Give us a chance....

I’ve seen good officers make mistakes. Hell (please excuse my language), I’ve made mistakes. Some are minor, some major, and if for a turn of the cards, I would find myself under unenviable circumstance. But, the mistakes I‘ve seen and made have not been a conscious effort to avoid duty, nor have they been made in an effort to circumvent policy. Most have been split second decisions that upon reflection have circumvented policy (usually bad policy) or have been the result of naivety......, the idea that I’ve done this before and nothing bad has happened: A lack of training. A lack of experience. A lack of foresight. This is what leadership is for! This is what experience is for! We need to formalize it.

I initially thought that this board could be used to pass on lessons learned. But it can’t be. We need an open, secure forum to discuss policy. We need an open, secure forum to discuss operational issues: What went right, what went wrong, how to avoid the mistakes of others.

The Department needs to tie in operational feedback to the training of its officer corp. It needs to be able to discuss on the ground issues that could possibly affect those who would commit the same errors either through ignorance, or inexperience.

Mr. Secretary, give us an open forum. Give us a place where we can lay out what happened, versus what should have happened. Hell, if the training base is broken (which it is); give us a way to at least outline:

- The initial intelligence
- The initial plan
- The facts that occurred
- The policy that describes what the Department says should have occurred
- And finally, lessons learned. What really should have happened to include voids in policy.

People are going to get hurt. They will get hurt only because there is a no mistake mentality. They will get hurt because of bad policy. They will get hurt because of a lack of training.

Give us a forum. Hell, give us a chance.

Awesome post. I like your ideas. What kind of forum do you have in mind? A one on one, a round table discussion or maybe a blog for officers on the intranet?

I always thought we are missing a rank. We need a rank between specialist and supervisor - maybe something such as a team leader for a more hands on approach with helping the POs manage their cases.....when I mean help I don't mean doing a case review and assigning a re-review to update the ot71 or something of that nature. I mean someone who will get involved including doing field work with the officers to assist with case management and technical advice where needed. We don't need supervisors and CAs telling us "read and comply"....we need leaders who will tell us about a policy that is applicable to the case we are supervising and an explanation on how to apply it. Just my 2 cents.

I initially thought that this board could be used to pass on lessons learned. But it can’t be. We need an open, secure forum to discuss policy. We need an open, secure forum to discuss operational issues: What went right, what went wrong, how to avoid the mistakes of others.

I had similar thoughts but on a broader scale. This forum can be an awesome tool to help educate the community and vice versa. Laying down the blue prints for restorative justice in an open public forum can have many rewards IMHO.

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The forum could take several forms. It could take the form of a montly Lessons Learned bulletin. In it, officers could submitt lessons learned provided in a specific format:

- a brief mission statement
- a description of the plan
- facts as they occured
- a discussion of the facts.
- what policy says
- and finally lessons learned (what should have happened).

Or maybe, it could a separate portion on the e-ternal DC Web, where officers electronically submitt in the same format, and a moderator reviews and decides which ones to post. Thsi way it can be controlled for content. Either way, we need some place where we can go to openly discuss operations.

The forum could take several forms. It could take the form of a montly Lessons Learned bulletin. In it, officers could submitt lessons learned provided in a specific format:

- a brief mission statement
- a description of the plan
- facts as they occured
- a discussion of the facts.
- what policy says
- and finally lessons learned (what should have happened).

Or maybe, it could a separate portion on the e-ternal DC Web, where officers electronically submitt in the same format, and a moderator reviews and decides which ones to post. Thsi way it can be controlled for content. Either way, we need some place where we can go to openly discuss operations.

I'm sure our new Secretary would look upon your ideas favorably. After DESERT STORM I was involved in a project where we documented our lessons learned on military operations in the desert. Some operations had unintended consequences - both good and bad. I particularly enjoyed reading and writing about "what we did right" even if it was an accident. (hehe)

I agree with you wholeheartedly that we can do a better job analyzing our operations; however, we shouldn't lose focus on all the good stuff. We have a lot of super POs out there doing some wonderful case work and law enforcement.....we have a responsibility to train/mentor our rookies. Telling them what not to do isn't enough...we gotta tell them what they should do or how to better manage a case with real life experiences as you suggested.

Are you seriously considering this idea and hoping to submit it as a suggestion to central office?

[Darth Duck]

Yes, yes, yes. I was losing hope. There is no dark mass of administrators sitting at CO. It is amazing how policy is interpreted out to the field after even the best intentions were made to make it make sense. Keep up the constructive posts please.

