The CopDoc Podcast Bruce O'Brien, Ep 62, Assistant Commissioner, New Zealand Police, Session 2

Bruce O'Brien is an Assistant Commissioner with the New Zealand Police.  He is now responsible for the National Intelligence, Evidence-based Policing, and Roads Policing. 

A 20+ year veteran with the NZP, Bruce is pursuing a doctorate through the Canterbury Christ Church University.  

We spoke about policing, the issues in policing in New Zealand and across the Globe, innovation, the New Zealand Evidence-based Policing Center, technology, police legitimacy, and leadership.

Bruce can be reached by email at bruce.obrien@police.govt.nz  

#Leadership #Leadershipdevelopment #Evidencebasedpolicing #NewZealandPolice #BruceO'Brien #SteveMorreale #TheCopDoc Podcast # policing #lawenforcement #WorcesterStateUniversity

Contact us: copdoc.podcast@gmail.com

Website: www.copdocpodcast.com

If you'd like to arrange for facilitated training, or consulting, or talk about steps you might take to improve your leadership and help in your quest for promotion, contact Steve at stephen.morreale@gmail.com

Transcript

Intro: Welcome to the CopDoc Podcast. This podcast explores police leadership issues and innovative ideas. The CopDoc shares thoughts and ideas as he talks with leaders in policing communities, academia, and other government agencies. And now, please join Dr. Steve Morreale and industry thought leaders as they share their insights and experience on the CopDoc podcast.

Host (Steve Morreale): Hi again everybody. Steve Morreale coming to you from Boston and you're listening to the Cop Talk podcast. Today we have a second opportunity to talk with someone from down under in New Zealand. It is Bruce O'Brien. He is an assistant commissioner and we talked in our previous episode about so many things to try to understand the New Zealand police. So I want to say good morning to you. Good evening from here. There's what's 16  hour difference.

Guest (Bruce O'Brien): Yeah, it's about 16 hours, Steve. So, yeah, bit of a time difference, but it's still morning time here.

Host (Steve Morreale): That's great. Well, thank you. Thank you for joining us a second time. I really very much appreciate it. And so, as we talked the last time, you told us a bit about the New Zealand Police, how big it was, and the training, and the fact that you're an assistant commissioner, and you're responsible for a number of portfolios, the roads policing, intelligence, evidence-based policing, and other things. But one thing that that struck me in our last conversation and what's been going on with COVID is how adaptable and adept and flexible a police department had to be in order to survive COVID. You had to have new policies and you know protect protection and such. But I also know that even those of us in academia or we realize that we don't necessarily have to travel to accomplish things. So how did how what are the lessons that that the police department in New Zealand learned about COVID and remote working and all that kind of stuff. Talk about that.

Guest (Bruce O'Brien): Well, I think we had to be extremely agile like everybody. Um, one of the things that I think our organization did really well was we're able to set up most people that didn't need to be in the office to work remotely. So, a vast majority of people were able to work from home on a laptop that was connected to our secure network. which allowed people to stay safe. for those that were in a sort of essential roles that needed to come in, we obviously adopted the good health and safety practices around good cleaning practices and physical distances and keeping people in their work bubbles. So we weren't, you know, moving people around against with different colleagues. and we're fortunate, I think, in the respect that we're a national police service. So you sort of can keep a really good view on all of those activities from a national lens and good you know policy practice to keep people as safe as they can be. So I think that's one of the advantages of having a national police service but imagine 5 years ago you're saying you can work remotely. I mean imagine how so unusual that was for policing say what do you mean I'm a detective I can work from home or I'm in the intelligence unit and I can work from home. I mean, that had How do you wrap your head around that? I mean, we went through it, but what about you? There had to be some old-timers saying this is b*******.

Guest (Bruce O'Brien): Look, I I think you're right. If it had been five, even longer, we would have been I think in a bit of trouble in the sense that trying to keep people connected and I think what we would have had to have had is people actually in the office which obviously exposes them to further risk. the other thing we have in New Zealand police is every police officer has a mobility device or an iPhone that's connected to all our systems as well. So we can keep good connectivity that way and we've had mobility in New Zealand for some time now. So using technology is something that's not new for vast majority of our workforce even some of our longer-term staff as you sort of just indicated.

