are tougher on blacks than on whites. Only 31 percent think police treat blacks and whites the same. Three percent said they think police are tougher on whites.  Among black respondents, 86 percent said city police are usually tougher on blacks, while 6 percent said police treat blacks and whites the same. But even white respondents were more likely to say that police are tougher on blacks than that both are treated the same, 47 percent and 36 percent, respectively.  

Restoring Trust Through Community Policing

What is the best way to bridge the gap, to restore the faith all groups within a community feel towards their law enforcement agencies and local police forces? A pioneer of “community policing,” Jerry Wilson was appointed police chief for Washington, D.C. in 1969. He believes that the best way to ameliorate the relationship between civilians and law enforcement, is “in general, instead of the usual brute force and reactionary policing that tended to pit cops against citizens—both criminal and otherwise—Wilson believed that cops were more effective when they were welcomed and respected in the neighborhoods they patrolled. ‘The use of violence,’ he told Time in 1970, ‘is not the job of police officers.’ ”

SDR and Community Policing

SDR®  Academy training is a proactive approach to safety and security that provides heightened awareness and early detection while closing gaps and building trust between community members and authorities. SDR inherently negates ethnic profiling, as the methodology and training relies on behavioral indicators and analysis to identify threats, and therefore, the program and training do not simply red-flag minority groups or people of a particular race, gender, age, or religion.

It is through more nuanced training, such as SDR, and the emboldened vision of community policing, that we can attain the goal of stronger relationships and more inherent trust between the community and local police forces and security officials. The end goal is a system in which the community will embrace and put their faith back into the security system, and community policing underscores the idea that cops are “not in the arrest business” they are “in the trust business.” It puts the police “in a position of helping a community solve its problems.”

The Urban Hunter and the Bar of Normality®

In every environment, there is a standard set of norms upon which we all base our behaviors. There are particular behaviors which would seem out of place in certain environments, and which would cause us to pause, and reexamine what we may be seeing. Search Detect React® SDR training aims to augment one’s awareness to these potential abnormalities and to increase our ability to respond to them.

Urban Hunter Energy

The Urban Hunter™ characterizes anyone who is on the lookout for something. Regardless of the mission, any time a person is a part of a plan, they are on the lookout for their next cue, and project preparation signs of a hunter on the prowl. It is the search, the hunt, looking for something which distinguishes the Urban Hunter from the rest of the crowd. All people searching for something or someone – whether they are searching for their friend, their ride to work, or their next victim – will exhibit similar basic mental, physiological, and behavioral indicators. Those indicators are what we call the Urban Hunter Energy. In a train station for example, the Urban Hunter Energy will therefore reveal a teacher looking for the last student in her field trip group, a pick-pocketer searching for their next target, a would-be terrorist staking out the location for a future attack, and an undercover police officer patrolling the area, because they are all Urban Hunters, they are all searching for something. SDR-trained personnel would know how to disregard the teacher and the undercover cop, and identify the future pick-pocketer and the future terrorist as Urban Hunters searching for something with malicious intentions, in the stages before the crime was committed. SDR gives trainees the power of prevention by providing them with the capabilities to identify Urban Hunters, and auto-critique tools like the Artificial Gut Feeling® and the Bar of Normality® to determine who of the Urban Hunters has potential illicit intentions. SDR auto-critique mechanisms ensure that personnel have come to their decisions through a knowledge-based assessment of the relevant situational factors, rather than ethnic profiling or other biased judgements.

SDR provides practitioners with the capabilities to identify behavioral indicators rather than suspects, based on the SDR created, Bar of Normality®. The Bar of Normality® is an established definition of the routine conduct of a given area that, among other things, takes into consideration local cultural norms, key indicators, the purpose the area serves, and local legal guidelines. The Bar of Normality® is localized specifically for each environment and is altered in conjunction with fluctuating influential factors such as time of day, holidays, organized events, current events, etc. The Bar of Normality® is an operational tool with which to compare people’s conduct and demeanor so that abnormalities will inherently become obvious.

Searching for the Urban Hunter Energy sharpens one’s situational awareness by broadening their scope and refining their view of abnormal behavior, therefore increasing their effectiveness and relevancy to maintaining order, safety and security in their local environment. The search for the Urban Hunter broadens their scope by training practitioners to see their environment through a wider lens, open to preventing all types of crime committed by any person, without bias. It furthermore, refines their view of abnormal behavior to one that is apt to their specific environment by customizing the definition of abnormal behavior according to their place, time, and situational factors. Therefore, searching for the Urban Hunter with unique SDR auto-critique tools allows personnel to see their environment from a viewpoint that is relevant to keeping every local community safe and maintaining public order in each specific environment. Safer communities adds up to safer regions, which adds up to safer states, safer countries, and an overall safer society.

