Police Reform with Dr. Judi Komaki

A positive reinforcement approach that’s uniquely suited to reducing police brutality and bolstering de-escalation. New Jersey’s Camden County Police Department, for example, goes beyond training to routinely measure and treasure its officers. Watching camera footage with officers, Chief Gabriel Rodriguez celebrates how calmly officers make arrests, prioritizing the sanctity of life. In my 2023 Organizational Dynamics article (https://authors.elsevier.com/sd/article/S0090-2616(23)00020-7), I describe how Camden’s Chief watches footage with his officers, urging them to “do better.”  

Several months after the article appeared, a police executive from a major American city contacted me about using incentives to change the police culture.  I’ll share the progress Jared Daniel, a Temple University student, and I are making in measuring de-escalation and the reaction of the police executive.  Using such a metric allows us to treasure officers on up to supervisors, precinct commanders, the chief, and the mayor. 

Meeting Link