COPS Office Partners with Organizations to Advance Community Policing

Police watching the crowd during New York City’s Pride Parade in 2017. Credit: iStock

By Paige Townley

With the creation of three new partnerships – with film production company Big Mouth Productions and two nonprofit training organizations, Center for Council and Out to Protect Incorporated – the Department of Justice’s Office of Community Oriented Policing Services (COPS Office) is advancing its service to the nation’s law enforcement agencies. The goal, according to a COPS Office news release, is for these three partnerships to assist law enforcement agencies in a few strategic and specific ways.

Big Mouth Productions

Based in New York City and founded in 1997, Big Mouth Productions is an award-winning independent documentary film production company. The company is known for thought-provoking documentaries; it was the company that produced the 2018 documentary Charm City, a candid film illustrating a diverse group – police, citizens, government officials, and others – in Baltimore.

The documentary was picked up by the Baltimore Police Department to utilize as a training tool to help its law enforcement officers learn more about how to best work with the community. The COPS Office and Big Mouth Productions partnership will lead to the creation of more films, with two goals in mind: to help law enforcement best serve local communities by better understanding citizens, and to help build trust within the community.

Center for Council

A project of Community Partners, Center for Council works to help individuals engage and build community. It does so through a variety of award-winning programs that focus on critical qualities such as self-awareness, managing stress, positive communication, and community relations. In addition to offering its services to a variety of other groups, law enforcement is included in its POWER (Peace Officer Wellness, Empathy, and Resilience) Training Program.

This program focuses heavily on stress management and self-care techniques that can specifically assist law enforcement officers, including building skills to communicate with more compassion and effectively de-escalating conflict. Throughout the program, officers learn skills to integrate these practices into their day-to-day work practices, become more self-aware, and build better relationships, not only within their community but also with their own agencies, according to the COPS Office release. Center for Council will work with the COPS Office to bring these offerings to law enforcement, as well as increase awareness of the importance of wellness and community building.

Out to Protect Incorporated

Out to Protect Incorporated seeks to raise awareness and create support for lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, and queer professionals working in law enforcement, as well as those hoping to pursue a career in law enforcement. The organization does so by offering a variety of resources and maintaining a national network of LGBTQ+ Liaison Officers, as well as offering a no-cost, online LGBTQ+ and hate crimes training program for officers.

Out to Protect Incorporated also provides scholarship funds to LGBTQ+ law enforcement recruits and those who are straight allies. Through the partnership, the nonprofit and the COPS Office will seek to support and bolster the LGBTQ+ Liaison Units in both state and local law enforcement agencies and raise awareness among the law enforcement community about the importance of the Liaison Units.

“These new partnerships represent another strong example of the work of the COPS Office to help provide much-needed resources to law enforcement in a variety of critical areas,” said COPS Office Acting Director Robert Chapman in the news release. “From using innovative tools to train officers in the dominant issues currently facing law enforcement, to emphasizing the importance of compassion in officer health and wellness, to supporting the establishment and enhancement of LGBTQ Liaison Units in state and local law enforcement, these unique partnerships demonstrate what can happen when the principles of community policing are utilized in training and technical assistance.”

Since it first started in 1994, the COPS Office has been a cornerstone of the country’s crime fighting strategy, whether it be through grants, resource products, training, or technical assistance.