DE URBAN HUNTER EN DE BAR OF NORMALITY®

In iedere omgeving bestaat een standaard set van normen waarop we ons gedrag baseren. Bepaalde vormen van gedrag lijken niet op zijn plaats in bepaalde omgevingen en kunnen er toe leiden dat we stoppen om nog eens goed te kijken wat we zien. Search Detect React® SDR training is er op gericht om het bewustzijn van mensen te vergroten om deze potentiële afwijkingen te herkennen en om ons vermogen om er op te reageren te verbeteren.

Urban Hunter Energy

De Urban Hunter™ kenmerkt iemand die op zoek is naar iets. Wanneer een persoon deel uitmaakt van een plan, ongeacht het doel, zijn ze constant op zoek naar het volgende actiepunt en vertonen ze het gedrag van een jager die op de loer ligt. Het is deze zoektocht, de jacht, het zoeken naar iets, dat de Urban Hunter onderscheidt van de rest van de menigte. Alle mensen die op zoek zijn naar iets of iemand –of ze nu op zoek zijn naar een vriend, hun vervoersmiddel naar werk, of hun volgende slachtoffer- zullen dezelfde primaire mentale-, fysiologische- en gedragsindicatoren vertonen. Deze indicatoren noemen we de Urban Hunter Energy. In een treinstation bijvoorbeeld, zal de Urban Hunter Energy daarom een docent die op zoek is naar de laatste leerling in de groep onthullen, of een zakkenroller die op zoek is naar een volgend slachtoffer, een mogelijke terrorist die een locatie verkent voor een toekomstige aanslag en een undercover politieagent die de omgeving verkent, omdat ze allemaal Urban Hunters zijn die op zoek zijn naar iets. SDR getrainde medewerkers weten hoe ze de leraar en de undercover agent moeten negeren, terwijl ze de toekomstig zakkenroller en terrorist als Urban Hunters die op zoek zijn naar iets met slechte bedoelingen weten te identificeren, nog voordat er een misdrijf is gepleegd. SDR geeft cursisten de macht van preventie door hen te voorzien van de capaciteiten om Urban Hunters te identificeren en van autokritiek middelen zoals de Artificial Gut Feeling® en de Bar of Normality® om te bepalen of een Urban Hunter potentiële illegale bedoelingen heeft. De SDR autokritiek mechanismes zorgen er voor dat medewerkers tot een beslissing komen door een op kennis gebaseerde beoordeling van relevante situationele factoren, in plaats van door etnische profilering of andere werkwijzen gebaseerd op vooroordelen.

SDR stelt medewerkers in staat om in plaats van verdachten, gedragsindicatoren te identificeren, die zijn gebaseerd op de Bar of Normality®. De Bar of Normality® is een vaste definitie van het routinegedrag binnen een bepaald gebied dat, naast andere factoren, rekening houdt met lokale culturele normen, belangrijke indicatoren, het doel van de locatie en plaatselijke wetten en regelgeving. De Bar of Normality® wordt specifiek aangepast aan iedere omgeving en is onderhevig aan veranderingen door fluctuerende factoren zoals de tijd van de dag, vakanties, georganiseerde activiteiten, de actualiteit enz. De Bar of Normality® is een operationele maatstaf waaraan het gedrag en de acties van mensen kan worden gemeten en vergelen, zodat afwijkingen snel kunnen worden vastgesteld.

Het zoeken naar de Urban Hunter Energy verscherpt het bewustzijn van de omgeving door het verbreden van de reikwijdte en het verfijnen van de visie op afwijkend gedrag, waardoor de effectiviteit en relevantie voor het handhaven van de orde en veiligheid in een lokale omgeving wordt verhoogd. De zoektocht naar de Urban Hunter verruimt de visie door alle cursisten te trainen om door een brede lens en zonder vooroordelen naar hun omgeving te kijken en open te staan voor alle soorten criminaliteit die door een persoon kan worden gepleegd. Bovendien verfijnt het hun kijk op afwijkend gedrag dusdanig dat deze nu is afgesteld op de specifieke omgeving door de definitie van afwijkend gedrag aan te passen aan de plaats, tijd en situationele factoren. Daarom stelt het zoeken naar de Urban Hunter met de unieke SDR autokritiek middelen medewerkers in staat om hun omgeving te zien vanuit een standpunt dat relevant is voor het veilig houden van de omgeving en het handhaven van de openbare orde op iedere locatie. Veiligere gemeenschappen zorgen voor veiligere regio’s, wat neerkomt op veiligere provincies, veiliger landen, en een veiliger samenleving in het algemeen

