A new police code of conduct focusses on empathy and diversity in the police force.
The new code put emphasis on values such as professionalism, respect, integrity, commitment to Maori, empathy, and diversity.
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Empathy and Justice
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International News about Empathy applied to Conflict, Justice, Restorative Justice, Mediation and the Law. (more at CultureOfEmpathy.com)”
Curated by
Edwin Rutsch
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I am a former cop, but I am also an advocate for progressive criminal justice reform. This puts me in a unique position with the recent high profile cases in Ferguson and New York. Many social activists have used these cases as poster-children for racial inequality, police brutality, and all that is wrong with our justice system..... Where is the constructive dialogue? Where is the path to progress? At this point, the details of each case do not matter. What matters is how do we move on from here?... What if we stopped yelling and screaming at each other, and decided to proactively learn from each other? What if we seek out opportunities for dialogue between police officers and the citizens that they serve, outside of these confrontational moments? What if officers could explain what an encounter feels like for them, how use of force works, how they perceive threats to their safety (e.g. a person who won’t take his hands out of his pockets)? By Burke Brownfeld, 
Larry Rattner's curator insight,
December 22, 2014 7:44 AM
The killing of the two officers in New York is a terrible tragedy. Police reform will save lives. it will also make for a better relationship between law enforcement and the public. This will make it less dangerous for law enforcement. Here is an article from Burke Brownfeld of Alexandria, Virginia. He is a former police office who writes about need for empathy to make relations better.
#deadlyforcereform
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How Empathy Matters
But those who have trouble perceiving how others feel, and have difficulty sharing those feelings, are more likely to engage in wrongful acts – everything from minor juvenile delinquency to the most serious of violent crimes.
People capable of empathy tend to support tough punishments for crime, but at the same time they are less likely to call for the harshest punishments, such as the death penalty.
Research on citizen interactions with the police has consistently indicated that the way officers behave determines how they are evaluated by people with whom they interact. When we probe in detail, it turns out community members have more positive evaluations of the police when officers communicate that they understand the issues that matter to community members. Studies specifically show that the police are more likely to be trusted and considered effective at their jobs when they display empathy with the community’s concerns.
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by: NICOLE NORFLEET and KELLY SMITH It was a rather routine call to Eden Prairie police: a domestic dispute at a house with a mentally ill, intoxicated man Instead of confronting the man, an officer who had just completed training on defusing tense encounters calmly asked him questions and listened to his concerns. It helped. The man cooperated, and no one was hurt. “He was really amped up,” said Sgt. Dave Becker, who supervises the crisis intervention team. “You could see him start to calm down; they made a connection.” As scrutiny of police intensifies in the aftermath of high-profile officer-involved shootings, there’s a renewed push for more officers to undergo de-escalation training — which emphasizes empathy over force.
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To help them handle the growing proportion of police work that involves mental health crises, some Massachusetts officers take advanced training that teaches them to better understand -- and empathize with -- people with mental illness. “It’s a very lofty goal, but you’re trying to teach officers empathy for people with mental illness, and that’s why I think that ‘Hearing Voices’ training was very important,” he said. “Officers need to have empathy today —
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Emile Bruneau at the Brain and Cognitive Sciences Department at M.I.T. Can mapping neural pathways help us make friends with our enemies?
In recent years, neuroscientists have begun to map empathy’s pathways in the brain... How much of our empathy is innate and how much is instilled in us by our environment?... But the picture remains incomplete. We still need to map a host of other empathy-related tasks — like judging the reasonableness of people’s arguments and sympathizing with their mental and emotional states — to specific brain regions. .. So far, Bruneau says, the link between f.M.R.I. data and behavior has been tenuous. Many f.M.R.I. studies on empathy involve scanning subjects’ brains while they look at images of hands slammed in doors or of faces poked with needles. Scientists have shown that the same brain regions light up when you watch such things happen to someone else as when you experience them or imagine them happening to you. “To me, that’s not empathy,” Bruneau says. “It’s what you do with that information that determines whether it’s empathy or not.” A psychopath might demonstrate the same neural flashes in response to the same painful images but experience glee instead of distress. By JENEEN INTERLANDI
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Posick’s research focuses on the role of emotions in behavior with a particular emphasis on delinquency and criminal justice. This research was spurred by his involvement with organizations working with offenders and victims.
