As we entered his office, I said to him, “This is really quite nice.” His office was extremely well appointed, tastefully decorated, and there were several compelling pieces of art on his walls, too. There was a noticeable absence of clutter on his desk. Everything was neat and orderly, nothing out of place or askew. In an attempt at being humorous—obviously nervous humor—I said, “You do realize, of course, that an office this neat isn’t normal? Some say a clean desk is a sign of a sick mind!”
Chief Dylan smiled. “It’s not the first time someone has suggested I might be something other than normal.”
I’d fully expected to find an office with a metal desk, a couple of well-worn chairs, and a shallow carpet of dust covering it all. Instead, I found an oasis of corporate opulence. Of course, if I’d used my head, I would’ve been able to predict the chief’s office would look this way. I guess old habits die hard—old stereotypes, too.
Chief Dylan was dressed impeccably. I knew it would be impolite, but I wanted desperately to ask who the designer was. Whoever it was had included hand-stitching around the collar of his jacket. The chief wore a crisp white shirt with French cuffs and an exquisite silk tie. Even his socks were elegant. I suddenly realized I wasn’t nervous any more. I’d relaxed and was completely at ease.
Chief Dylan sat in a chair next to the one he offered me. I’d expected him to sit behind his desk, which was huge, but only partially concealed an extremely comfortable-looking overstuffed leather chair.
“Sheri told me the artwork in the outer office belongs to you.”
“Yes, it does,” he said, “as do all the things you see in here.” He rotated from one side to the other as he motioned around the room with both hands held out just above shoulder height.
“All of it?” I asked.
“All of it,” he replied. “Some of the stuff the officers had before was in pretty poor condition. So I gave them the furnishings from this office and bought my own. The way I figure it, I spend twelve to fourteen hours a day in this building. I might as well be comfortable.”
“It certainly is that,” I was thinking to myself, when I realized I wasn’t thinking it, I was saying it out loud. Chief Dylan flashed me a toothy smile and said, “So what’s on your mind, Alan?”
“Well,” I replied, “one of my employees got into trouble a little while back and ended up in prison. He and I both realize what happened was wrong, and he’s accepted the consequences. But it got me to thinking about this whole criminal justice thing and the impact it has on all of us. That’s why I came to hear you speak the other night. It seems something is terribly wrong, but I don’t know exactly what it is. I thought perhaps you could provide me with some insight and point me in a direction that will help me understand the system better.”
He raised an eyebrow and said, “To tell you the truth, Alan, I’m just as confused as you are. You see, we have so much potential, but we don’t use it. We could do so much if only we’d try. Do you know what potential is?” he asked.
“Of course I do,” I said, “It’s having the power or ability to do some given thing. Basically, it’s an expression of possibility.”
“That’s very good,” he said. “Expression of possibility is the key. Potential, simply put, is nothing more than unused ability. If you have the potential to do something, it’s intimated that you haven’t actually done it yet. Wouldn’t you agree?”
“I suppose it does at that… yeah, I agree.”
“Therein lies part of the problem,” he said. “We’re so busy reveling in our high-tech potential that we’ve forgotten to put it to work in the criminal justice arena. We do a good job in the field of medicine, in space exploration and in the development of information systems. But we don’t apply the same energies to the work of policing. What I do is policing, and policing is community building.”
“You said that the other night.”
“I’ve been known to repeat myself on occasion,” he said, grinning. “Forgive me if you’ve heard this before. But, as I was saying, we’ve been entirely too focused on forcing the use of technology in policing and we haven’t spent nearly enough energy developing new processes.
“People aren’t as involved as they should be with the police, and current police conventions are antiquated. Police work can’t be done in a vacuum, Alan. And it can’t be done without thinking about the implications and consequences for the future. We have to be insightful enough to find solutions for next year’s problems today. The difficulties associated with today’s crime and disorder issues require a criminal justice solution that considers its effects on our tomorrows. Remember the Chamber meeting the other night? I told the group that Sir Francis Bacon once said: ‘It would be an unsound fancy and self-contradictory to expect that things which have never yet been done can be except by means which have never yet been tried’?”
“Yeah…”
“Well, if you think about it, you’ll realize that our possibilities are endless, provided we don’t restrain ourselves with arbitrary boundaries predicated on history or convention. Unfortunately, that’s exactly what we’ve done with criminal justice and—in particular—policing. If you want a different result, you have to do something different. We’ve tried precious little in policing by comparison to our talents. Instead, we generally allow ourselves to be ruled or controlled by the conventional thinking of the time. We tend to adhere to the predictions of individuals who rely on the past as a precursor for the future. We’ve developed a mindset akin to that of sheep. We allow ourselves to be herded mindlessly in a kind of chauvinistic devotion, having no idea of where we’re going.” Chief Dylan paused for a moment, then he asked, “Have you noticed that there are no pictures of previous police chiefs in my office or the reception area?”
“Sheri pointed that out when I first got here,” I said. “She told me there used to be a lot of pictures and police stuff on the walls and shelves.”
“That’s right. The entire operation was focused on the past. Past practices, past chiefs, past association presidents—all past tense.
“Alan, people have an innate fear and distrust of anything unfamiliar. As a result, we tend to resist change and limit ourselves to activities that we’ve previously undertaken. We seem to have a need to hold on to remnants of the past, to embrace the comfortable and familiar, even to extol it as if it were better because of its familiarity. Tradition guides our predilections, and the willingness by some to transcend tradition provokes disdain in others.
“However, this inexorable need to have such close connections to the past may severely limit our ability to positively affect the future. And our future is likely to be amazingly different than our past. It will undoubtedly engender a whole range of issues and circumstances requiring substantially new levels of thought and understanding.
“An extrapolist would have us believe that the future can be reasonably predicted by analyzing events of the past. But I’m here to tell you that, in light of new technologies, increased personal mobility, and dwindling resources, that perspective is somewhat suspect. The Industrial Age has been succeeded by an age of information, and the models and systems that worked in Industrial Age societies can no longer be counted on as reliable predictors for conditions likely to arise during this millennium. We can no longer afford to isolate ourselves in the past while trying to make predictions about the future.”
“Chief, you’re not suggesting that history isn’t important and that we should somehow attempt to move into the future without the benefits of the past, are you?”
“Of course I’m not,” he said. “What I’m suggesting is that our willingness to ground ourselves in the erroneous beliefs of the past may cause us to miss some wonderful