Harnessing the Power of the People: Crowdsourcing Intelligence with WeAware+™

“The first thing to understand is that the public peace—the sidewalk and street peace—of cities is not kept primarily by the police, necessary as police are. It is kept primarily by an intricate, almost unconscious, network of voluntary controls and standards among the people themselves, and enforced by the people themselves.”

— The Death and Life of Great American Cities, by Jane Jacobs, 1961

Author and journalist Jane Jacobs wrote the above in her book in 1961 and the sentiment today, still rings true. While civilians do rely on their local security and police forces to maintain public order and ensure their community’s safety, the onus is also on the civilians to take individual action. Now, more than ever, the idea of tapping into the abundance of intelligence available through local communities and individual citizens, is on the rise. Local citizens have the latent knowledge of familiarity with their local neighborhoods, cities, and towns, and are best suited to recognizing behaviors or actions that are out-of-the-ordinary or deviant in nature.

The WeAware+™ application from the SDR Academy intends to harness this power of the people. The application gives ordinary civilians the ability to learn SDR‘s methods of proactive security, and apply it to everyday life. WeAware+™ gives citizens the tools to assist in keeping their own environments safe, not only for themselves, but for the benefit of the community as a whole. Crowdsourcing information breeds confidence in the community and also bolsters a more participatory culture in general. This can be described as “a culture with relatively low barriers to artistic expression and civic engagement, strong support for creating and sharing one’s creations, and some type of informal mentorship whereby what is known by the most experienced is passed along to novices. A participatory culture is also one in which members believe their contributions matter, and feel some degree of social connection with one another” (Brabham, 16). The WeAware+™ application will also enhance the connections and sense of trust between the local civilian populations and law enforcement agencies, as reported data aggregated from active users of the application will be used to benefit the community at large. The more users there are on the system, the stronger the community cohesion will become. Police and security officials need the help of the people they serve, and WeAware+™ creates an opportunity and forum in which these two repositories of information can blend for the greater good.

BENUTTEN VAN DE MACHT VAN HET VOLK: CROWDSOURCINGINTELLIGENTIE MET WEAWARE+™

“Het eerste punt om te begrijpen is dat de openbare orde –de vrede op straten en pleinen- van steden niet alleen door de politie wordt bewaakt. Het wordt in de eerste plaats door een ingewikkeld, bijna onbewust, netwerk van vrijwillige controle en standaarden van mensen en door mensen gehandhaafd.”

• The Death and Life of Great American Cities, door Jane Jacobs, 1961

 De auteur en journalist Jane Jacobs schreef het bovenstaande in haar boek in 1961 en het is nog steeds waar. Terwijl burgers vertrouwen op hun lokale veiligheids- en politiediensten om de publieke orde te bewaken en te zorgen voor veiligheid, ligt er ook verantwoordelijkheid bij burgers om individuele actie te ondernemen. Meer dan ooit is er het besef dat een overvloed aan inlichtingen beschikbaar is via lokale gemeenschappen en individuele burgers. Lokale burgers zijn vertrouwd met wat er gebeurt in hun omgeving, buurt en stad en zijn het beste in staat om gedrag en acties te herkennen dat afwijkt van wat normaal is.

