You have been assigned by the chief of police to create and implement a strategic communication plan to respond to the community following a high-profile use of f

Strategic Communication Practices: A Toolkit for Police Executives Darrel W. Stephens Julia Hill Sheldon Greenberg

Strategic Communication Practices: A Toolkit for Police Executives

Darrel W. Stephens Julia Hill Sheldon Greenberg

Contents

This project was supported by a Cooperative Agreement 2008-CK-WX-K008 awarded by the Office of Community Oriented Policing Services, U.S. Department of Justice. The opinions contained herein are those of the author(s) and do not necessarily represent the official position or policies of the U.S. Department of Justice. References to specific agencies, companies, products, or services should not be considered an endorsement by the author(s) or the U.S. Department of Justice. Rather, the references are illustrations to supplement discussion of the issues.

The Internet references cited in this publication were valid as of the original date of this publication. Given that URLs and websites are in constant flux, neither the author(s) nor the COPS Office can vouch for their current validity.

ISBN: 978-1-935676-41-6 September 2011

Contents

Contents

About the COPS Office . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4

Letter from the Director . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5

CHAPTER I—The Police Communication Imperative . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7 Communications Issues . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8

Crime . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8 Police Effectiveness . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 9 Public Image and Perceptions of the Police . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 10 Policing Approach . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 10 Police Misconduct . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 11 Budget—Staffing . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 11 Terrorism . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 13 Immigration . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 13 Influencing Behavior . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 14 Transparency . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 15

Essential Audiences . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 15 Elected Officials . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 17 Community Leaders . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 17 Neighborhood Leaders . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 17 Public Interest Groups . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 17 Non-English Speaking Communities . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 18 Faith Communities . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 18 Employees . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 18

Communication Strategies . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 19

CHAPTER II—Where and How People Get Information . . . . . . . . . . . . . 21 The Media Landscape . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 22

The Evolution of the Media in the Digital Age . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 22 How People Access, Use, and Disseminate Information . . . . . . . 24 Declines in Trust and Credibility . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 28 Viewership, Readership, and Listenership . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 29 Print Media . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 29 Television . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 32 Radio . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 34 The Online Migration . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 35 Where Do We Go from Here? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 38

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Contents

strategic Communication Practices: A Toolkit for Police Executives

CHAPTER III—Developing Strategic Communication Plans . . . . . . . . . . . 39 A Strategic Approach . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 39

STEP 1: Research and Situation Analysis . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 40 STEP 2: Determining Goals and Objectives . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 43 STEP 3: Target Publics . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 45 STEP 4: Communication Strategies . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 47 STEP 5: Messages . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 48 STEP 6: Tactics and Implementation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 51 STEP 7: Evaluation and Measurement . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 54

CHAPTER IV—The Chief/Sheriff (CEO) Role in Effective Communications . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 57 The Communications Plan . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 57 Modeling the Behavior . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 59 The CEO as Communicator . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 59

Crime . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 60 Arrests . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 60 Use of Force . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 60 Death of an Officer/Serious Injury . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 60 Misconduct . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 61 Policy . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 61

The CEO and the Communications Staff . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 62 Resourcing Public Affairs . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 63

CHAPTER V—Communication Tools . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 65 Traditional Tools . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 65

The News Media . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 65 Written Release . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 65 News Conference . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 66 Op-Ed Pieces . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 67 Newspaper Columns . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 67 Radio/Television Talk Shows . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 67 Responding to Requests for Information . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 68 Community Presentations, Speeches, and Meetings . . . . . . . . . 68 Reports . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 69 Newsletters . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 71

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strategic Communication Practices: A Toolkit for Police Executives

Contents

Brochures . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 72 Frequently Asked Questions (FAQs) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 72 Cable Television . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 73

The New Tools . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 74 Departmental Web Page . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 75 Blogging . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 77 Social Media . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 78 E-Mail . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 82 Wikipedia . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 84 Community Notification Programs . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 85

CHAPTER VI—Crisis Communications: Planning and Execution . . . . . . . 87 Crisis as Opportunity . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 88

