The CopDoc Podcast: Aiming for Excellence in Leadership
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The CopDoc Podcast delves into police leadership and innovation. The focus is on aiming for excellence in the delivery of police services across the globe.
Dr. Steve Morreale is a retired law enforcement practitioner, a pracademic, turned academic, and scholar from Worcester State University. Steve is the Program Director for LIFTE, Command College - The Leadership Institute for Tomorrow's Executives at Liberty University.
Steve shares ideas and talks with thought leaders in policing, academia, community leaders, and other related government agencies. You'll find Interviews with thought leaders drive the discussion to improve police services and community relationships.
The CopDoc Podcast: Aiming for Excellence in Leadership
Charting the Course of Progressive Police Leadership in Portland, Maine with Chief Mark Dubois
Season 6 - Episode 130
Discover the progressive leadership approach that's reshaping the Portland, Maine Police Department. We had a conversation with Chief Mark Dubois and talked about starting his career as a part-time dispatcher, rising through the ranks in several Massachusetts police agencies to become the head of Maine's largest police force. Chief Dubois opens up about his educational pursuits and the mentors who've shaped his policing philosophy.
In an era where the role of law enforcement is under intense scrutiny, Chief Dubois shares the complexities of modern policing, discussing the management of homeless encampments and the opioid crisis.
Our chat tackles the real-world challenges and triumphs of leadership in times of adversity. Dubois relates the critical need for cross-sector collaboration to address societal challenges effectively, and the delicate balance of improving community relations while navigating the evolving dynamics of public service.
The chat with Portland's Mark Dubois will help your understanding of the forces that drive effective police leadership and the intricacies of departmental restructuring with this episode. We discuss staffing strategies, departmental restructuring, and the challenges of transitioning to a new leadership role in an unfamiliar city.
You should gain valuable insights from Chief Dubois' experience, which highlights the importance of being both a pillar of strength for his team and a proactive force for change in the community. Don't miss this exploration into the experiences that have shaped a police chief's career, offering a unique vantage point on the road to progressive leadership in law enforcement.
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
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.
Steve Morreale:Well, hello again everybody. This is Steve Morreale. I'm coming to you from Boston today and we're heading up to Maine, the state of Maine. We're talking to Mark Dubois and he is the new police chief in Portland, Maine, one of the largest cities, the largest city in Maine, and he's been around. So good morning to you, Mark. (G ood morning, Steve.) Thanks so much for being here. It means an awful lot. As I said earlier to you, you're in the big city, and by standards of Boston or New York certainly not. But in Maine, portland is a big city. It's the cultural center, it's the financial center, there are schools there, you've got the port, you've got all kinds of things going on artsy-fartsy stuff and now you're the chief of police in Portland and you started in July. What I'd like you to do is please tell us your trajectory, your steps and taking many, many jobs. You've been a police chief now in three different places.
Mark Dubois :Yeah, it's been 33 years actually. So I started off with just. I knew I wanted to be a police officer. I was very fortunate to meet a police chief as he left, who ended up becoming a very good friend and a great mentor. So I worked for a private investigator in Bill Baker, former chief of Southboro, Mass, and his resume is pretty extensive so I can't really go down a path with where he's been. But he hired me as a private investigator in a civilian setting and then he shortly thereafter left and became the police chief in Sutton, mass. I went to high school. I grew up in Oxford, just south of Worcester, so it was right next door. So anyhow, Bill became the police chief in Sutton, hired me as a part-time dispatcher. Bill became the police chief and hired me as a part-time dispatcher and then I became a part-time officer and what I know now and what I knew then it's scary because they put you in a uniform. We had a 96-hour training academy and I went out on the road and I was in a cruiser by myself and I was the second officer on the night shift for quite a while. So I did that for a stretch Simultaneously.
Mark Dubois :Believe it or not, I was working at the Worcester County House of Correction. So for about a year I worked three to 11 at the House of Correction and I worked midnight to eight in Sutton. And it was just I wanted to get into full-time policing and the opportunities kind of came together and I just said the heck with it. So I did both for a while and then I had the opportunity to dispatch for the state police in Framingham and back then I think everybody wanted to be a trooper. So I said, well, this is a great opportunity to get into that organization. So I did that.
