Studio Spring 2021
How might we improve Procedural Justice for the Dallas Police Department?
The Dallas Police Department (DPD) has gone through lots of changes over the years, including newly appointed Police Chief Garcia that started on March of 2021. With new initiatives in place, DPD partnered with the MADI program for help in designing potential solutions to improve procedural justice. Another complexity to consider with this project is that the Studio class was our largest to date with fifteen students broken up into four groups. The class approached the Procedural Justice as being experienced through four pillars:
1.Dignity and respect
2.Voice
3.Neutrality and transparency
4.Trustworthiness
TEAM ONE: Just Design
Meredith Davis | Christina Hahn | Monica Fields | Kyle Spencer
Based on the key themes and insights from their research, this team focused on improving procedural justice by supplementing the pre-existing Procedural Justice training material for police officers. They hypothesized that by creating a more interactive, personal, and experiential training they would be able to create greater internalization and lasting behavioral change for police officers. This included an updated training lesson plan and an emphasis on training delivery.
The delivery approach consisted of Framing, which is the way the information is communicated and how to highlight meaning and Engaging, which is the way the content is reinforced and absorbed.
Their approach included:
Three ways to frame:
- Personal – learning can provide officers the opportunity to connect human experiences with the material.
- Contextual – related to the city of Dallas, DPD or the officer’s assigned divisions allows for the material to be practical.
- Language – utilizing an officer’s vernacular can assist in the content comprehension by leveraging existing shared meanings
Three ways to engage:
- Activities – can provide officers the ability to creatively. Engage with the material that absorbs academic concepts through practical methods.
- Reality-based – learning engages officers in real-life scenarios that moves beyond the classroom to the human interactions they experience on a daily basis.
- Peer accountability – creates an environment for officers to trust one another and be vulnerable through meaningful conversations.
TEAM TWO: DA&I
Kyle Dvorak | Caroline Harms | Mishaela Korenak | Emily Lee
Through their research, this team recognized that the Media Relations team or the Public Information’s Office (PIO) at DPD is an under-resourced department that is the main channel of communications that DPD has with the public.
The team hypothesized that if DPD takes control of the narrative and invests in the creation of proactive branding and messaging the organization can positively affect the overall public trust in the institution and better impact its overall goal of being more procedurally just.
This team designed a Development Plan for the PIO which included recommendations on:
- Organizational structure. Including additional staffing, clearly defined roles, and communications trained staff.
- Social media guidance. Such as appropriate visuals and strategy.
- Local news relationship-building techniques. Thinking of the local news as partners in getting information out to the public.
- Communications training for current staff.
- Resource expansion to enable the PIO office to function at a higher capacity.
TEAM: The Squad
Hope Anderson | Samantha Navarro |Kaci McCartan | Ramisa Faruque
This team identified occupational stress as a key issue. Occupational stress can lead to burnout and unhealthy coping mechanisms that have ripple effects in the community’s perception of the police. A growing number of trauma-informed studies are linking mental health challenges to high-profile interactions like some of the use-of-force cases that can end up on YouTube or your evening news broadcast.
The team’s answer to the HMW: By creating and introducing Employee Resource Groups (ERG) as part of DPD culture and organization, we may improve occupational stress, ultimately improving procedural justice.
The team provided four recommendations:
- Cultivate ERG advocates among executive leadership who will stay engaged with groups.
- Offer institutional backing and logistical support to make ERGs possible.
- Endorse ERGs as leadership and career development opportunities.
- Promote consistency by making ERG resources consistent across the dept.
TEAM: Ultimate Gray
Emily Hughes Armour | Dominique Wells |Ryan Lozano
This team found that 50% of all complaints in DPD were classified as discourteous or unprofessional behavior. They hypothesized that they could improve procedural justice by reducing the incidents of discourteous or unprofessional behavior through a campaign with visual touchpoints for on-shift cues to remind officers to shift back into focus on how they are interacting with the public.
This team designed a campaign called “Take a B.E.A.T.”
- Behavior
- Empathy
- Attitude
- Teamwork
The campaign included an instruction card with details on how DPD practices positive Behavior, shows Empathy, portrays positive Attitudes, and practices good Teamwork. It also included decals and stickers to be placed on state-issued patrol cars, note pads, and state-issued computers as additional visual cues.
