Today’s topic of discussion comes from Howard Community College.
Howard Community College Professor, Howard County Police partner to reduce use-of-force interactions
Howard Community College Criminal Justice Assistant Professor Eric L. Clark, a retired United States Marshals Service employee who developed the E.A.S.E program during his service in the agency, encourages using effective communication to decompress tensions, minimize physical force, and achieve productive detention, investigatory, and custodial outcomes with the public.
Did you know that HCC was on Substack? Now you do. I just subscribed.
howardcommunitycollege.substack.com
Criminal Justice Assistant Professor Eric L. Clark, image from HCC social media
You can hear Clark talk about the E.A.S.E. protocol in two short videos.
1. HCC Pathways
The second video goes into the specifics of what E.A.S.E. teaches, step by step.
Clark is partnering with the Howard County Police to teach these de-escalation techniques. Furthermore, he sees broader applications for the program.
We want a Police Institute at HCC where we can train the rest of the state on these de-escalation techniques.
I honestly didn’t know until now that one could study Criminal Justice at HCC so this is all new to me. I have a few thoughts.
1. How does this work when the person in question is in a mental health crisis? Or if they are autistic or developmentally disabled? Is that a part of this training? Because the process Clark lays out is going to be profoundly altered by those possibilities.
2. How does this work when it is the law enforcement officer who needs de-escalating?
3. Does this (and can this) address the ongoing pattern of racist violence against Black Americans at the hands of law enforcement officers?
DOJ will investigate Sonya Massey shooting, Sean Crawford, NPR Illinois
Sonya Massey called police because she feared for her own safety and one of the responding offices shot her to death in her own home. A preliminary investigation into that officer’s service record shows a pattern of violence from job to job.
How do you de-escalate that?
I am not discounting Clark or the work that he is doing. I don’t know anywhere near enough to pass any judgement whatsoever. But I despair of a criminal justice system that continues to produce outcomes that leave a trail of death in the Black community. That’s never going to be acceptable.
Who de-escalates the de-escalators?
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