Mark Dubois :And while I was doing that, so I left the jail and I stayed in Sutton part-time. Bill had moved on to a state level position. I conveniently had free tuition. So I got my associate's degree at Quinnigamond Community College in Worcester pretty much for free because I was a state employee. So I worked midnight to eight and then went to school full-time during the day, got that knocked out and then my first real police job I think is the way I look at it is I got hired by the town of Northborough, was that?
Steve Morreale:Ken, was that Ken Hutchins?
Mark Dubois :Yeah, ken was probably the best boss I ever had for any long-term. Just an amazing person, great guy. It's funny we talk about him as he wasn't really a boss. He was like your grandfather, who you did not want to disappoint. You were ashamed if you made him feel bad. He ran the police department that way, which was so effective because you just had so much respect for him. You didn't want to let him down.
Mark Dubois :And during that time I went to Westfield State at night. They actually had a satellite program in Framingham State so the professors would come out there to Westfield the Westfield professors. So I did that was working patrol nights in Northborough. And in 1996, my first son was born and I told my wife I was going to go to law school. She said you're crazy and I'm like well, we're gonna have to do it. So 1997, I started New England School of Law, New England Law Now it's New England Law in Boston, working nights and watching my son during the day. So it was like fun.
Mark Dubois :And then, after seven years in Northborough, I lived in Shrewsbury and Shrewsbury was like probably twice the size of Northborough. And I think from day one I've always loved doing this job and the excitement that comes with it, the interest, the variety of things you get involved with and all that. And Shrewsbury was very appealing to me because it was a pretty big place. Interestingly enough, I had taken the civil service exam and I lived in Worcester when I was working in Northborough for a short period of time, so I actually had an opportunity to go to Worcester PD, which thinking back, I probably should have. Probably would have really liked it there. But I felt so obligated to Ken Hutchins in Northborough for the opportunity he gave me I felt horrible leaving so I just kind of turned it down and stayed about another four years in Northborough and then ended up going to Shrewsbury. And in the meantime I was still going to law school. So I went to Shrewsbury. Kind of transition time. Law school was four years at night. So I went to Shrewsbury.
Mark Dubois :Finished law school, I got promoted to sergeant about two years in being in Shrewsbury. So I had about eight or nine years as an officer by then. Both part-time and full-time Became a sergeant and then five years later I became a lieutenant. Finished law school, was practicing law and realized that I really did not like practicing law. I was working a lot, just putting a lot of hours in during the day. I had an office in Worcester I shared with people. So I had a guy that I worked with who was in the Army Reserve as a judge advocate. So he convinced me or kind of explained it to me. So I joined the Army when I was 39. (No kidding) Yeah, s o I've been in the Army Reserve now for 18 years. So I'm a judge advocate. I'm currently a Lieutenant Colonel, so as a judge advocate it's just a lawyer for the Army. So I did that. I left when I was a Lieutenant and joined. I was gone for probably six months. My wife is very tolerant of some of these adventures I've taken.
Steve Morreale:You're not one for taking a break, are you?
Mark Dubois :No, I've been pretty busy. My wife reminds me I just I don't know, I don't like sitting still. I guess there's so many opportunities in life that I've never regretted when I said, yes, just jump on it, and it's always seemed to work out, or it's just been a great experience. So I've been in the Army Reserve and that's kind of a secondary job, but I was in Shrewsbury for 12 years and honestly, I didn't have the same philosophy as the management there and I was just thinking I'm like you know, I got to take this to the next level.
Steve Morreale:Can I interrupt you for a minute, because there's a couple of things I'm thinking of. Let me not let this escape. Your time in the House of Correction, working there, did that make you a better officer? (Absolutely.) Tell me why.
Mark Dubois :Oh boy, a whole bunch of reasons. One is I think I learned very quickly that it was not a deterrent to put people in. There was no reason for them not to be there. I think they liked it for the most part vast majority of them it was not something they were afraid of where. If you ever told me at that age I was going to jail, I would have been horrified.