When Crisis Strikes: Strike First . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 91 The Role of the Chief . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 93

Messaging . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 96 Preparing Spokespeople . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 98 Target Publics . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 99

Houston, We Have a Problem: Manage Issues to Prevent Crises . . 100 Situational Analysis . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 102

Drafting a Workable Crisis Communication Plan . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 103

CHAPTER VII—Conclusion: Going Forward . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 107

References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 111

Appendixes . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 117 Appendix A: Executive Briefing Participants—Milwaukee

and Ft . Worth . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 117 Appendix B: Developing the Core Message . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 119

About the Authors . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 121

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Letter from the Director

strategic Communication Practices: A Toolkit for Police Executives

About the CoPs office

The Office Of Community Oriented Policing Services (the COPS Office) is the component of the U.S. Department of Justice responsible for advancing the practice of community policing by the nation’s state, local, and tribal law enforcement agencies through information and grant resources. The community policing philosophy promotes organizational strategies that support the systematic use of partnerships and problem-solving techniques to proactively address the immediate conditions that give rise to public safety issues such as crime, social disorder, and fear of crime. In its simplest form, community policing is about building relationships and solving problems.

The COPS Office awards grants to state, local, and tribal law enforcement agencies to hire and train community policing professionals, acquire and deploy cutting-edge crime-fighting technologies, and develop and test innovative policing strategies. The COPS Office funding also provides training and technical assistance to community members and local government leaders and all levels of law enforcement.

Since 1994, the COPS Office has invested more than $16 billion to add community policing officers to the nation’s streets, enhance crime fighting technology, support crime prevention initiatives, and provide training and technical assistance to help advance community policing. More than 500,000 law enforcement personnel, community members, and government leaders have been trained through COPS Office-funded training organizations.

The COPS Office has produced more than 1,000 information products—and distributed more than 2 million publications—including Problem Oriented Policing Guides, Grant Owner’s Manuals, fact sheets, best practices, and curricula. And in 2010, the COPS Office participated in 45 law enforcement and public-safety conferences in 25 states in order to maximize the exposure and distribution of these knowledge products. More than 500 of those products, along with other products covering a wide area of community policing topics—from school and campus safety to gang violence—are currently available, at no cost, through its online Resource Information Center at www.cops.usdoj.gov. More than 2 million copies have been downloaded in FY2010 alone. The easy to navigate and up to date website is also the grant application portal, providing access to online application forms.

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strategic Communication Practices: A Toolkit for Police Executives

Letter from the Director

Dear Colleagues,

At the heart of community policing and problem solving is the requirement that the police are transparent in all their dealings with the public. Transparency requires effective and timely communications—a task that is often easier said than done. Police organizations have always faced challenges communicating with both their internal and external audiences. In their 24/7 world, events happen at a rapid pace and there is a long list of people who believe they should be among the first to know what has occurred.

This world has become even more complicated with the dramatic changes in where, when, and how people access information. The traditional news media are no longer the primary sources of news and information, and yet police departments continue to invest most of their public information resources into media relations activities. With the evolution of social media and the intense, category-killing power of Internet news, it is enormously difficult to keep up with what is being said or shown as police situations unfold, let alone effectively use these vehicles to communicate with important internal and external audiences. To help law enforcement improve the effectiveness of their efforts to inform and engage the public and their employees, the COPS Office has invested in a partnership with the Major Cities Chiefs Association—benefiting departments who have the need for information and tools on communications planning and strategies.

Strategic Communication Practices: A Toolkit for Police Executives builds on the earlier COPS Office publication Key Leadership Strategies to Enhance Communication. Developed with invaluable input from chiefs, sheriffs, police executives, and communications personnel from departments across the United States and Canada, this Toolkit is intended to assist law enforcement executives and communications directors in navigating the shark-infested communication waters. It is designed to help police executives and communications personnel understand how the news media have changed over the past 20 years. It provides guidance on how to develop a strategic communications plan, focuses on the role of the chief and sheriff, discusses the various tools that are available, and explores the unique communication needs that crop up during times of crisis. Finally, the Toolkit outlines the process for developing a strategic communication plan to guide this critically important work.

