Small towns are places where people know each other and most of the time beneficial. There maybe a few times when these association carry specific risks to the public. Sometimes people misuse those close associations to manipulate their environment (Yes it does happen here and there; hopefully rarely.). At present we have a crisis of confidence in the justice system (Its very sad we do but some of it was earned and some of it wasn't. 😞. We need more checks & balances and/but there are times when public anger is misplaced.) and we want to ensure the general public feels there are safeguards against these potential conflicts.
(There is an NPR Poll that shows the differences in trust based on community. No matter what our political persuasion and beliefs we should sort of keep in mind that it is possible that people see different things in the same events. See NPR Policing Demographic Poll if you ask me...I believe policing is necessary and the far majority of officers want to do the right thing and act with integrity. However, there are some officers who don't and in a free country like the U.S. our government has the responsibility to raise the trust level as much as possible for both practical outcomes and to reduce societal discontent. Our institutions may make mistakes but as long as they continuously try and do the right thing and evolve to better serve all their stakeholders, we will restore that trust over time. Keeping in mind the difference between optics and fact.)
Restoring trust in the Justice System means we consistently act with integrity to build neural expectations through multiple positive exposures (Meaning people have positive interactions with police and respect their choices in a way that leads to positive neural encoding of feelings and images.) When there are potentials for conflicts of interest to arise we must disclose them least we turn what would be positive into a negative neural event (Damaging trust and legitimacy as an enforcement mechanism.) That doesn't mean such disclosures need to be released to the public but we might want such disclosures to have independent oversite (Increasing multi-department transparency. Still not sure how that would work. 🤔).
The reason we might have a disclosure is to ensure that our social connections don't become part of the problem in building/rebuilding that trust (We have to think of where we are going in this country and why trust in our institutions is important.). In a prior example, we had a group of individuals (speaking in general this time) who utilized their close law enforcement connections to allegedly intimidate others that could have under the wrong scenario caused irreversible harm to the target(s) and the departments reputation ( Immature behaviors compounded problems that could have led to serious injury and/or death. Did/do they care about the risks to others and children? Doesn't seem that...the problem with not encouraging people to get mental health help when they need it...which in this case would be the originators of the problem. Remember....trust is through repeatedly doing the right thing. Here is some marketing research on Brand Loyalty Through Trust. Its interesting that there are interconnections between different fields.).
The problem was that the officer may have knowingly become an extension of their social group's destructive projections. If we know there is a potential for such a conflict to occur that would cause general doubt (by reasonable analysis by a reasonable person) that could be alleviated by disclosure (Significant conflicts should be reported. Intentionally not reporting could cast doubt on integrity. There may be times when high levels of non report incidents may indicate bigger underlining problems of a department. In other words, the inability of a department to monitor itself and maintain objectivity.). In other words, we want to remove any important conflicts right away so that potential/perceptual corruption doesn't occur
{Sometimes there real and sometimes they are not. This is why you use an outside agency that the community and police both trust as a method of fair assessment. That is why our agencies should be neutral and universal in their values. i.e. Plato's universal justice. Particularly I like this quote from the article, "Plato saw in justice the only remedy of saving Athens from decay and ruin, for nothing agitated him in contemporary affairs more than amateurishness, needlesomeness and political selfishness which was rampant in Athens of his day...."}
{Sometimes we have failure in "seeing" trends. I say "seeing" because there are facts and then there are the construction of facts. Minorities will construct one way and enforcement officials may construct another way. I'm kind of neutral with construction because I have seen officers do great things and seen officers do corrupt things. Likewise, I have stayed and lived with minorities/majorities for a long time and have a sense of how they interpret information through their symbolism, language, and values.}
{Thus, I seek to stay focused on possible different explanations and allow the data/details to sort of go where they fit and see which theoretical "pot" makes the best connection between all that information as a plausible and parsimonious explanation. What many officials don't understand is that majority and minority at their essential root beliefs want the same thing but there are individuals who hype up these differences for personal/social gain. If we didn't listen great...but most of us do listen because we are tied to our "herds/clans"}.
That disclosure would indicate the officer is acting with integrity and letting the (whomever the reporting agency is) know of the potential for a problem of subjectivity to arise. That may also mean department liaisons (i.e. internal investigations) "bump up" any issues in which they are involved that relate to that specific conflict of interest. Integrity starts with the officer first but is often enhanced by the policies and values of the department (When they go array, we should change them!)
On the flip side, those who do not disclose those behaviors, even though it is obviously a conflict of interest, would be liable for not disclosing should it later become an important issue. I don't think we yet have a system like this but certainly it is something Congress should think about when pondering common sense police reforms (Common sense is kind of a misnomer. We know people don't often reason the same. In an AI world, its possible to use language to understand higher order thinking. Commonsense in Natural Language). Finding a way to orient officers and community stakeholders around shared sense of duty and values is based in our language usage. See Duty or Values and Military Honor Codes.)
That disclosure may need to be administered within an outside entity such as Homeland Security, State Police, district attorney, and/or FBI (Perhaps we can get them to monitor each other creating collective transparency. Who monitors the monitor of the monitor kind of thing?🤷.) We would sort of have to figure out a single entity, multiple reporting lines, etc...to ensure the information is present but the concept is valid. It can all be done in the background with no impact on the public and/or investigations (..but it does help put in place an additional layer of protection for the public. Its not a finished idea....but it might be worth further exploration. All changes start with first an "idea".)
Why would we want to do this? In small towns things get messy when personal affairs and policing all get jumbled up. It happens in most work settings. However, when it happens in policing it could impact people's lives....its much more important to be open (People naturally trust those who are open. Here is some old research on Internet and Government Transparency and Trust. I should probably spend some time finding something newer. Its more or less for illustration purposes.). Where there is the potential for conflict of interest there must also be the potential to disclose that for integrity reasons. No one wants these associations influencing how officers think, act, investigate, use logic, "construct" reality etc...in any given situation (Least friendship and social networks become a primary catalyst.).
We want to build transparency wherever we can create it while still providing law enforcement officials the flexibility to catch bad guys/gals and/or help people/victims (...that is the other side of policing that should be enhanced because I suspect it is highly correlated with trust.). Where there are potential conflicts of interest we want to pass the baton to an agency that has more independence and can come to valid conclusions based on a "birds eye" view of the issue. Restoring trust in Law Enforcement does rely in part on ensuring there is healthy separation between those who violate the law and those who enforce it (Its very novel but it works! Ok...its not novel. 😒).
Sometimes I think about how we can integrate multiple communities into an American brand through mutual societal trust. We really only have our institutions and our values that hold our nation together during difficult times (..as seen during the capital riots, civil war, and other social upheavals where institutional trust declined. That is often a marker of a trend toward future problems that might more effectively handled today. Think about opinion formation from a macro perspective and how those beliefs impact small choices and reinforced behaviors leading to societal change.). Our leaders and officials should maintain our essential American principles by finding win-win strategies among the widest scope of societal stakeholders (There is an actual ethics argument here.). Disclosing could be just one idea to ponder.....
The U.S. works with the OECD to highlight public service and conflicts of interest (They happen a lot and that in turn reduces total trust.). I'm not sure how that works on a practical manner yet. See OECD Public Service Conflicts.
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