Note: Dr. Lyons presented this keynote address at the 8th Secured Cities Conference in Houston last week.
The ever-evolving and –expanding advances in technology and analytics continue to transform our efforts at keeping our communities safe and secure. Although these developments are certainly deserving of our attention, we must remain mindful of what lies at the core of most of the threats to that safety and security and nearly all of the efforts at maintaining and restoring them—people.
On one side of the balance sheet, common criminals, disaffected citizens, revolutionaries, and foreign powers, among others; all undermine our safety and security. On the other side of that balance sheet, patriotic members of the military, civic-minded public servants, non-governmental organizations, and business people are among those who work tirelessly to protect us from those and that which would do us harm. Arguably, what matters most about all of these people is the nature and quality of our relationships with them.
In 2000, Robert Putnam, a political scientist on the faculty of the John F. Kennedy School of Government at Harvard University published a book entitled “Bowling Alone: The Collapse and Revival of American Community,” in which he chronicled Americans’ declining participation and engagement in social networks and social institutions—what Putnam calls “social capital.” Whereas ordinary capital refers to the wealth or value we have in money and other assets, social capital refers to the value we have in our relationships with others and social networks. Putnam summarizes and synthesizes a wealth of data and concludes that, from the 1960s to the end of the 20th Century, America lost much of its social capital.
The loss of social capital matters because it affects the values on both sides of the aforementioned balance sheet. Those who are incapable of bonding to others, who are disaffected, or who have negative relationships with our country, its communities and community members are greater threats to us. By contrast, those who have positive relationships are more valuable assets in terms of mitigating risk, preparation, responding, and recovering. Therefore, building social capital makes us stronger.
In much the same way we must be strategic about where to invest our monetary capital, so must we be strategic about where to invest our social capital. Throughout much of the 1990s, I directed a Regional Community Policing Institute funded by the Office of Community Oriented Policing Services in the U.S. Department of Justice. When working with local law enforcement agencies and inquiring about their approach to policing, nearly all of them responded that they practiced community policing. Because everyone knows that is the “right” answer to give, I always probed more deeply to find out what exactly that meant in the context of their communities. Usually, the Chief or Sheriff would respond that he or she was the Tail Twister in the Lions Club or was a Rotarian. The agency head invariably reported having coffee every morning at a local diner with assembled business leaders and proudly pointed out his or her attendance at homeowners’ association meetings.
As of this writing, demonstrations are underway in major cities across the country protesting the outcome of the presidential election. How many of those protesters do you think are Lions Club members? When is the last time the Rotarians rioted? What percentage of arrestees of any kind in our communities is actively engaged in a homeowners’ association? We tend to establish and maintain relationships with people who are a lot like us despite the fact that what we most desperately need may be relationships with people who are not like us at all.
To build relationships with others requires changing the way we think about and behave toward them. We can start by listening as both a means to an end and an end to itself. Listening helps us to understand others. It enables us to take others’ perspectives and become aware of the experiences that contributed to those perspectives. Equally importantly, simply being heard is powerful. Tom Tyler is a leading scholar in the field of Procedural Justice, the idea that people’s senses of fairness are enhanced if they feel as though they have been heard. In one study, Tyler studied people who had received traffic tickets. One group of violators had been tried, convicted, and fined. The other group had their citations dismissed. When the people in the study were asked about how fairly they had been treated, those who were fined reported greater satisfaction than those whose cases were dismissed. Economically, this makes no sense. The anomalous finding speaks to the power of having one’s “day in court” or simply being heard.
Empathy and introspection are also important in building social capital with others, especially others not like us in terms of race, gender, sexual orientation, and so on. As for women, the differential treatment begins soon after they are conceived. Again, we all know the “right” answer is that the only thing that matters is that our child is healthy. But do we honestly believe that “It’s a boy” and “It’s a girl” really carry equivalent significance? Our differential reactions to females, as contrasted with males, start early and never end.
Likewise, in his recent return to the limelight, Dave Chapelle said, “If I could quit being black today, I’d be out of the game.” Although intended to be funny, Chapelle’s comment likely rings a bell of truth. Indeed, a study a decade ago by Philip Mazzocco and Mahzarin Banaji had Whites actually quantify the cost of being Black. Although the study participants understood well that there are costs, they seemed not to understand the extent of those costs at all.
We are similarly lacking in empathy for gay, lesbian, and bisexual people. Imagine that you are given an assignment for this weekend to change your sexual orientation. Assuming you’re straight, that means you need to switch your sexual attraction from persons of the opposite sex to persons of the same sex. There is no need to act on it or otherwise change your behavior—just change your sexual orientation. Do you think you could complete the assignment? Seem ridiculous? Then why would it be any different for the gay guy at work or the lesbian couple down the street? We must be aware of how we think about others and be willing to change it.
Our behavior also needs to change if we are to build relationships with others. When others are complaining, expressing, emoting, or otherwise communicating about themselves, we should Say That which Furthers Understanding—or STFU as the youngsters apparently abbreviate it. Let them say what they have to say and respond in ways that communicate that you have heard them. Seek to understand more. Then seek to be understood. We also need to take a look at other things we are doing that might make us seem unwelcoming, uninviting, or even hostile. Henry Ward Beecher, the 19th Century Abolitionist famously said that in order to build a sense of community—that is, social capital—we should “multiply picnics.” The sunny, warm, welcoming, and friendly imagery this evokes stands in stark contrast to that recently horrific incident brought to light last month by a San Antonio police officer who served a homeless man a literal sh*t sandwich.
Fundamentally, our work is about people. They are at once the threats and the solutions to those threats. If we are to be successful in promoting safety and security, we must build better relationships with more people and with a broader range of people. Building a stronger sense of community will build stronger communities.
About the Author: Dr. Phillip Lyons is the sixth Dean and Director to serve the College of Criminal Justice and the Criminal Justice Center. He was appointed to the post in the summer of 2015, during his 20th year as a member of the faculty.
Dean Lyons joined the faculty of Sam Houston State University in 1995 after completing a year-long pre-doctoral internship in Forensic Clinical Psychology at the Federal Medical Center in Fort Worth, an institution within the Federal Bureau of Prisons.
Lyons studied at the Law and Psychology program at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln, earning M.A., J.D., and Ph.D. degrees after earning his B.S. degree from the University of Houston-Clear Lake. He also has an AAS from Alvin Community College.
He has written or coauthored dozens of scholarly and professional works, including books, book chapters, and journal articles. In 2012, Dean Lyons was named the first recipient of the David Payne Academic Community Engagement Award at SHSU, which recognizes excellence in community engagement through teaching, research, and service. Previous posts at SHSU include Interim Dean and Director, Interim Chair of the Department of Security Studies, Director of the Division of Professional Justice Studies and Executive Director for the Center for Policing Innovation.
Before graduate and law school, Lyons spent several years as law enforcement officer at the Hillcrest Village Marshal’s Office, the Alvin Community College Police Department, and the Alvin Police Department. When he left full-time law enforcement he was a detective at the Alvin Police Department specializing in crimes involving children. He is currently a licensed Master Peace Officer.