I urge you to take a close look at your communications program and give serious consideration to creating or improving your own plan. Special thanks to all of the people (see the Appendix) who read and provided feedback on early drafts of this Toolkit and who contributed examples from their own agencies that highlight just some of the great creative and effective work being done in the law enforcement community.

I am pleased to be in a position to offer this Toolkit to you as a helpful resource in your continuing work to keep America safe.

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Sincerely,

Bernard K. Melekian, Director Office of Community Oriented Policing Services

Chapter I: The Police Communication Imperative

Chapter I: The Police Communication Imperative

“The single biggest problem in communication is the illusion that it has taken place.”

—George Bernard Shaw

CHAPteR I—The Police Communication Imperative

The avenues for communication have grown exponentially in recent years. More than 77 percent of American households use a high-speed Internet connection (IWS 2011). About 96 percent of Americans subscribe to some form of cellular telephone service (CTIA 2011) and television viewers continue to move to cable and satellite outlets. While the avenues for communication have multiplied and usage steadily increases, it has become more difficult to effectively communicate with a community segmented across the many platforms they have to obtain news and information. It is not easy for anyone to effectively connect with large segments of the public in an effort to enhance their knowledge of a subject or influence their behavior. It is especially challenging for the police because of the complexity of the issues and the diversity of their audience. It has never been more important for the police to effectively communicate with the public. Yet, law enforcement continues to wrestle with unprecedented budget reductions, which for many agencies have resulted in loss of personnel; slow or no replacement of aging technology, vehicles, or equipment; and erosions in service.

At times, the police need to be able to reach the entire community, and more frequently, a specific audience such as a neighborhood, young people, the elderly, or victims of a certain type of crime. Police must be able to communicate in different languages through methods that are most likely to connect with the audience they need to reach—all in a timely way.

The news media have traditionally been the primary method police have used to communicate important messages to the public. The police can hold a news conference, circulate a press release, or simply respond to newspaper, television, and radio reporters on items of interest. The news media continue to be an important method of communication, but one thing has become increasingly clear; as newspaper readers and television viewers turn to the “new media”—Internet, cable television, and social media—for information, the police need to think about the traditional media in a different way. As the traditional news media develop business models that are more profitable, it has also become clear that effectively accessing and using them is among the challenges the police must address.

To effectively communicate with the public, the police must not only figure out how to use the traditional media more effectively, they have to understand and master all of the new and emerging communications technologies. They also have to be much more aware of how the public obtains information and use the methods that are most likely to reach the targeted audiences.

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Chapter I: The Police Communication Imperative

strategic Communication Practices: A Toolkit for Police Executives

COmmunICATIOnS ISSuES In addition to the technical challenges, police face other communications hurdles as well. One of the most significant is the complexity of the issues they must explain to the public. Several of the most complex communications issues are discussed below to highlight the importance of developing thoughtful communication strategies.

CRIME

Crime has always been an important measure of police effectiveness but in the past 10 to 15 years it seems to have become the most significant. Crime has been emphasized in spite of the fact that police spend the majority of their time dealing with issues that are not directly related to crime. Policing is a multifaceted enterprise that involves handling calls for service, resolving disputes, controlling traffic, and many other activities. It does not lend itself to one measure taking precedence over all of the other things the public expects from the police. Using “crime” as the primary measure of success presents other problems as well.

The primary source of information on crime in the United States is the FBI Uniform Crime Report (UCR) that is compiled and published annually. The eight Part 1 offenses included in the report (Homicide, Forcible Rape, Robbery, Aggravated Assault, Burglary, Larceny, Auto Theft, and Arson) are compiled from information reported from local police agencies. The UCR indicates the violent crime rate in the United States has declined from its peak in 1991 by 40 percent and the property crime rate by 38 percent (FBI 2009). Both violent and property crime registered additional declines of 6.5 percent and 3.3 percent, respectively, in 2010 (FBI 2011). Although this is indeed a positive trend, a number of issues make talking about crime reduction more complicated. They include:

• The FBI Uniform Crime Report includes only those crimes reported to the police. The most recent national victimization survey indicates that 51.8 percent of violent crime victims and 61.6 percent of property crime victims did not report the incident to the police (BJS 2010).

