Skip to content
Search

Latest Stories

Top Stories

Dialogue policing in Columbus, Ohio

Dialogue policing in Columbus, Ohio
Getty Images

Dr. Johnson is a United Methodist pastor, the author of "Holding Up Your Corner: Talking About Race in Your Community" (Abingdon Press, 2017) and vice president of the Bridge Alliance, which houses The Fulcrum.

In recent years, the escalation of demonstrations and protests across the United States has highlighted the importance of ensuring that First Amendment activities remain safeguarded. One strategy gaining momentum in maintaining security and upholding these essential rights is dialogue policing.


With roots in the research of Clifford Stott and supplemented by my research on empathy transformation model, this approach shows considerable promise in fostering healthy engagement between activist, community, and socio-democratic groups.

Dialogue policing is not just a hypothetical concept. After protests in 2022, the Columbus Ohio police department created the Dialogue Officers Unit to explore new ways to build stronger relationships with the community.

Dialogue policing is a method of law enforcement that focuses on communication and engagement with the public to manage social conflicts and maintain order effectively. It emphasizes building trust between police and community members by creating open communication channels, fostering collaboration, and promoting understanding. The approach aims to reduce tension, prevent escalation of conflicts, and ultimately improve the relationship between law enforcement and the public.

Sign up for The Fulcrum newsletter

Stott's extensive research on crowd behavior explored how crowd dynamics are positively instituted while minimizing aggression and violence. His studies indicate if the police communicate more effectively they will be perceived as facilitating peaceful expression rather than suppressing it resulting in less confrontation. The crux of dialogue policing promotes communication, mutual respect, and trust between protesting groups and law enforcement officers.

The combination of Stott's research that provides a strategic foundation for dialogue policing and my empathic transformation model enhances reduced tension and conflict during protests and demonstrations by citizens during First Amendment activities. This model revolves around the belief that empathetic exchanges can help bridge gaps between opposing parties by fostering an environment of trust and understanding.

Together, these frameworks outline an approach for interfacing the activist, community, the police and other socio-democratic groups during First Amendment activities:

  1. Establishing Open Lines of Communication: Policing officials need to prioritize open channels of communication between themselves and protest organizers to keep interactions honest, purposeful, and proactive.
  2. Humanizing Approach: Officers should avoid militaristic or overpowering tactics. Instead they should embrace a more compassionate posture that humanizes law enforcement officers and protesters.
  3. Contingency Planning: Police should collaborate with event organizers to identify potential risks or hazards while developing appropriate response plans that respect participants' rights.
  4. Empathy Training for Law Enforcement: Empathy training should be a fundamental component of police education programs in order to strengthen understanding and rapport between officers and protesters.
  5. Proactive Engagement: Regular meetings or forums between law enforcement, community members, and activists to address concerns or emerging issues are essential in promoting dialogue, establishing relationships, deterring miscommunication, and allowing for greater oversight.

Dialogue policing dares to better protect the rights enshrined in the First Amendment while fostering positive engagement between diverse groups. Dialogue policing represents an opportunity to rethink conventional law enforcement strategies and proactively support citizens in expressing their democratic rights safely and peacefully.

I am encouraged by the potential moving forward as the collaborative work of community stakeholders and a select group of Columbus Police Department Dialogue Officers is scaled and amplified through an intensive cohort-style community engagement initiative that is now underway and will continue for the next six months.

Stay tuned for updates in the coming months.

Read More

Meet the change leaders: Scott Klug

Nevins is co-publisher of The Fulcrum and co-founder and board chairman of the Bridge Alliance Education Fund.

After a 14-year career as an Emmy-winning reporter, Scott Klug upset a 32-year Democratic House member from Wisconsin in 1990. Despite winning four elections with an average of 63 percent of the vote, he stayed true to his term limit pledge and retired in January 1999.

But during his time in office, Klug says, he had the third most independent voting record of any member of Congress from Wisconsin in the last 50 years.

Keep ReadingShow less
Donald Trump at a podium

Former President Donald Trump recently said Vice President Kamala Harris is mentally impaired.

Howard Schnapp/Newsday RM via Getty Images

We should not denigrate the mentally impaired

Schmidt is a columnist and editorial board member with the St. Louis Post-Dispatch.

Ableism, the social prejudice and discrimination of people with disabilities based on the belief that typical abilities are superior, is just plain wrong and it is also un-American.

At a recent campaign rally in Prairie du Chien, Wis., former President Donald Trump disparaged Vice President Kamala Harris, suggesting she was mentally disabled and called her “a very dumb person.”

Keep ReadingShow less
"Danger PFAS" Caution Warning Barrier Tap

Heavily Hispanic areas near Chicago are home to environmental racism.

filo/Getty Images

Hispanic neighborhoods in Chicago suffer unequal exposure to chemicals

Sharp is chief financial officer at Environmental Litigation Group, P.C., a law firm based in Birmingham, Ala., that assists individuals and communities injured by toxic exposure.

The predominantly Hispanic populations in Rosemont, Schiller Park and Bensenville, near Chicago, have long been exposed to toxic chemicals known as PFAS originating from the neighboring O'Hare Air Reserve Station, which was closed in 1999. The phenomenon of environmental racism is not new to Chicago. Sites and facilities hazardous to the environment and human health have been placed near communities predominantly populated by Hispanic and Black people in the city for years.

Keep ReadingShow less
Gerald Ford

Republicans, including Gerald Ford in 1976, held the White House on the occasion of each of America's milestone birthdays.

Bernard Charlon/Gamma-Rapho via Getty Images

America at 250, and the Fourth of July presidents

Breslin is the Joseph C. Palamountain Jr. Chair of Political Science at Skidmore College and author of “A Constitution for the Living: Imagining How Five Generations of Americans Would Rewrite the Nation’s Fundamental Law.”

This is the latest in “A Republic, if we can keep it,” a series to assist American citizens on the bumpy road ahead this election year. By highlighting components, principles and stories of the Constitution, Breslin hopes to remind us that the American political experiment remains, in the words of Alexander Hamilton, the “most interesting in the world.”

An odd pattern has emerged in the history of presidential politics. Every time the United States celebrates a major birthday milestone, a Republican sits in the White House.

When America celebrated its golden jubilee in 1826, Democratic-Republican John Quincy Adams was enjoying his second year as the country’s chief executive. When the nation rejoiced that it had reached its centennial 100 years after the signing of the Declaration of Independence, Ulysses S. Grant was our president. At America’s sesquicentennial in 1926, Calvin Coolidge occupied the White House. And during the bicentennial almost 50 years ago, Gerald Ford was completing his one and only term at the helm.

Keep ReadingShow less