Host (Steve Morreale): So I want to go back to a time that I think probably attracted your attention and everybody around the world. our January 6th, basically the run on the Capitol in Washington DC. You're sitting there, you're watching it. You're a police officer, you're a person in command. What were you thinking?

Guest (Bruce O'Brien): I was shocked, Steve. I think like the rest of the world. I remember the day quite clearly actually. I was I was doing some work outside and I quite often will have the radio going while I'm working outside and I heard some breaking news about, you know, there was at the capital building and went inside and turned the news on and yeah, I was I was just shocked as everybody seen what was occurring. my thoughts immediately were to the to the police staff trying to one keep your politicians safe and all of their staff safe. But what would have been going through their minds at that stage as well because it appeared that that crowd were intent on causing harm to people and I think that showed in some of the aftermath of who was harmed and here was, you know, from what I could recall, there was some people had died as a result and I and I hear it sadly that some police officers taking their own lives post that incident. so I can only imagine that sense of desperation that was going through those police officers and those leaders heads at that stage of what was actually occurring in front of them.

Host (Steve Morreale): Well, you raised an interesting point where I never would have gone until you just said that. But in New Zealand with 10,000 sworn officers, constables, is suicide an issue? Is depression an issue? is wellness a focus?

Guest (Bruce O'Brien): Well, I think suicide and depression affects all walks of life and we're not immune to that here in New Zealand. unfortunately, we have had incidents where we've had police half take their own life and it's an absolute tragedy not only for them and their and their families but also their colleagues and everybody else that's affected. So we're not immune to it but we take wellness extremely seriously here in New Zealand. we've got a fantastic wellness team that have welfare officers based in all our police districts that our staff can reach out to when there's trouble in their either in their professional or personal lives. we have a range of support services that are available to our officers. be it counseling. and it doesn't have to be workrelated. It could be something that's happening in their personal lives. we provide counseling through confidential counselors. and then we've also got what we call the trauma policy which I'm thinking most most US services would have as well where if our officers are exposed to high levels of trauma be it a critical incident where lethal force may have been used or a a fleeing driver incident where it hasn't ended well those officers are referred to a counseling service to ensure that the right support mechanisms are being put in place for them. So we take it extremely seriously here.

Host (Steve Morreale): I'm glad to hear that. So you earlier told us that you were responsible for a relatively new evidence-based policing unit or center and intelligence. So, let's talk about the evidence-based policing center for a moment. You indicated that you were beginning to stand it up, that it was being staffed. Talk about what kinds of people, what kinds of skills those people need. Is it police officers, excuse me, constables, but sworn officers and civilians, civilian analysts? how is it pulled together?

Guest (Bruce O'Brien): So I'll sort of talk through I suppose the overall structure and then I'll and I'll get into the people bit in a sec. So the overall structure the way that we've sort of structured the center is we have a data science team so fundamentally data scientists that can construct our data and report our official statistics and we use them quite regularly on different projects that we may have running. and that's led by Chief data scientists. We've then got a traditional sort of police research team and within that team there's some performance analysts. So again we we're also responsible for reporting all our performance statistics for our organization as well. And we support official information act requests. So that's obviously members of the public or politicians or the media requests information or data from police. that's our responsibility as well. we have a delivering improvements team which are fundamentally a continuous improvement and lessons learned. so we try not to repeat mistakes over and over again. So that's their role of identifying those from across the organization and putting in treatments u to prevent that from happening again. We've got a evaluation implementation and an evaluation team. So implementation of research as you know is critically important. So a team that specifically focuses on how you implement and good research to ensure you're going to get you know be it data returns or structuring the surveys or whatever that needs to happen and whatever we're focusing on. and importantly as well making sure that going back to that legitimacy issue is that we're communicating with communities when we are conducting research in communities or with communities. Then we've got an EV valuation team that obviously evaluates our initiatives and our and our research. So as a collective they sort of all work together. Where I see where we've seen some of the greatest benefits with connecting that research and data and literature to the operational world is we've set up a group called the evidence-based policing leads which are predominantly constabulary members. So sworn members that are that conduit between the front line or the operational piece back to our center of academics and experts. and they're sort of that gap bridge the gap between those two worlds.

