Public Safety: Active

Active Bystandership Training For Law Enforcement: An EPIC Idea

By Jonathan Aronie | Chair, Georgetown Law/Sheppard Mullin ABLE Project Board of Advisors By Paul Noel | Deputy Chief New Orleans Police Department

In 2016, the New Orleans Police Department did something no major police department in the United States had done before. It implemented a department-wide, holistic active bystandership program for police officers. Other professions had implemented similar programs in the past—the airline industry and the medical profession did so with great success—but law enforcement, incredulously, had not.

The New Orleans program, called EPIC (Ethical Policing Is Courageous), provides practical, evidence-based education that teaches and empowers officers to intervene in another officer’s conduct — regardless of rank — to prevent misconduct, reduce mistakes and promote officer health and wellness.

The program was readily embraced by members of the NOPD and the New Orleans community, and began paying dividends almost immediately. While it is hard to quantify the success of the program because when an effective intervention occurs often nothing happens (which obviously is the goal of an early intervention), most observers have credited EPIC with materially contributing to the city’s steady decrease in officer uses of force and citizen complaints, and the accompanying increase in citizen trust in the police and officer job satisfaction.1

In 2020, following the killing of George Floyd, the NOPD began receiving calls from law enforcement agencies across the country for help standing up similar programs. To meet the overwhelming demand, the NOPD worked with the Georgetown University Law Center and global law firm Sheppard Mullin to develop a national version of EPIC. That program, called the Active Bystandership for Law Enforcement (ABLE) Project, quickly has become a national best practice in police transformation. Currently, more than 130 law enforcement agencies from coast to coast have been accepted into the program, including Boston, Philadelphia, Baltimore, D.C., New York, Orlando, Seattle and Dallas. The Attorney General of New Jersey currently is in the process of bringing ABLE to every agency in that state.

Sadly, nonintervention by police officers—even in the context of misconduct—is not an anomaly. While police officers are heroic “active bystanders” in many situations, they are no better than anyone else when it comes to intervening on one of their own. And make no mistake about it, most non-police are not so good at it either. (If you question our view in this regard, we offer up as Exhibit A the abuses by U.S. clergy over the past decades that went almost totally unchecked by their peers.)

But we actually know quite a lot about why good people often fail to intervene to prevent harm to others. Decades of research has shown us that powerful “inhibitors” exist that can turn even the best of us into “passive bystanders” in the right circumstances—things like peer pressure, fear of reprisals, fear of getting it wrong, diffusion of responsibility, pluralistic ignorance and bias. For decades, municipalities and police agencies have tried to attack the problem of “passive bystandership” only through policies, threats of reprisals and sporadic moral outrage. Such efforts have been mostly ineffective and likely always will be because they are not directed at the core problem. The core problem, in our view at least, isn’t that police officers don’t know what they should do; it’s that they have never been trained to do it. And making matters worse is that many—perhaps even most—officers continue to operate in a culture that strongly inhibits “active bystandership.”

The Municipal recently featured a wonderful article about ABLE (see sidebar). The article prompted significant interest among city and police leaders. Some of the questions we have received are worth sharing with others.

Do police officers support ABLE?

Yes. Because ABLE, like EPIC before it, is not a discipline program, not an internal affairs program and not a whistleblowing program; the program is all upside for community members and officers. ABLE teaches a skill we all need. It’s a skill that will help keep a police officer out of harm’s way just as much as it will help keep a community member out of harm’s way. In New Orleans, officers are vocal about their support of active bystandership training and culture. Veteran officers in the city play an active role in creating a workplace culture that promotes active bystandership and that provides positive examples for newer officers. As

a result, NOPD officers, old and young, more readily embrace active bystandership as a means of promoting professionalism, safety and de-escalation.

Does the community support ABLE?

Yes. To take part in ABLE, a law enforcement agency must submit four letters of support — one from the chief or sheriff, one from the mayor or county executive, and two from credible community groups. The groups that have stepped up in support of their agency’s application have included multiple local chapters of the NAACP, the Urban League and the ACLU, along with a wide range of human rights groups, social justice groups and faith organizations.

Can ABLE reduce municipal legal risk?