Article: The Role of Empathy in Crime, Policing, and Justice Empathy refers to a person’s ability to understand the emotions of others and share in their feelings. Researchers in many fields have shown that empathy – or its absence – matters greatly in many aspects of social life. For example, empathetic people are more likely to have strong ties to family members and others with whom they regularly work or interact. And individuals capable of empathy have higher self-esteem and enjoy life more fully. The flip side is also true: people who have trouble empathizing with others tend to suffer from poorer mental health and have less fulfilling social relationships.
======================== How Empathy Matters... Empathetic people are less likely to engage in delinquency or crime..... Empathy affects how people think about crime and punishment in complex ways.... ============== Empathy and perceptions of empathy help to shape the interactions of police and members of the communities they are assigned to protect.....
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New York public-school students caught stealing, doing drugs or even attacking someone can avoid suspension under new “progressive” discipline rules adopted this month. Most likely, they will be sent to a talking circle instead, where they can discuss their feelings. Convinced traditional discipline is racist because blacks are suspended at higher rates than whites, New York City’s Department of Education has in all but the most serious and dangerous offenses replaced out-of-school suspensions with a touchy-feely alternative punishment called “restorative justice,” which isn’t really punishment at all. It’s therapy. By Paul Sperry
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European Picture of Empathy and Restorative Justice by Tim Chapman
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Empathy is poised to become the buzzword of the 21st century– the defining trait of our social and political evolution. Empathy will be to this century what “rights” was to the 20th century and “equality” was to the 19th century.
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Simon Baron-Cohen, a professor of developmental psychopathology at the University of Cambridge, recently wrote a book entitled “Zero degrees of empathy: a new theory of human cruelty”. While I have only had the opportunity to read reviews of this book, the comments have prompted me to think of the role of empathy in restorative justice processes.
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If there were only one skill that we could develop more fully in order to reduce conflict, it would be the ability to empathize. When we empathize with another, we use verbal and non-verbal cues to learn and understand what another person is experiencing. We have a chance to “walk in their shoes.”
Responding with empathy and caring ‘soothes the savage beasts’ in everyone, diffusing the fear, isolation, and defensiveness that can lead to conflict. Linda Waters, WMAC, is a certified mediator and facilitator in Ellensburg. She may be reached through her website, www.disputeoptions.com. What Is Mediation?
Nigerian Institute of Chartered Arbitrators's curator insight,
January 6, 2017 5:42 AM
Using empathy to reduce conflict
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The report, launched by Le Chéile’s Restorative Justice Project in Limerick this week, identified that following the programme young people displayed a significant increase in their levels of empathy towards victims after engaging with the project, as well as reporting better family relationships and less contact with the Gardaí and court system. Parents also reported positive outcomes for family life and improved relationships. =========================== The project works with young people through the Probation Service, using a range of restorative justice models including face-to-face meetings, and victim empathy programmes. ========== by Anne Sheridan
Barbara Kerr's curator insight,
February 2, 2015 12:01 PM
Empathy turns out to be key for victims recovering from crimes committed against them. |
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This exercise is part of a one-week class, the latest effort by the LAPD to train cops how to de-escalate encounters with people who may be aggressive or mentally ill. The message here: Slow down and try to empathize with the person... The training is hardly the same as policing taught in the academy, where officers endure grueling physical training to be able to take down bad guys. The focus in the academy is on the "use of force continuum." But in this empathy training, officers are coached to back away from the person, use your first name, employ humor, paraphrase what the person is saying.