De WeAware+™ toepassing van de SDR Academy is bedoeld om deze macht van het volk te benutten. De toepassing biedt gewone burgers de mogelijkheid om de SDR methodes van proactieve veiligheid te leren en deze toe te passen in het dagelijks leven. WeAware+™ geeft burgers de middelen om te helpen om hun omgeving veilig te houden, niet alleen voor henzelf, maar ook voor de samenleving in het algemeen. Crowdsourcinginformatie kweekt vertrouwen in de gemeenschap en versterkt een participatiecultuur in het algemeen. Dit kan worden omschreven als “een cultuur met relatief lage belemmeringen voor artistieke expressie en maatschappelijke betrokkenheid, sterke ondersteuning voor het maken en delen van creaties van elkaar en een vorm van een informeel mentorschap waarbij de kennis van degenen met de meeste ervaring wordt doorgegeven aan beginners. Een participatiecultuur is ook waar leden geloven dat hun bijdragen er toe doen en waar er een zekere mate van sociale samenhang is” (Brabham, 16). De WeAware+™ toepassing zal tevens de relaties en het gevoel van vertrouwen tussen de lokale burgerbevolking en wetshandhavingsinstanties bevorderen, omdat de gerapporteerde data van actieve gebruikers van de toepassing ten goede komt aan de samenleving in het algemeen. Hoe meer gebruikers er zijn op het systeem, hoe sterker de gemeenschapscohesie zal worden. Politie en veiligheidsmedewerkers hebben de hulp nodig van de mensen die ze dienen, en WeAware+™ creëert de mogelijkheden en kansen waarin de twee verschillende informatiebronnen kunnen worden gecombineerd voor het algemeen belang.

SDR and WeAware+™: Breeding Awareness Rather Than Fear

SDR and WeAware+™ trainings are building awareness in local communities in order to improve civilian participation in reporting deviant activities and behaviors in their neighborhoods. It is important to reach out to the local communities and harness the power of the people as a means of aggregating information and preventing would-be crimes and nefarious activities.

The “If You See Something, Say Something™,” campaign run by the United States Department of Homeland Security aimed to raise public awareness of indicators of terrorism and terrorism-related crime, and to emphasize the importance of reporting suspicious activity to the proper state and local law enforcement authorities. 

While the intentions of that campaign and similar campaigns around the world good, and the aspiration to increase civilian awareness of their surroundings is important, the nuances of how to truly understand what they may be seeing and reporting to the authorities are often lost. Such campaigns in some respects, breed fear rather than true awareness, as the signs posted around New York City and other cities do not equip citizens with the proper tools with which to discern abnormal behaviors from typical ones. In 2012, artist Takeshi Miyakawa, hung “white plastic bags stamped with the “I ♥ NY” logo lighted from within and glowing moonlike from lampposts and trees in Brooklyn and beyond,” and citizens saw the installation, called the police, eliciting a bomb squad to respond to the innocuous installation, and leading to Miyakawa’s arrest.

Unfortunately, while the “If You See Something, Say Something™,” campaign had intended to capture more tips in order to prevent against future terrorism or terrorism-related crime, instead the campaign “reported that in 2006 and 2007 calls to the campaign’s tip line led to just eighteen arrests for offenses such as selling fake I.D.’s, owning unregistered guns, and immigration violations. None of the reported busts was terrorism-related.” Additionally, the tip line has received an overabundance of information, over reporting is rampant, and people have trouble accurately reporting what they have seen.

SDR and WeAware+™: Tools for Effective Citizen Participation

SDR training and the WeAware+™ application can give citizens and security officials the supplemental tools they need to truly understand and interpret the information they see and receive, and to translate them into effective responses. SDR and WeAware+™ crystalize how the lay person views atypical behaviors or deviant activities, and enhance the capabilities of the community to truly be an effective source of information, both for our security professionals and for each other. The “If You See Something, Say Something™” campaign and signs alone are not enough. We need to inform our communities and give them the proper tools in order to filter through the information they see and on which they report.

SDR and the WeAware+™ application allow the community to take an active role in ensuring a safer environment for all. Citizens have the capability to take initiative in their own respective communities through use of the WeAware+™ application and report the activities they recognize through their training, as being suspicious or atypical for their area. The added value of citizen participation leads to the abundance of useful information and tips, as well as increased community cohesion and a more flourishing and safer environment.

SDR EN WEAWARE+™: KWEKEN VAN BEWUSTZIJN IN PLAATS VAN ANGST

SDR en WeAware+™ trainingen bouwen aan bewustzijn in lokale gemeenschappen om burgerparticipatie te bevorderen in het melden van afwijkende activiteiten en gedrag. Het is belangrijk om lokale gemeenschappen te bereiken en gebruik te maken van de macht van de massa als middel om informatie te verzamelen en mogelijke criminaliteit en misdadige activiteiten tegen te gaan.

