Healing Police-Community Relations

ambience: police car siren
In many parts the country, relations between local citizens and police are at all time low. An effort is underway to try and heal this rift. I’m Jim Metzner and this is the Pulse of the Planet.

Geller: Behavioral scientists know that positive consequences are far more influential in improving behavior and attitude. And so what we’re teaching police officers, and having them explore ways to use positive consequences to get people to do the right thing.

Behavioral scientist Scott Geller. He and retired police officer Bobby Kipper have come up with a project to bring together local police and the people they serve.

Geller: Police officers have blue wrist bands engraved with the message “Actively Caring for People.” Each wristband has an ID number. If they see a citizen doing something nice – helping somebody else, they take off the wristband and they give it to the citizens and they thank them, and they say, “I appreciate what you’re doing; join our movement. It’s the Actively Caring for People Movement and it has unique ID number. Go to the website and report this story. By the way, don’t keep the wristband. You pass it on to somebody else who you see doing an active kindness.”
So we’re getting police officers involved in recognizing acts of kindness, and then helping the citizens see the value in that reward and then passing it on to somebody else when they see an act of kindness. We want to spread positive gossip.

So far, thirteen police departments have have signed up for the project. Their website is AC4Ppolicing.org. Pulse of the Planet is made possible in part by Virginia Tech, inventing the future, through a hands on approach to education and research.

Healing Police-Community Relations

A project to bring together local police and the people they serve.

Air Date:03/07/2017

Scientist:

Transcript:

Healing Police-Community Relations

ambience: police car siren
In many parts the country, relations between local citizens and police are at all time low. An effort is underway to try and heal this rift. I'm Jim Metzner and this is the Pulse of the Planet.

Geller: Behavioral scientists know that positive consequences are far more influential in improving behavior and attitude. And so what we're teaching police officers, and having them explore ways to use positive consequences to get people to do the right thing.

Behavioral scientist Scott Geller. He and retired police officer Bobby Kipper have come up with a project to bring together local police and the people they serve.

Geller: Police officers have blue wrist bands engraved with the message "Actively Caring for People." Each wristband has an ID number. If they see a citizen doing something nice - helping somebody else, they take off the wristband and they give it to the citizens and they thank them, and they say, "I appreciate what you're doing; join our movement. It's the Actively Caring for People Movement and it has unique ID number. Go to the website and report this story. By the way, don't keep the wristband. You pass it on to somebody else who you see doing an active kindness."
So we're getting police officers involved in recognizing acts of kindness, and then helping the citizens see the value in that reward and then passing it on to somebody else when they see an act of kindness. We want to spread positive gossip.

So far, thirteen police departments have have signed up for the project. Their website is AC4Ppolicing.org. Pulse of the Planet is made possible in part by Virginia Tech, inventing the future, through a hands on approach to education and research.