Mark Dubois :I found, like a lot of the people, they had been in many times or multiple times. It's a house correction, so it was like a two year maximum, two and a half year sentence. But you would have a lot of pretty serious people in there too that were finishing long-term sentences. But I just really learned how much people try to manipulate you. They try and work the guards to do things at least back then try and become friendly, bring stuff to them. They try anyway. And then you kind of see the interaction. It's very interesting. But you learn the variety of ways people respond, whether it's just verbal. It was just great. So, yeah, it was just an interesting social dynamic too with how they all interacted and how things worked in the prison system, but it absolutely made me a much better officer.
Steve Morreale:But you've got a life of service and I wonder what drives you and I also wonder this my experience in the military and thank you for your service is that it's different. They train people differently I won't say better, but differently. They prepare you for the next position not after the fact generally before the fact or you're not going to get promoted, which I think is kind of unique. While it's my experience and having been in law enforcement for 30 plus years myself before we do things sometimes ass backwards as opposed to the military, we hold ourselves in the likeness of the military, but we don't necessarily adopt what's going on in the military today. The question I have is you indicated a little while ago that you were maybe disappointed in management in previous organizations and I suppose you thought that there was a better way to do that. Did some of that come from your experience in the military?
Mark Dubois :Yeah, it did that and I think working for Ken Hutchins in Northborough, working for Bill Baker in Sutton, really shaped my philosophy on what we should do, how we do it, and it was just a very different mindset in Shrewsbury at the time with the boss that I had there were several of them actually it was completely conflicting.
Mark Dubois :For me it was very, I wouldn't say stressful. I just completely disagreed with the approach that we had for how we treated the public, our obligation to the public. You know, I always look at this and people don't call us on their happy days, inviting us to birthday parties. I mean, they call us on their worst day. So you have this obligation to do everything you can for them to try and solve their problem or resolve the issue or whatever, and that just didn't happen in a lot of times, and so I knew there was a much better way and a much better way to treat people internally and honestly I feel like I've been validated with my approach. I feel I've been very successful and now this is my third police chief job.
Steve Morreale:So you were a police chief in Maynard, Massachusetts and Braintree before coming to Portland and as you began to evolve into the position and the leadership style you would use in these agencies. Talk about the trials and tribulations, the starts and stops, the things that you learned along the way. You tried and you learned, approaching the culture of the organization and trying to bring people along with you. Talk about that a little more.
Mark Dubois :Yeah, I think you know I learned it. I learned just as much about what not to do from people and what to do. I think I captured a lot of the things that Ken Hutchins did and how I felt working for him, a lot of team building concepts. I implemented this in both places. Portland's a little too big for this. It's a different scenario here, but in Manor I was easily captured at where we'd have like an annual training day with the entire department and I would go out on the road and answer any calls that came in. So like I implemented some things early on that I thought were very effective to me. So I always just thought about how I reacted to whatever I was trying to implement and what it meant to me personally as an officer, what was motivating and also the things that didn't work and how you treat people. So I'm just always aware of that and kind of the receiving end of this stuff. I've said it even here in Portland.
Mark Dubois :When I started, I said you know, my goal is to create an environment where people want to come to work. That's how I kind of gauge my success. That really impacts morale. It impacts the product that we provide to the community.
Mark Dubois :So my frustration as a lieutenant was I wasn't really allowed to do the things that I thought would work and prioritize. So I would see the frustration on officers with what they thought was right and what I thought was right, what we were allowed to do through the chief and his command staff. So that's kind of how I've evolved with this stuff and I really just always think back to when I was a patrol officer. Was this important to me and was it effective? It's that whole saying. It's like they don't remember what you do, they remember how you make them feel and I think that really matters and really being personable and engaging and knowing people so you know when they're having a hard time. Kind of pick up on that, versus being with different scenarios or whatever and the word travels just being engaged in what the department's doing is very helpful.
Steve Morreale:So you've been in Massachusetts most of your career and now you're in Maine, while it's a New England state. There are differences. I've been able to travel throughout New England and I understand the nuances. There are certainly some things that you've had to learn. I don't think you're a guy who will come in and say this is the way we have to do it, this is the way we did it somewhere else. As you walked into this new job, while you had several years, a number or a dozen years as a police chief and a police leader, what was your approach in trying to learn and understand first before taking action?