Host (Steve Morreale): So those if I can interrupt those leads are in the districts.

Guest (Bruce O'Brien): Yeah. So we've got them based in the districts. they're part of our center but we actually have them based out in the districts. And you know if for instance a neighborhood policing team wanted to set up a an initiative for or some research in a in a small neighborhood, that team or their officer that's in that district can go out and work with them about, you know, this is how you could should be collecting your data. This is the type of data you should be collecting, this is how it should be structured, this is the implementation, the best way to implement this is how you should evaluate it. so they really able to provide that on the spot advice and if they don't necessarily have those expertise, then they can tap back into the center and it might be a case of sending a researcher out to that location or a data scientist out to that location to work with that team on whatever their problem is. So that's where I've seen some of the greatest traction for us is because the operational part of the business see another operational cop that understands the challenges that they may have and can sort of translate that back into the evidence-based policing center. So it's been a it's been a really good model for here in New Zealand. Anyway.

Host (Steve Morreale): well, I don't use the word brilliant very often. I did a lot when I was in Ireland, in the UK, but that's brilliant. I have to say that's an amazing I mean, that's so smart that you it actually creates a feeder system like you said, a conduit and it bridges. So, that that's just amazing. I'm happy to hear that. So, you described the number of people. First of all, this evidence I'm glad I asked because this evidence-based policing center has an awful lot of different jobs. and roles and responsibilities. Do does the New Zealand police have at the district level or at the national level the equivalent of our comstat or something similar where you are it's an accountability. It's a it's a monthly meeting where we're talking about what's going on. Tell us about that.

Guest (Bruce O'Brien): Yeah. So, so we don't have I I'm fully aware of the compstat concept. we have what we call tasking coordination. So, we what we What feeds that meeting is what we call critical command information. So that could be and it's a monthly it's a monthly cycle. So we have a premeating. So it's a bit of a scanning meeting about understanding what's going on in the environment. and that's connected into our districts as well. So we know what's going on the operational and strategic environments. that's sort of fed through a process and insights report which is bringing all those strands of information be it demand performance information. what the latest research tells us. what the latest intelligence tells us on that specific topic. understanding what our current resources are. If we're sort of forecasting out to understand if you know if this problem's going to occur and you know if we were doing the meeting now and we know this problem's likely to occur in December, what what's our available resources going to look like. And it's sort of all sort of compiled into a and into a one report which we call the insights report and you can sometimes depending on the issue you might have multiple insights reports for that particular meeting that goes up to what we call our strategic tasking coordination meeting which is attended by executive members so your assistant commissioners deputy commissioners and those topics are discussed and decisions are made trade-off decisions are made so you know issue A might have more of a priority than issue B so those trade-off decision can be made and resources are allocated because I think that's really important. You can talk about these priorities as much as you want, but unless you allocate resources and accountability to them you're unlikely to sort of see any traction. And then to support that entire process we've just completed a redesign of our operational performance framework which is combination of different metrics both quantitative from qualitative that sort of sit in a dashboard. that measures our outcomes around our key priorities which is safe roads, safe homes and safe communities. So it's a it's a it's similar but we don't sort of just focus on numbers. we sort of look at a whole lot of different other things and especially that qualitative community sentiment is really important as well.

Host (Steve Morreale): I mean this is some heavy duty thinking and approach and you know me meetings. And I think so many people would who think of police don't necessarily understand how much time and energy and effort is put into a well-run police department that is constantly in a state of seeking improvement. And that's what I'm impressed with what you're saying. You're shaking your head. Did do you find that when you walked into the more top the top levels?

Guest (Bruce O'Brien): Yeah, look, it's we're always looking to improve it. Um, as any process, sometimes you'll have your challenges. Um, and we're always looking to improve it. I'm fortunate that my team that's we're fundamentally responsible for a large proportion of delivering that every month. I'm very fortunate. I've got fantastic people that are really motivated are always looking at ways to improve what we're doing to give the executive members the best opportunity to make those good decisions so we can actually have that impact. So, it's a it's a really good process. Um, it's pretty disciplined. You've got to you've got to be really disciplined about it because as we all know in policing, you want to do everything, but sometimes you've got to make some pretty key decisions about you can't do everything and what what's the greatest impact that we can have on on whatever the problem is in front of us.