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Panel 23 - The Role of Empathy in Crime, Policing and Justice ======================== both empathy for and by the police, is gaining attention from criminal justice researchers and practitioners. ==============
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In Seattle, distance, anger, and pain remain from decades of command and control policing. The success of the Williams Restorative Circle fuels the promise that we can address that painful history, find mutual understanding, ensure accountability, and find a sense of well being and trust in agreed-upon actions moving forward.... On behalf of the family, I proposed that we approach the conflict a different way and hold a Restorative Circle consistent with a restorative justice practice developed in Brazil by Dominic Barter. I had begun learning and practicing this powerful process, and it was the best method for engaging community conflict that I knew. I offered to facilitate. Police Chief John Diaz immediately agreed to the family’s request. Faced with community outrage over a problematic shooting that would require a lengthy investigation process, Chief Diaz embraced the invitation and a cutting-edge approach that would provide him and the Seattle Police Department an immediate opportunity to address the pain and issues involving the family and the larger community.
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A forum at American University focused on easing tensions, building trust and transparency. At a town hall meeting Wednesday evening, D.C. Police Chief Cathy L. Lanier urged police departments across the nation to stop measuring success by crime statistics alone and to incorporate empathy in policing as a way to foster greater trust. “We have to stop measuring these things by numbers,” Lanier said at the American University forum, which focused on finding ways to ease tensions following the fatal shooting in August of 18-year-old Michael Brown by a police officer in Ferguson, Mo., and other recent police-involved violent incidents across the country.
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As the state police academy adopts new ways to train recruits in how to deal with the public, The Seattle Times followed one class to see if the changes are taking hold.
Class 689, which graduated May 30, still learned the basics of police work, such as handcuffing, writing reports and handling firearms. But the instruction also included an increased emphasis on expressing empathy, following constitutional requirements and treating citizens with respect and dignity. ======================== the instruction also included an increased emphasis on expressing empathy ============== On one much-anticipated day, class members absorbed blasts of pepper spray in the face to personally experience its painful effects.
By Steve Miletich
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It's a common problem for police to come upon the scene of a shooting and have difficulty establishing rapport and trust with the people they are trying to serve.
Police Chief Sam Dotson spoke to commanders about the importance of absorbing the lessons of sensitivity training and encouraging officers to show more empathy. the importance of absorbing the lessons of sensitivity training and encouraging officers to show more empathy. Kevin Killeen
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Carl Rogers, in the 1950s, defined some core conditions necessary for restorative justice to work. Rogers’ thesis was “in order to develop a healthy self-concept, we need to experience three core conditions in our relationship with those around us.” Richard Hendry, in his book “Building and Restoring Respectful Relationships in Schools,” identifies the three core conditions as empathy, unconditional positive regard and congruence. Rogers asks the questions “Why do these core conditions matter? How can children learn to understand how someone else feels – to be empathic – if they do not experience empathy from others? How can children learn to value themselves and others as unique individuals if we cannot value them for who they truly are? How can we ask children to be honest and open with us if we are not offering them an honest reflection of who we are, what we think and how we feel?”
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The presentation given by Prof. Theo Gavrielides, during the first workshop of the Restorative Justice Extending Empathy project, held at Canterbury Christ Church University, Canterbury, UK on January 12th. The speech addresses and reflects on global perceptions of empathy as well as its links to rehabilitation and restorative justice.
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Empathy and Restorative Justice:
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Program http://www.rj4all.info/content/restorative-justice-empathy-rehabilitation-globaly The overarching theme is to explore what is state of the art in Restorative Justice (RJ), today and what are future ambitions for engagement with other disciplines.
Restorative Justice-Empathy-Rehabilitation: Globaly
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There’s been a lot of talk in recent years about getting tough on crime. You could say it’s working—in 2007 we had ten million Americans in prison or on probation. But is that really what we’re after? Attorney Sunny Schwartz says, “That ‘tough on crime’ stuff is such a fallacy, and it’s been hijacked. It’s a sham. When you have prisoners doing nothing all day on the backs of our hardworking taxpaying money, with a seventy percent failure rate, you know something is really wrong. We’ve been doing the same thing for 150 years. It’s about time we start getting tough on crime in an effective, smart, and successful way.” She’s developed a highly effective and smart alternative, one that asks prisoners to be accountable to their victims, and puts them in a rigorous program of education and rehabilitation. The results are nothing short of astounding. You’ll be fascinated as this tough-yet-tender, Chicago-born lawyer shares a no-nonsense approach to incarceration, that promises to make us all a little saner and a whole lot safer.(hosted by Justine Willis Toms)
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