How can police officers and the community work together to eliminate racial tensions and rebuild trust? A Minnesota focus group found that improved relations between community members and law enforcement started with whom the police hired. Ramsey County Sheriff Matt Bostrom expands,
“We had a community conversation where we did a couple of focus groups. As a result of those focus groups, they came away with that direct saying,
‘What we want the police department to do is to hire for character, and train for competence.’
The presence of these character traits positively influences the effectiveness of a police officer.
“The character traits, they actually came up with fifteen, if you distill those and kind of order them they nest into four areas: trustworthiness, truthfulness, responsibility and respectfulness.”
“The community was saying is that we don’t think that you can make men and women have those character traits, so we want you to hire them and then train them to have those skills necessary to be an effective police officer.’”
With this in mind, Sheriff Bostrom implemented a character-building process into the St. Paul Police Department’s hiring process.
“First, we are looking for people that are trustworthy, truthful, responsible and respectful. We do that through our oral questions, at an oral interview, and we look for that repetitively in their backgrounds and their psychological profile.
“We don’t really ask the question of, why do you want to be a deputy? Why do you want to become a police officer? We really asked the question, when was the last time you did something with someone who is less fortunate than you? What was the outcome? What did you learn?”
Sheriff Bostrom points out that these conversations are helpful in revealing a person’s character traits and motivations for becoming a police officer. He expands on how this screening process has influenced who is hired and trained by the St. Paul Police Department.
“When they arrive in the academy, I congratulate them on making it through the process thus far and I acknowledge them by saying, ‘You’re here because there’s probable cause to believe that you are men and women of great character, particularly the areas of trustworthiness, truthfulness, responsibility and respectfulness.'”
Matt Bostrom was elected as the 21st Sheriff of Ramsey County on November 2, 2010, and took the oath of office on January 4, 2011. He was re-elected on November 4, 2014 and is currently serving a second term.
The life of a police officer