Host (Steve Morreale): Well, what and what we say and what the saying is if there if everything's a priority, nothing's a priority because we spin our wheels. So, so you have to it seems to me that you and your colleagues are constantly looking at what has to be done what can be done and resetting priorities which I which I think is pretty interesting. So we talked about procedural justice previously and you were talking about surveys. I presume that you're doing surveys both inside and outside the organization. Is that a fair assessment?

Guest (Bruce O'Brien): Yeah, so we're definitely focusing on outside of the organization. So there's an annual survey that our Ministry of Justice publish annually. It's called a the crime and victim survey, a New Zealand crime and victim survey. last year we began working with the Ministry of Justice about getting a police module included in there. So there are sort of there's about 16 key questions that we want answered about things such as the level of trust and confidence that people have in the police New Zealand police, but broken down into you know certain de demographics and ethnicities and geographic location so we can get a really good insight on trust and confidence. We've included questions around legitimacy to ensure that the community is you know are identifying where we are legitimate or where there's areas for improvement. you know our response rates there's some questions around our response rates to certain emergencies. So that is going to be published later this year. they're all face to face interviews. so it's a really good way for us to sort of test community sentiment and understand what the wider community are thinking because I think if you look at some of the traditional surveys that different police services have done and we've done in the past as well the sort of that citizen satisfaction once they've had a contact with police.

Host (Steve Morreale): but we want to know about the other people in the community that may not have reported a crime to police. So they've been victimized but they haven't reported because you know they might not have trust and confidence or they may not think police are going to do anything about it. So they are the people we're trying to reach with this survey at present. So procedural justice I'm sure you've heard bandied about that in order for it to work procedural justice has to be inside an organization and outside. I don't know if you've ever heard I presume we're all in the same big police family that sometimes the most difficult thing to do for a police officer is to protect themselves from the needling and from the badgering from inside the organization and that many of you will walk out the door and saying I can deal with the people outside way more than I can in the backstabbing on the inside. It sounds like there's been some discussion or some of that experience that you've had down there. Is that something that you talk about to make sure that that the people that you are hiring are treated properly so that when they go out go out and in and interact with your customer, if you will, the public, that they're not walking in with a sort of a negative connotation because their boss was just busting their jack their chops.

Guest (Bruce O'Brien): Yeah. So, we do we focus heavily on it. It's all about your culture, right? if you don't have good internal culture, you're not going to have external good external culture as well. So, we've been on a journey on it. so, we've got to sort of I suppose help us and put a framework around how we build that positive culture within our organization. we've got the New Zealand Police High Performance Framework which sort of focuses on sort of key areas around culture is a biggie the responsibilities of leadership for our leaders. So you know how united you make your team and there's a whole lot of tools that sit in behind each of the frameworks that leaders and individuals can use to sort of test that because you can have the best laid plans and the best laid policies but you actually got to test it. So we have these things called culture sessions where if I'm a sergeant for instance you know I can sit down with my team there's some key questions that everybody has an opportunity to sort of answer and there things around you know how united are we as a team and you sort of score yourself and there's a bit of a matrix and then you once you've scored your team and you everybody has an opportunity to talk through why they scored the team that way. there's things around how account how accountable are we individually and but how also accountable are we as a collective to what we say we're going to do. So each of the each of the teams right up to strategic level we've got our strategic performance template. So it talks about what we're going to do over the next 3 to six months and then the outcomes that we're looking for in that 12 month period. So you can sort of um.

Host (Steve Morreale): you're measuring you can measure it.

Guest (Bruce O'Brien): Yeah. Hold yourself hold yourself and your team to to account and it's really transparent. So there's nothing hidden. It's very transparent for everybody to see what they're responsible for and it all sort of links back to our strategy on a page called our business that we have in New Zealand Police that everybody understands what the strategic direction is for the organization, what are the priorities and how are we going to do it. we've had our business now for about five or six years, but it's the first time in my time in policing that a police service strategic intent isn't 50 pages long that nobody sort of reads.

