In the wake of recent incidents in California and across the nation; a critical need has emerged to examine the complex intricacies of law enforcement interactions with the communities they serve.  This includes the subtle, complex, largely unconscious yet, deeply ingrained ways that individuals racially code and characterize people, with a particular focus on associations between race and crime.

In March 2015, the "President's Task Force on 21st Century Policing" addressed these challenging concerns by issuing a number of recommendations for local law enforcement adaptation.  Recommendation 1.1 states that, “Law enforcement culture, should embrace a guardian mindset to build public trust and legitimacy. Toward that end, police and sheriffs' departments, should adopt procedural justice as the guiding principle, for internal and external policies and practices, to guide interactions with the citizens they serve.” 

In response to the President's 21st Century Policing report, Attorney General Kamala Harris developed a Principled Policing Task Force to research and strategize approaches to rebuild California law enforcement's trust and relationships with the communities they serve.

POST participated in the task force to develop a Principled Policing: Procedural Justice and Implicit Bias training course for law enforcement executives. The course focuses on the four core tenets of procedural justice: 

1) Respect: Treating people with dignity and respect;

2) Neutrality: Making decisions fairly, based on facts, not illegitimate factors such as race;

3) Voice: Giving people a chance to tell their side of the story; and

4) Trust: Acting in a way that encourages community members to believe that they will be treated with goodwill in the future." 

The executive presentations were highly successful and revealed the need to develop additional training targeting all basic and in-service level law enforcement personnel.

POST collaborated with the California Department of Justice, the Stockton and Oakland Police Departments, Stanford University and the California Partnership for Safe Communities to develop a one-day Principled Policing: Procedural Justice and Implicit Bias training for in-service level law enforcement personnel and a two-day train-the-trainer course designed to prepare officers to customize and present the training in collaboration with their community members to their agencies.

The train-the-trainer course was piloted in September and was well received by 37 future law enforcement trainers. 

In July 2016, the California Department of Finance (DOF), Director of Finance, authorized the appropriation of five million dollars to POST to be used to continue the development and presentation of  POST certified, Principled Policing training programs, in consultation with the California Department of Justice over the next six years.  

POST will utilize a portion of the Principled Policing funds to enter into contracts with qualified vendors to facilitate eight train-the-trainer courses and eight one-day in-service training courses throughout California. 

As it is imperative to ensure the tenets of the Procedural Justice process are consistently and effectively taught by all law enforcement trainers POST will also contract to provide training mentors who will be available for all agencies upon request to provide one-on-one coaching and mentoring to their department and community instructors. The mentors will consist of the trainers from Stockton and Oakland Police Department and other instructors who have been involved in the development of the courses and currently facilitate the train the trainer courses.

The cost breakdown for the course presentations is reflected in Attachment A.  The cost breakdown for the mentor program is reflected in Attachment B.