Police Departments and the CRB

On the surface, it is a good guess that law enforcement hates the CRB, the people in the CRB, and anything else that even looks like a CRB. On the other hand, it is a complete misconception that the CRB hates Law Enforcement. Any and every CRB is in total favor of police departments and their members, which is why they all try to work WITH them. We have to make it clear that we should all want to be on the same page, with no side wanting to disassemble the other. It is sad to see, however, that police are not exactly on board with that thought. So what do we do?

• Speak Up
This is a much more pro-active move than it may see at first. We sometimes forget it, but the citizens out-number any police department in the USA. Same for the legislative body used in your city or town. So we should have no problem here, right? Just step up and speak our requests, and the problem solves. Well, enter something called red tape. There are forms to fill out, approvals to attain, schedules to fit into, maybe even a license or permit to purchase. All these things are blockades to the goal of establishing a CRB. They are stalls, deliberately created to improve the chances of any citizen request seeing the light of day. We need a more direct approach that cannot be shunted off to the side.

• Speak to the Legislatures of Today and Tomorrow.
All members of a city’s government, town council, or whatever is used where you live, and all people who are running or planning to run for any of those offices, have email and snail mail capability. Let's use it. With the 2010 elections still a ways down the road, there is time to start to contact these folks today. Contact all office holders and candidates for those offices, regardless of party or other political affiliation, and spell it out----no CRB, no vote. It really doesn’t matter what portion of the political spectrum we are speaking to, only that they learn that the only candidate occupying office will be the one in favor of a CRB. Pressure them into making a public announcement about it. Keep in mind, we are talking to all candidates, even if their office couldn’t do anything about a CRB if it wanted to. Dogcatcher? He better like a CRB, or no dogs for him. Make it clear to them our demand, that the price of admission is a CRB.

• Leverage One With the Other
This will cause two things to happen.

One—the office holder who is against having a discussion about the formation of the organization will be identified and weeded out of the available pool of candidates.

And Second---candidates who want to deliver what the citizen demands will begin to pop up. The only thing a politician really wants is votes. Necessity has always been the mother of invention, and CRB advocates who run for office will begin to invent themselves to have a political career.

One thing we should have learned by now is that playing the current political game is deliberately designed not to work for the citizen, and it is a dead end for those who want actual improvement in the police departments. Two reasons for that one also. Internal Affairs and Police Unions. More to come----