THREE WAYS GEN Z OFFICERS WILL ADVANCE POLICING

They will change policing culture for the better if we don't fail them

THINGS HAVE CHANGED

Growing older has some perks. When I turned 29 years ago, I recognized that life was better than when I turned 21. I had a nice apartment, a great job, a little money for vacations, but most of all, my friends were less prone to getting into trouble. I had new friends who were accomplished professionals and almost never needed a designated driver. I saw a hat that said, ‘It’s weird being the same age as old people.’ Besides missing the ease of tying shoes, I’m enjoying the journey.

When I was in my mid-twenties in Patrol Services Division, my supervisor would hand off the intern, cadet, or police explorer to me. They know they would come back safely, and I would usually treat them to Pizza Hut or such for meal break then come in early the following day to write my reports, so they never saw boring parts of police work.

Following the movie, Silence of the Lambs, many of the college interns riders who were on a Criminal Justice major trajectory said they wanted to be profilers. And why wouldn’t they? TV shows in that vein were really popular. A decade later, the CSI model emerged, and based on the fictional hierarchy, interns now aspired to careers wearing shoe booties in crime scenes, thinking that the collectors of evidence are the ones who connect all the dots and solve the crime.

One of my college intern ride-alongs is now a police chief, two of my explorers are commanders, several are sergeants and now a couple are retired police officers following 20 years of service.

GENERATION Z HAS A LOT TO OFFER

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Several recent opportunities to speak to potential new officers have given me some valuable insight on what their priorities are. While I could point to volumes of articles on what’s wrong with the current generation, it is more useful to recognize their numerous values.

My first question to them is what is your plan B? At the invincible ages of 22 through 24 it is the most vital question to ask. Recruiters don’t share the reality that every academy recruit and new officer is a twisted joint away from not being able to be an officer anymore. I’ve seen friends unable to deal with it ending in tragic results. I let them know that their plan B must be as fulfilling as their potential law enforcement career. However, you might have noticed, this new generation has a broad range of interests. I’ve seen several leave at a high point to follow very different new dreams.

THEY WILL BRING THEIR FAMILIES ON BOARD

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My second question is as important as the first: do you have your family’s support? Today, more than ever, that’s important because they will have a greater than 50% chance of living with their family. However, police life is a life of values and order. Instead of the parent, as in the past, being the peace officer in the family, for a time it will be the son or daughter, the brother or sister, demonstrating the commitment and discipline, and hopefully the best traditions of law enforcement. There are few opportunities to humanize the badge more broadly than a family experiencing the highs and lows with their police family member.

NEXT GEN OFFICERS WILL DEMAND NEXT GEN TECHNOLOGY

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Not every Gen Z is a coder, but they are all technology consumers and have been all their life. When you point them at a clunky records management system or computer aided dispatch system, they ask questions that are quite reasonable. Why can they order a set of car tires, pay for them, set the appointment to get them installed and claim a rebate on their phone in the time it takes to get to a duplicate subfile for a subject on a violent felony call? Their expectations seem demanding to older generations, but they are correct! Leadership needs to listen and demand more and better from vendors, and everyone will get a streamlined project as a result.

GEN Z OFFICERS REQUIRE ADVANCED TRAINING FOR SPECIAL QUALIFICATIONS

Our new generation of officers will pursue advanced training and will choose agencies based on their ability to fulfil those obligations.  This is a full-on win-win as more agencies will need to build their own regional training centers to serve a medium size agency and smaller surrounding agencies. Elected officials fund capital projects that keep officers in and near their jurisdictions. This will also force agencies to reconsider, and hopefully scrap, their current failed recruiting strategies. You can’t put officers in training unless you have minimum manning responding to calls. Law enforcement is wasting enormous resources recruiting to staffing benchmarks (which is future article) that limit how many officers we get to put on the road.

LET’S NOT FAIL THEM

Generation Z stands ready to grab the torch and run with it! Leadership in law enforcement needs to recognize the chief barrier to success is getting sworn ranks full. Until there is a reconsideration on the current failing strategy (truth be told it was a failing strategy when there was a surplus of candidates) on the approach to recruiting. To quote Travis Yates, “Marketing is not recruiting.” There are several communities that will have incredible difficulty in hiring new officers including Seattle and Portland but towns, cities and counties that have less challenges in acquiring staff must come to the realization that Generation Z is not going to fail you unless you fail them.