How do we motivate Officers to talk about lessons learned with their own cases if they are afraid of retribution for a job not so well done? It seems officers are more willing to talk about case work BEFORE the case goes bad, and actually if you think about it, the best time to plan is BEFORE something happens.

I hate to bring this up, but do you know what drives me nuts around this place? The case review auditors. My Lord, what a waste of talent. Anyone can go down a checklist and mark off all the things I did or failed to do. For that matter, let the computer do the checklist and evaluate all the screens to see if they are in compliance......I want real feedback.....did I drive around the neighborhood to be sure there's no daycares by my predators? Are there toys in the spare room? Did I check his magazine collection for porn? Did I report all violations? Did I run his license and local clerk's record? There's loads of stuff we do that isn't included in the case review that we should be doing IMO.

Twice already in my career I adopted a case that was audited countless times. One guy was a sex offender who lived directly across from a school - well of course the auditor didn't catch that because he never went in the field (I guess the PO didn't either). Then I had a predator who lived 550 feet from a daycare for 2 years and no one caught that. How nice all the blocks were checked on the case reviews, eh?

So I guess what I'm saying is that if we really want to do better case work and law enforcement we need some hands on experienced people checking the cases (not just the file and MIS).....this is not a jab at the auditors....they are doing their jobs with their pens and lap tops, but is this really effective and is it really giving the officers the feedback we need to be more efficient?

Lessons learned can start with the folks who review our cases...the supervisors and auditors.....well, that's if they have time to break away from their busy day checking all those blocks on the case review sheets. There's no reason in the world that the auditors can't be tasked with publishing Lessons Learned on a monthly basis if they were really doing a thorough inspection of our cases instead of the eyewash checkoff sheet review they've been tasked to do.

Unfortunately, (and I think this is a major problem with this administration) is they could care less that you actually supervise an offender, ie, check the residence for toys, porn, etc, or do anything above and beyond what the check-list states. And that's where officers get lazy. There are many who simply "supervise by the stats", nothing more, nothing less. Check the PP36 on a few of your coworkers. See how many MAX cases were actually seen vs. those who got an AP to score the magic 100% for the month. I actually got spoken to once because I went to a house a fourth time without "calling to arrange the HP" after the second miss. Give me a break. Do you think I want to be proactive after a closed-door counseling like that?

Ask you coworkers how many times they've tried to be proactive just to be shot down because they didn't sign all the forms, dot all the i's, cross all the t's. Me personally? I prefer to supervise my cases. But when I'm fighting my own supervisors, circuit, the administration and policies in order to do so, how proactive do you think I'm going to be? Public safety? No one in Tally gives a rat's ass about public safety. What they want are numbers. And as much as I hate to admit it, that is now what they are going to get. It doesn't benefit me one bit to bust my ass to get real contacts made (not see 5 people and score 40 AP then get praised in a monthly e-mail for hitting 100%).

And the worst part of all? We all get the same pay raise. So, who is the smart state worker here?

Unfortunately, (and I think this is a major problem with this administration) is they could care less that you actually supervise an offender, ie, check the residence for toys, porn, etc, or do anything above and beyond what the check-list states. And that's where officers get lazy. There are many who simply "supervise by the stats", nothing more, nothing less. Check the PP36 on a few of your coworkers. See how many MAX cases were actually seen vs. those who got an AP to score the magic 100% for the month. I actually got spoken to once because I went to a house a fourth time without "calling to arrange the HP" after the second miss. Give me a break. Do you think I want to be proactive after a closed-door counseling like that?

Ask you coworkers how many times they've tried to be proactive just to be shot down because they didn't sign all the forms, dot all the i's, cross all the t's. Me personally? I prefer to supervise my cases. But when I'm fighting my own supervisors, circuit, the administration and policies in order to do so, how proactive do you think I'm going to be? Public safety? No one in Tally gives a rat's ass about public safety. What they want are numbers. And as much as I hate to admit it, that is now what they are going to get. It doesn't benefit me one bit to bust my ass to get real contacts made (not see 5 people and score 40 AP then get praised in a monthly e-mail for hitting 100%).

And the worst part of all? We all get the same pay raise. So, who is the smart state worker here?

I understand exactly what you are saying, and I am sorry someone as conscientious as yourself got caught up in petty details. Is it any wonder how DOC breeds mediocrity?

Re-entry has changed most of these issues.