Host (Steve Morreale): you know, our business is in every single police station. U it's up on walls in people's office. It's a one page, as I say, and everybody sort of knows where they fit in and what they have to do for us to achieve the goals that we're after. I continue to be impressed with you the answers and the things that you're doing down there. , one thing I wanted to know is there an oversight organization for the New Zealand Police?

Guest (Bruce O'Brien): Yeah. So, we there's what we call the independent police conduct authority. So, they're our oversight body. So, when there's a critical incident or such as people can make complaints independently to this oversight body, they sit outside of police. So, if people are dissatisfied with service or they they've seen behavior that they haven't been happy with. They can report that independently to the independent police conduct authority. They are also we have mandatory obligations to report things such as where we've used lethal force or we may have used force force and somebody's become seriously injured. death in custody, those type of events got we're mandated to report that to them and then they can conduct an independent investigation. off police.

Host (Steve Morreale): and to see how we have adhered to policy practice legislation etc. Okay. So let me before we get to intelligence and we move to the end of this session I'm curious to know if you can tell me while you were on patrol or a sergeant one of the craziest things something that would make you laugh when you came upon a call. What what's the craziest call that you have seen? that that kind of brings a chuckle to your to your face?

Guest (Bruce O'Brien): Oh, there's been many, Steve. Um, I think it's probably your colleagues, some of the characters that you work with. Um, and I think we've all got stories that we may not want to share.

Host (Steve Morreale): I got you. You can keep them to yourselves, but that's good.

Guest (Bruce O'Brien): But but look, there's I think policing you're provided with the highs and lows of life. some of the most tragic events and then some of the funniest events that you you'll sort of see. But for me it's been the characters that I have worked with over the years and I continue to work with that I suppose coming make coming to work bearable at times especially those night shifts that we used to all have to work and away from family events and social gatherings etc. And it's the people that you work with and you make lifelong friends from.

Host (Steve Morreale): So we're talking to Bruce O'Brien, assistant commissioner in New Zealand Police Department. So, one thing that came to mind when you were saying that, "Have you, Bruce, ever had to chase an animal that has gotten out of a pen?"

Guest (Bruce O'Brien): I remember having to chase a cow that had got out of pen and it was running all over a highway and I think the public were probably having a laugh at my expense because I've never grown up on a farm. So, apart from domesticated animals, I'm not very good with those. ones that sort of don't listen to you. So, yes, I have. Steve.

Host (Steve Morreale): a little stubborn, was it? So, how did you finally capture it?

Guest (Bruce O'Brien): I actually had to rely on an animal control officer to arrive. So, all I was doing at the time was trying to keep traffic away from it. But, it certainly didn't want to listen to me. So, I had to wait for an expert to come out and deal with it.

Host (Steve Morreale): I will tell you that my story was there was a pig that got out and they are slimy as hell and I'm telling you, they move and I'm I'm sorry to say this was many years ago and the statute of limitations has run but the way I was trying to get its attention was to hit it with a baton and every time I hit it with a baton it would squeal as we say squeal like a peak and I and ultimately like you the farmer came and he had some food I didn't have any food and lured him back in and that was the crazy part just a little.

Guest (Bruce O'Brien): you would have you would have learned something.

Host (Steve Morreale): I did I did I did so let's finish up with your intelligence unit and the things that you're doing there. what I what I'd be curious to know is so you talked about you know police intelligence that's one but obviously you're doing intelligence to protect the community your country from terrorism and any number of other particular threats including violent extra extremism and such. tell us about what that unit is like.

Guest (Bruce O'Brien): Yeah so again it's multi-disciplined it's amongst of collections officers and analysts and they work from a what we call the National Intelligence Center which I'm responsible for the day-to-day operation of. So that's based in in in Wellington. and that also sets I suppose the policy and practice and craftsmanship of intelligence for our operators across the country. so each district will have a intelligence team as well. So, we sort of set those standards and work with them and support them for different operations at a national level or a local level operation. We'll support them with either intelligence products or analytical capability. and then obviously we work with a range of different partners as well to ensure that we're keeping people safe in New Zealand and yeah.

