Imagine that you are an industrial designer being given the assignment of designing products and systems that would allow future police forces to balance empathy with authority in law enforcement. To do so you would have to consider what human characteristics, needs and interests should be considered when evolving the police force of today into a more empathetic model for tomorrow. You would need an understanding of visual, tactile, safety, and convenience criteria; and concern for all users would have to thoroughly though through. Psychological, physiological and sociological factors regarding a new empathy model for the enforcing of laws would also have to be weighed and calculated.
Which means to truly understand you would need to travel with police forces in various parts of the country, in many different situations of law enforcement. You would have to witness what can enhance human empathy between police and citizens as well as what erodes empathy, both from the police officer's point of view, as well as from the citizens that they are engaging with. In designing a new empathy model it would be worth reading Humanity: A Moral History of the Twentieth Century by Jonathan Glover. Glover spent the better part of ten years researching what erodes our moral identity and what builds empathy in human beings.
Every aspect of the interface between people and police officers would have to be explored in designing a more empathetic model. The environments and neighborhoods where police travel, whether they are patrolling on foot or in police cars. As an example of how a more futuristic empathetic model could help the police let's look at one small slice of a police officers job. Giving out tickets for speeding and other violations on roadways. Look at the rack of many flashing lights that look like a frenzied, hyper light show on top of most police cars. Just looking at the amount of lights flashing could raise blood pressure and cause anxiety. From an industrial design point of view, all the flashing lights would increase stress in encounters between police and citizens. In the future police officers could have the option of one single flashing orb that would change from blue/green calming colors for human beings or a red orb that could communicate something more urgent. Sirens could whoop loudly if need be or have a more a calming vibrato sound that could be used to calm people in high stress situations. Police uniforms could retain their authority through use of badges but evolve to a less militaristic model. Ultimately what would evolve, through thoughtful considerations of product and systems, is a model with a much better balance between authority and empathy. The outcome of which would be a less stressful more respectful experience for police officers and the people they serve.
Of course we are not quite there yet with this level of empathy in our human engagements with each other. The first place to start is choosing to make empathy a priority, to be more conscious of our collective humanity. In a recent speech President Obama spoke of the need for more empathy in the world. "We have the opportunity to make a habit of empathy, to recognize ourselves in each other, to commit ourselves to resisting injustice and intolerance and indifference, in whatever forms they may take..."
Evolving into a more empathy model in our police forces, corporations, institutions, foreign policies, school systems, government agencies and the like would do more to shift our world than any other dynamic. The possibility for less misunderstanding in the world at large, would over time, lessen wars, reduce -terrorism, racism, sexism, and classism.
Goodbye to the too narrow police authoritarian modelHello to the expanded police authoritarian/empathy model
Goodbye to citizens and police lacking understanding of each otherHello to citizens and police reaching an understanding of each other
Goodbye to the habit of indifference in communitiesHello to the habit of empathy in communities