• Questions continue to be raised about the accuracy of the crime data reported by the police. Time magazine reported on the results of a survey of NYPD police captains who indicated that the pressure of CompStat1 meetings caused some to falsify the numbers (Von Drehle 2010). In Dallas, Texas, the City Council hired an auditor to verify the crime statistics (Thompson 2010). A New York Times article raises further questions about crime data:

Felony assaults, along with all other major crimes in the city, have sharply decreased over the last decade, according to the New York Police Department. But during much of that period, the number of assault victims taken to emergency rooms nearly doubled, according to the city’s Department of Health and Mental Hygiene.

1. Compstat is an operations management and accountability model developed in the New York Transit Police in the early 1990s under the leadership of Bill Bratton. It received worldwide attention when it was credited with significant crime reductions when implemented in the NYPD by the newly appointed Commissioner Bill Bratton.

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strategic Communication Practices: A Toolkit for Police Executives

Chapter I: The Police Communication Imperative

Comparing the figures is difficult. It is unknown, for example, how many of the hospital assault reports were felonies and how many were misdemeanors, which the Police Department does not regularly report to the public. But two criminologists say the difference provides more evidence of a Police Department culture that puts so much emphasis on annual crime reductions that some police supervisors and precinct commanders may be manipulating crime statistics (Rivera 2010).

• The Part 1 crime index does not include computer crimes, identity theft, credit card and check fraud, narcotics offenses, and a plethora of other crimes that are reported to the police or are counted because an arrest has been made.

• In spite of the decline in reported crime, surveys indicate most Americans believe crime has increased nationally (74 percent) and in the area they live (51 percent) (Jones 2009).

Crime is a far more complex phenomenon than statistics can portray. Individuals’ experiences, both direct and vicarious, have a profound and distortional effect on their perceptions. Many people live in neighborhoods in which incidents of crime are rare. Others live in areas where there is a high concentration of crime and police calls for service. Their experiences with crime are very different and they are likely to have different perceptions of crime and the police. Yet common to all groups, at least to some degree, is their exposure to crime through the news and entertainment media, which tend to present inaccurate views of policing, police personnel, victimization rates, and the prevalence of violent crime.

POLICE EFFECTIVENESS

Although crime reduction has taken center stage as a measure of police effectiveness (particularly with politicians), the police are engaged in a significant amount of work that is not directly related to crime but is important to an overall sense of safety. They spend a considerable amount of time dealing with traffic issues, handling calls for service, special events, disputes, security alarm calls, and many other non-crime problems. In Charlotte, North Carolina, where police serve a population of more than 750,000 people, about 70 percent of the calls for service are not crime calls (CMPD 2009). How do these activities fit within the overall perception of police effectiveness?

Traditional measures that have taken a back seat to reported crime include response time, traffic statistics such as collisions and enforcement, case clearances, arrests, community problem solving efforts, and overall citizen satisfaction. Where can the public find out about police performance in areas other than crime? How do the police effectively communicate about this aspect of their work? What should they be talking about?

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Chapter I: The Police Communication Imperative

PUBLIC IMAGE AND PERCEPTIONS OF THE POLICE

strategic Communication Practices: A Toolkit for Police Executives

Officers have thousands of interactions with residents each year—responding to calls, attending community meetings, and making traffic stops. Those experiences create lasting impressions of police performance that is shared with family and friends. If the person feels they were treated poorly and does not make a complaint, there is no opportunity to address the officer’s behavior or explain why he or she behaved in that way. In a National Institute of Justice study, Reisig and Parks (2002) found:

• A resident’s personal experience with police is nearly as impo