Host (Steve Morreale): So, you working with other countries.

Guest (Bruce O'Brien): Well, New Zealand's part of the obviously the Five Eyes intelligence community. So, yeah, we do work with our colleagues in different parts of the world on issues around safety. the other thing that our intelligence team are really good at is supporting our task and coordination model that I sort of talked about a little bit earlier. with providing those insights about what is happening in those communities and they can provide some really detailed analytical capability for us to really get in and understand the problem. and where I think evidence-based policing offers that I suppose complementing support is assessing the impacts of what we go out do so you know you provide the insights and foresight about what's likely to occur.

Guest (Bruce O'Brien): the decisions made about well how we're going to deal with that in in regards to the response and then evidence-based policing can actually assess that response and actually understand if we did have any impact. if we did why did we and if we didn't why didn't we so we're not sort of repeating the same mistakes. again and that's working really well I'm really encouraged by the way that the two directors that lead those two teams work together being mindful that they've got their individual disciplines as well. Um.

Host (Steve Morreale): they're not the same but they complement each other extremely well. So would you say there's a nexus? You just you just said there is that intelligence and evidence-based policing the directors are working hand in hand where there's where there's opportunity but intelligence led policing versus evidence-based policing. Is there a crosswalk between that?

Guest (Bruce O'Brien): Oh, definitely. I definitely think so. I we've taken a very sort of call it mixed methods approach to evidence-based policing in New Zealand. So we definitely adhere to the key principles that you know Larry sort of laid out in 98 when we sort of first talked about EBP.

Guest (Bruce O'Brien): but we've sort of taken the real sort of approach around there. There's opportunities in problem orientated policing intelligence led policing. so we've sort of been quite open to using a range of different I suppose disciplines depending on what the problem is.

Host (Steve Morreale): Mh.

Guest (Bruce O'Brien): so being quite flexible around that. So that's one thing we've been quite mindful of is sometimes you have to look to different methods to understand what the issue is that you're facing and to find the best evidence available.

Guest (Bruce O'Brien): So, you'll quite often hear we have an annual event although we haven't been able to have it this year called the evidence-based policing problem orientated awards and it's a combination of problem orientated policing and evidence-based policing in a community level and we acknowledge officers from across the country that have worked with communities on community problems and initiatives and they sort of have to show us the process I've gone through either the SAR process or Larry's triple T process. So they actually have to show demonstrate the methodology that they've used and then they talk about the outcome and we acknowledge them in an annual award. So we were quite fortunate last year we had an annual event in in Wellington before sort of co kicked off and it was it was fantastic not only to acknowledge the officers themselves for the work they've done but the community that come along to the awards that have been working with the officers.

Host (Steve Morreale): Oh, that's great.

Guest (Bruce O'Brien): Yeah.

Host (Steve Morreale): so and what you're doing then is rewarding what you want to see more of and because part of what I'm thinking as you're talking is, you know, how much and how much of a difficulty is it for you as the leader of this particular group EBP to drive it through the organization and part of what you're saying by reward by rewarding we all want pat on the back that that can be very beneficial to help evidence-based policing spread. Is that a fair statement?

Guest (Bruce O'Brien): Definitely. I think you have to acknowledge when people have gone out and sometimes the methodology might not be perfect, but at least I've yeah tried to give it a go and or reached out for some support. So acknowledging it. probably one of the big successes and it's just an individual example, but we had a very experienced very early on actually when I started in the role, we had a very experienced detective come and see me about a problem. they were responsible for methamphetamine and at a national level and the impact that it was having on the environment and individuals and were becoming increasingly frustrated that a lot of the evidence that they had was anecdotal. So they'd go off to different meetings and it might be trying to get funding for a particular program or some buy in for a for an initiative and the question was always sort of well what's your evidence or what's the data telling you and it was always very anecdotal. So they reached out to us and to have a seasoned detective come and say look can research and data help me because I've been grappling with this problem for 10 years and long story but we ended up setting up a piece of research about the impacts of methamphetamine in New Zealand and it was multi-disipline. So we've got from our drug foundation, Ministry of Health. we've got academics on the on the steering group, operational cops, and we've just done our first traunch which is a literature review on gray literature from New Zealand and and internationally from police services and academics. And we sort of pulled that into a a summary which has got some really interesting findings that will have impact for not only police but other agencies. And then we're moving into the second and third tranches which is actually some applied research out in the community about what treatment options actually work for people because we know that depending on your need particular treatment might not necessarily assist that person with their addiction. So yeah, it was a really good example of how somebody that you probably wouldn't traditionally want to reach out for assistance because they're an expert in their field but saw an opportunity and they'll be one of the big supporters of evidence-based policing for me. So that person's told 10 people, I've told 10 people and it sort of grows that way.

