Davis, CA Mayor (and ACN member), Robb Davis writes about attending a recent trauma-informed law enforcement forum.
I participated in a fascinating forum about “trauma-informed law enforcement” and before it began I wondered whose trauma we would be discussing: victims of crime, police, or other community members? It turns out the conversation was about all three, and I left wondering if trauma-based analysis might, perhaps, point to a way out of the mutual fear, and the attendant hostility that seems to be a growing feature of our police/community encounters.
Listening to officers and then community members, it seems that it is not popular to acknowledge the needs of the “other” side. Officers want compliance from community members so they can go after the bad people; community members want to reign in police forces that are out of control.
I know—this is an over simplistic dichotomy, but this is how I experience the discourse on policing today. And maybe the dichotomy is not too simplistic if one considers the sources and content of the quotes above.
So, let’s talk about trauma. *
[For more on this story by Robb Davis, go to http://www.davisvanguard.org/2...ur-police-ourselves/]
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