We think so. No one can seriously question the cost of mistakes and misconduct by law enforcement. In 2019, the city of New Orleans paid $13.3 million to settle just three Katrina-era police civil rights cases. Baltimore spent $12.8 million in settlements related to police misconduct between 2014 and 2020. The city of New York paid out $125.9 million in settlements (and claims) for police-related lawsuits in FY2019 alone. Louisville paid a $12 million settlement in September 2020 for a single police excessive force case. But these data don’t even scratch the surface when you consider the societal cost of unconstitutional policing.

While we can’t offer any promises that implementing a meaningful active bystandership program will prevent litigation, we have great confidence that not having one will exacerbate it. One hundred and thirty agencies, including some of the country’s largest and most forward-thinking departments, have opted into ABLE. The program quickly is becoming a national best practice. Failing to implement obvious best practices is a death knell in litigation. ABOVE: New Orleans Police Department EPIC Ambassadors meet with a number of internal and outside advisors for the first time. Together, they not only helped create EPIC, but also brought EPIC to a national audience via ABLE. (Photo provided)

In New Orleans, many officers even wear a pin reflecting their commitment to the principles of active bystandership. (Photo provided)

On the Web

Read The Municipal’s April 2021 ABLE article by Amanda Demster here: https://bit.ly/3dylSiD.

An annual Active Bystandership Conference for Police Executives is held in partnership with the NOPD and Loyola New Orleans. (Photo provided)

Can ABLE actually change a long-standing culture of nonintervention?

We think so. The NOPD had a long history of police misconduct and excessive force. The department had an organizational culture where officers looked the other way when misconduct was occurring or about to occur. This culture enabled further bad behavior and inhibited even good officers from intervening to stop misconduct and mistakes. The NOPD had the usual suite of ethics training programs, but that did little to change culture. EPIC was NOPD’s solution to that gap, and ABLE is the continuation of the department’s ongoing cultural transformation.

NOPD’s focus on the practical strategies and tactics of intervention has resulted in a dramatically changed NOPD. The principals of active bystandership are now infused in many aspects of the department’s culture. Sure, problems still arise from time to time because even the best active bystandership training is not a panacea. But the willingness of officers to intervene and the openness of officers to accept an intervention, regardless of rank, are now for many as much a part of the department’s culture as its unique star and crescent badge. Indeed, in New Orleans, many officers even wear a pin reflecting their commitment to the principles of active bystandership. The pin tells their peers: I am going to intervene on you to prevent mistakes and misconduct, and I expect you to do the same for me.

Culture can be changed. We’ve seen it happen in New Orleans. But it cannot be changed overnight. And it cannot be changed by training, policy or discipline alone. Changing culture in any complex organization requires a holistic approach. ABLE offers such an approach. We have seen a lot of “reform” programs come and go over the course of our careers. Few are evidence-based and fewer still are supported by law enforcement and community. Law enforcement officers can and should receive meaningful, evidence-based active bystandership training. We do a disservice to our communities, to our municipalities and to our law enforcement officers by not recognizing that intervening in another person’s conduct is harder than it looks. But it can be taught and it can be learned. An ABLE class takes place in New Jersey. Departments across the U.S. have expressed interest in adopting ABLE teachings. (Photo provided)

About the authors

Paul Noel is a 24-year veteran of the New Orleans Police Department and currently the Department’s Chief of Detectives. Paul is a graduate of the FBI National Academy, the MCCA’s Police Executive Leadership Program, PERF’s Senior Management Institute for Police, and a member of the ABLE Project Board of Advisors. In addition to his normal duties and responsibilities, Noel also leads the NOPD’s EPIC/ABLE Ambassador Program.

Jonathan Aronie is a partner with the Sheppard Mullin law firm and the leader of the firm’s Investigations Practice Group and coleader of the firm’s Organizational Integrity Group. He served on the working group that developed NOPD’s EPIC program and is the chair of the Georgetown Law Center ABLE Project Board of Advisors. Aronie is a court-appointed federal monitor and a regular lecturer at the FBI National Academy. Noel and Aronie disagree on many things, but they vehemently agree on the power of ABLE to change culture and prevent harm.