Host (Steve Morreale): Yeah. And I think it's so commendable to see the willingness of the organization to reach out outside the organization and you know I mean that's a force multiplier when you do that which is absolutely amazing. So just to wrap up with this it seems to me that in the intelligence side of things or even evidence-based you're talking about any everything from fentanyl to terror you said methamphetamine gun drugs, human trafficking, robbery, burglary, you know, all of the all of the hotspot issues that you have. Are there people who are specialists or becoming specialists in that area?

Guest (Bruce O'Brien): Each of those are. definitely. Yeah. Yeah. We definitely have our experts and you know, we manage the child sex offender register in in our group as well and you know, we've got some experts in that field that understand what drives behaviors and can identify risk before happens and. so yeah it's it intelligence is very specialized and there's obviously areas within intelligence become even more specialized. So yeah I'm very fortunate I've got a fantastic team down here.

Host (Steve Morreale): Great. So what do you think are the three issues you're working on that police are trying to address? What do you see on that on the horizon?

Guest (Bruce O'Brien): So the big one is our understanding policing delivery which is the piece around where bias may exist in police. and how and how we can mitigate that because as I've sort of said earlier on the last podcast is it's an issue policing is facing globally is legitimacy. and I still see it you know you see different movements around defunding police etc. Well that's from my perspective is only going to create more harm. So we have to understand their concerns and how we can address those So I think that's the first one. the second one is I think cyber crime is going to become a big challenge for policing globally. Again I read something recently actually they were saying prediction in the UK that more people will be victimized online than burglary and theft. So I think globally police are going to have to be very agile in working with partners. So the big tech firms um.

Guest (Bruce O'Brien): on prevention measures. I don't think invest we'd never be able to keep up with the volume of the investigation. So I think the prevention is going to be critically important about keeping people safe online. especially our younger people that can be exploited some of the romance scams that you see sort of cropping up people sort of getting money taken off them and obviously it's going to continue to grow with the use of technology. Everyone's got a smartphone these days and.

Guest (Bruce O'Brien): so I think that's is going to be a big challenge. and then the other thing I think will be really interesting is just how wider technology becomes sort of second nature for policing be it body worn cameras. I think it sort of feeds back into that legitimacy argument around police being more transparent with their data and what the public expects from police and behavior. So I think technology in that space is going to continue to grow which sort of comes back to the style of policing that as a police service you want to have with your community and so that they do have that trust and confidence and again we sort of talked on legitimacy quite a bit but I do think it's you know without it your job becomes extremely hard to do and that's from doing a basic investigation trying to get people to come forward and be witnesses about what they may may not have seen. And if they don't trust the police, they're less likely to do that right through to obviously solving crime and holding people to account.

Guest (Bruce O'Brien): that have done things to cause harm in their communities.

Host (Steve Morreale): You know, as you were talking about technology, the one that just flew through my mind was the use of drones and how valuable they are in emergencies. You know, that they can fly over and see and they can see in advance where we're going and it can come back to your machine. presume you're using some of that technology.

Guest (Bruce O'Brien): Yeah. So, we've done some trials more around scene reconstruction. so, you know, as an example, you know, you might have a serious or a fatal car crash on a busy highway.

Guest (Bruce O'Brien): now, to close that road down for a long period of time while you map it and and do the preliminary investigation can be quite problematic, especially in your big city centers. So, we've have looked at what drone technology is available to map those scenes to give us the best opportunity to collect the best evidence but also to ensure that we can free up the roads to keep people moving.

