In the first 20 days of President Trump’s focus on Washington D.C. crime, Mayor Bowser admitted that the focus on law and order has worked as she announced an 87% reduction in carjackings, 50% reduction in violent crime, and a two-week span without a murder…in the summer.
The announcement was a sharp U-turn in her early criticism, and the reason is simple: her voters love the feeling of safety and Bowser likes getting elected.
As I said last week, crime will go down in Washington, D.C., and it will represent the utter failure of law enforcement leaders across the country.
Leadership Exposed
While we have heard excuse after excuse in recent years from leaders after the surge on violence across America, the truth is that providing safety to citizens has always been this easy. There’s a reason why crime plummeted to record lows in the 1990’s and that’s because our leaders focused on their mission…crime control.
Today, you won’t find one police chief who is ever fired for rising crime, and often, their focus is on everything but crime.
While many (not all) chiefs have been busy padding their resumes and signing the most recent IACP pledge, they have failed on the two most important issues they are tasked with: crime reduction and staffing.
I know firsthand this sick and twisted “new” leadership model embedded in many agencies. I watched from a front row seat a professional agency that once focused on the mission turn to everything but the mission.
Emotion took the place of fighting crime.
Instead of evaluating decisions through the lens of strategy, safety, or justice, leaders began shaping policy around how decisions made people feel. The core mission of protecting the public was diluted by a relentless need to appear compassionate, progressive, and palatable to external critics, even if it meant compromising the safety of the very communities we served.
Perception took the place of performance.
Optics were elevated above outcomes. Leadership stopped asking, “What’s right?” and began obsessing over, “How will this look?” Metrics became massaged, problems were painted over with ridiculous social media posts, and real accountability gave way to narrative control.
Mission drift became the norm.
Core values like service, integrity, and courage were quietly replaced by buzzwords and initiatives crafted more for media approval and groupthink controlled by police organizations. Innovation was stifled not by budget or training gaps, but by fear of criticism, of controversy, of anything that didn’t fit the curated image.
It didn’t take long for the officers to realize what was happening to them. Everything they heard in the academy or thought law enforcement was about was a lie. Morale collapsed and great officers left. Those who stayed learned to keep their heads down and play the game. Not the game of public service, but the game of self-preservation within a system that punished doing their job and rewarded compliance.
What Now
I’d like to think that the cowardly leaders will wake up, but I’m doubtful. They are where they are because of cowardice, and fighting crime will continue to be deemed “controversial” by the same scum that pushed the crazy reforms to begin with.
The easy path is to keep making excuses and to keep doing what they did to get into their seat in the first place.
I don’t have much tolerance for a level of cowardice that is literally killing citizens, but I do have hope. In every training room I have been in, the line officers understand this. They know they are being led by weak men and women who have no understanding of the job. They see, with their own eyes, the damage it has caused their communities, and they are motivated to change it.
This is why Courageous Leadership matters and why I will continue pushing this in the classroom and online.
It’s not for those currently in the front seat of the agency…It’s for those that will be there in the future.
Dr. Travis Yates retired as a commander with a large municipal police department after 30 years of service. He is the author of “The Courageous Police Leader: A Survival Guide for Combating Cowards, Chaos & Lies.” His risk management and leadership seminars have been taught to thousands of professionals across the world. He is a graduate of the FBI National Academy with a Doctorate Degree in Strategic Leadership and the CEO of the Courageous Police Leadership Alliance.