De “If You See Something, Say Something™” campagne van het Amerikaanse Department of Homeland Security is er op gericht om burgers bewust te maken van indicatoren die wijzen op terrorisme en aan terrorisme gerelateerde criminaliteit en om het belang van het melden van verdachte activiteiten aan de juiste autoriteiten te benadrukken. Hoewel de intenties van deze campagne en vergelijkbare campagnes in andere delen van de wereld goed zijn, en het streven om burgers bewust te maken van hun omgeving belangrijk is, gaan de nuances van het daadwerkelijk begrijpen wat ze zien en wat ze rapporteren aan de autoriteiten vaak verloren. Dit soort campagnes zorgen in sommige gevallen zelfs voor angst in plaats van bewustzijn, omdat de borden die geplaatst zijn in New York City en andere steden burgers niet met de juiste middelen uitrusten om afwijkend gedrag te onderscheiden van typisch gedrag. In 2012 hing de kunstenaar Takeshi Miyakawa “witte plastic tasjes bedrukt met het “I ♥ NY” logo en van binnenuit verlicht aan lantaarnpalen en bomen in Brooklyn en omgeving”, toen burgers deze installatie zagen werd de politie gewaarschuwd die de explosievenopruimingsdienst liet komen, waarop Miyakawa werd gearresteerd.

Hoewel de “If You See Something, Say Something™” campagne tot doel had om meer tips binnen te krijgen om zo mogelijke terroristische aanslagen of aan terrorisme gerelateerde criminaliteit te voorkomen, meldde de campagne dat “in 2006 en 2007 de meldingen aan de tiplijn tot slechts achttien arrestaties hebben geleid voor misdrijven zoals de verkoop van vervalste identiteitsbewijzen, het bezit van ongeregistreerde wapens en overtredingen van de immigratiewet. Geen van de gerapporteerde meldingen was terrorisme-gerelateerd”. Bovendien ontving de tiplijn een overvloed aan informatie, is er teveel bureaucratie en hebben mensen moeite om nauwkeurig te beschrijven wat ze hebben gezien.

SDR and WeAware+™: Middelen voor Effectieve Burgerparticipatie

SDR training en de WeAware+™ toepassing kunnen burgers en veiligheidsmedewerkers de aanvullende middelen bieden die ze nodig hebben om de informatie die ze zien en ontvangen daadwerkelijk te begrijpen en te interpreteren, en om dit te vertalen naar een effectief antwoord. SDR en WeAware+™ kristalliseren hoe de leek aankijkt tegen afwijkend gedrag of typische activiteiten en verbetert de mogelijkheden van de gemeenschap om een effectieve bron van informatie te zijn, voor zowel de veiligheidsprofessionals als voor elkaar. De “If You See Something, Say Something™” campagne en borden alleen zijn niet genoeg. We moeten gemeenschappen informeren en ze de juiste middelen geven om de informatie die ze zien en rapporteren te filteren.

SDR en de WeAware+™ toepassing stellen de gemeenschap in staat om een actieve rol aan te nemen in het veiliger maken van de omgeving. Burgers beschikken over de capaciteit om initiatief te nemen in hun lokale omgeving door het gebruik van de WeAware+™ toepassing en het rapporteren van afwijkende activiteiten die ze herkennen door training. De toegevoegde waarde van burgerparticipatie leidt tot een overvloed aan bruikbare informatie en tips en tot een toename van de gemeenschapszin en een veiliger omgeving.

Without Fear of Bias

“Ivan’s Story” is representative of many citizens feeling criminalized by their local communities and especially local law enforcement officials, simply based on ethnicity.

The Boston Police Department (BPD) has used racially biased policing, as shown by data from reports of 200,000+ encounters between BPD officers and civilians from 2007–2010. According to researchers, the data show that police targeted Blacks in 63.3% of encounters—while Blacks make up less than a quarter of Boston’s population.

 

This racial disparity cannot be explained away by BPD efforts to target crime. The researchers’ preliminary statistical analysis found that the racial composition of Boston neighborhoods drove police-civilian encounters even after controlling for crime rates and other factors. They also found that Blacks were more likely than whites to be subjected to repeat police-civilian encounters and to be frisked or searched, even after controlling for civilians’ alleged gang involvement and history of prior arrest. The bottom line is that race was a significant factor driving the BPD’s stop-and-frisk practices.

Other methods of stopping suspects have proven problematic in the past. The training that SDR Academy offers, is a viable alternative which will negate the pitfalls of ethnic profiling.

SDR is a proactive security method and philosophy with a focus on effective prevention rather than reaction. SDR negates ethnic profiling and allows users to detect abnormal behavior before it becomes harmful action. 

Every citizen deserves the right to be able to approach their local law enforcement officer for help, without fear of bias. SDR can help restore the faith in the security system.