Host (Steve Morreale): That's a very interesting use of drones. So, a couple of questions that we'll go back to leadership and then we'll we'll let you go and continue your day.

Host (Steve Morreale): What do you know now in your position that you wish you knew earlier as a leader? What are the things that you begin to do now that you didn't even realize you should be doing to motivate people to get things done? What comes to mind?

Guest (Bruce O'Brien): I think when you first start your leadership journey, there's an expectation that you probably put on yourself that you should know everything. Um, and what I've learned the longer I've been in leadership positions is you really need to work as a collective with not only your peers, And but there's a range of experts and I and I've touched on academia, but there's a range of people inside and outside of police. It may not be police officers, but they've got a whole lot of different skills and they're only too willing to help. So from my perspective is as a leader you've got to be really strategic about how you solve problems and utilizing a range of expertise to come to those decisions rather than sort of just thinking that you have to know everything yourself. So that's probably the biggest thing that I've taken on board.

Host (Steve Morreale): Great. So last question. If you had a chance to sit down for a conversation with anyone who's famous that you admire alive or who has passed, who would it be and why?

Guest (Bruce O'Brien): for me it would be Winston Churchill. And why I say that I've read a lot about Churchill and I suppose the position that Great Britain were in in the Second World war. Um, and I suppose the decision that Winston Churchill made at that at that point, um, not everybody I don't think would have made the same decision. So, I'll be just really interested in the process that he went through, if there was a process.

Guest (Bruce O'Brien): Um, how he how he come to sort of those decisions about the next steps for Great Britain when they were in that midst of that um, predicament. So, um, that would be me would be sit down and probably have a cup of tea with Winston. So, we've been talking with Bruce O'Brien and he is in New Zealand this morning. We're talking to him from Boston where it's evening, early evening and he is an assistant commissioner with the New Zealand Police. I want to thank you for being here, but I also want to ask you what you might suggest to people since you are an advocate and probably an early adopter of evidence-based policing. What do you say to people who are scratching their head about what this is and what it can and be for an agency?

Guest (Bruce O'Brien): So, what I'd say is there's not every agency is going to be able to set up an evidence-based policing unit. So, that would be my first thing. But that's that doesn't necessarily stop you from using the principles of evidence-based policing or problem orientated policing or just basic research and data to inform your decision- making. there's a range of people across the globe now that are only willing to help both in academia and policing. I think there's some really good resources out there now. be it the pop center online, even Google Scholar.

Guest (Bruce O'Brien): but what I would strongly suggest is go down to your local university and have a chat and see what capability that they might have or interest that they have in policing. And I think that's a really good step. And even if you can set up just one research program with a local university, I think you'd be really surprised some of the benefits that you'd see. So, yeah, we're very fortunate down here in New Zealand that we've got this evidence-based policing center and it's become a integral part of our organization, but like I say, there's academics, every academic that I've come across is only willing to help and they're really willing given the important nature of police work and what we what we provide to our communities.

Host (Steve Morreale): Well, thank you very much, Bruce. I really appreciate you taking the time, having the opportunity to talk with you two times. I do believe that we'll be talking again, but to open the world as you have to us in this small podcast, I absolutely appreciate you reaching back out, being willing to talk. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you.

Guest (Bruce O'Brien): No, thank you, Stephen. And it's great to be able to talk and like I say, I'm more than happy for anybody that wants to have an email conversation or even a phone call about any advice or ideas that they might have and I can definitely support them with what we've been doing down here. Thank you very much.

Host (Steve Morreale): So, you've been listening to another episode of the CopDoc podcast. I'm Steve Morreale in Boston. We've been listening to Bruce O'Brien from the New Zealand Police.

Outro: Thank you for listening. Appreciate your support and we're getting some great feedback. Keep it up. More episodes will follow.

Thanks for listening to the Cop podcast with Dr. Steve Morreale. Steve is a retired law enforcement practitioner and manager turned academic and scholar from Worcester State University. Please tune in to the CopDoc Podcast for regular episodes of interviews with thought leaders in policing.