Zero as a goal

Zero. That’s the goal.

Law enforcement strives for zero crime. Of course we know that is unachievable, but still, we must try. This is the understood objective of our profession. Sure, we could shrug and say there will never be zero crime, and somewhere inside we know this is true. Yet, we strive for zero. We accept the challenge.

Just because we can’t get crime to zero, we don’t give up the goal. We keep changing our tactics, trying anything we can to arrive at a goal we know is unachievable. Why?

Because we know it’s a worthy goal. More than that, we know if we strive for zero, we will succeed in reduction and any reduction is success.

What if we applied that simple metric to every area of our profession?

Why isn’t our stated goal for police shootings zero?

If we had the courage to make that the goal, by the same rationale as overall crime, we would not eliminate police shootings, but reductions would inevitably be the result.

A goal to reduce shootings would not mean endangering officers. Quite the opposite, it would focus training on tactics and critical thinking that would most often slow things down and give officers time to assess and react. This would improve safety. We know many situations require split-second decisions and officers have to react. More often, officer safety and training is abandoned in critical situations, leading to officer induced danger and unnecessary escalation.

This is where we can drive down the numbers. We talk so much about the value of training and preparedness. Training should include far more prevention skills than any of us have ever gotten. I hear so many people talking about de-escalation in training, but the reality is that officers get very little training in this area.

Historically, our training is disproportionately heavy in shoot scenarios and escalation. The tragic result is that officers then resort to force when they have no alternative skill set. We teach threat/no threat. Black or white. All or nothing. In truth, reality is almost always infinite shades of grey.

Yes, training budgets are sparse, and sadly, are often the first cost-cutting measures in agencies. This shortsighted thinking ignores the much higher cost of litigation and the emotional toll on officers involved. Driving down the number of shootings with a sound policy goal of zero, paired with the training to work toward this goal makes fiscal sense. It’s also good public policy.

We won’t achieve zero police shootings but zero should always be the goal.