Mark Dubois :So I started last July, really August 1st. So I'm still on the learning curve here with, culturally, what we do, the history which is so important in an organization building trust. I think my success has really the foundation of it is that people trust my judgment in the fact that I'm doing things in their best interest. I'm trying to move the department in the right direction for the benefit of everybody. So I'll step back. When I went to Braintree that was a huge jump.
Mark Dubois :So Maynard I went from a lieutenant in Shrewsbury to Maynard, which had a department of about 25 full-time officers, in a very short period of time. I had that place kind of running smooth. People were looking for leadership, they want guidance. We became fully accredited Within like three years. They had like ancient policies and procedures and I did a complete overhaul in Maynard and I was there seven years and probably about four some drastic changes and people embraced it because it was for the better of the organization and their lives were better and I was looking out for them and the department as a whole. And also, as ironic as this is, when there's need for discipline, take it and you do it Because I think everybody watches and recognizes that you are paying attention to that. If people do something that they shouldn't, there's punishment involved or some kind of fallout, so that sends a very drastic message too. So then Maynard was great. I loved working there. It was just pretty slow and, as you can tell with the way I described my life there, I was going to work and I didn't really need to do anything. So I said, all right, I'm going to start looking around.
Mark Dubois :Braintree came up and they had some difficult history that I was some huge challenges and it was 90 officers there versus the 25 in Maynard, so much bigger place. And then that's where I kind of really captured like I need to go slow and understand the culture here because they're thick in it. It's like you know South Boston mindset. They're just very tight, they're families, they're very close to each other. I went to more funerals and wakes in Braintree than my entire existence in my whole life. If somebody's uncle died, the whole police department would go to the funeral or the wake. It was just the culture of the PD and I had some issues with that too, obviously. So there I just really took it slow, really learned what we needed.
Mark Dubois :I was only there four years and in two and a half we became fully accredited there, also moving the needle in the right direction and making some changes, but knowing that it was for the best of the department and the people and creating a good environment and, I think, building trust. You cash that in when you want to make a big change and people know that you're not there to take advantage or to make their life any more miserable. You're doing it for the right reason. So now, coming here, I'm still in that stage where I'm certainly building up some trust capital, learning what we do.
Mark Dubois :It's a much different organization. It is 160 officers here, so it's much bigger, and we have another, say 65 civilian employees, so there's a lot of moving parts. So I kind of just try and immerse myself in the organization and learn as much as I can about every aspect of it. And I meet everybody one-on-one. So I've had one-on-ones with everybody in the department sit down, give them my phone number, talk about what they do, you know, explain to me your job kind of thing, and that's really gone a long way.
Steve Morreale:SWe're talking about Du Bois and he's the chief of police up in Portland, Mmaine now and I appreciate you talking, as you are the big dog and I don't mean to be pejorative in that way, but in Maine you're I mean, augusta is a small city compared to Portland and in my mind, having spent an awful lot of time in Portland, it's a little Boston and you've got your issues, however. So, how important is community policing? How important is setting expectations and accountability in policing?
Mark Dubois :Well, it's critical. You know, I give you a little framework, I guess, for Portland, because I did not appreciate this until I came. So the way I ended up here is my wife and I purchased a home in Old Orchard in a community called Ocean Park, which is just kind of in between Old Orchard and Saco, and we bought a summer camp 20 years ago and it was great because we could close it down. There was no insulation, no heat, it was just the summertime Seasonal yeah.
Mark Dubois :Yeah. So we had been coming up here since every summer. At that time my wife's a school teacher so she would spend the whole summer here and I would just go back and forth. So love the area. Been to Portland countless times for a bunch of reasons, but I was a tourist, you know I get hired.
Mark Dubois :I really didn't comprehend the scrutiny with the PD and the focus on the whole state. So I have some cousins that live about two hours north here my wife's cousins and they call me and tell me they see me on the news. It's different because there's three news stations in Portland and they call pretty much every day looking for something. And one of my approaches here is we need to be transparent and we need to cooperate and really educate or inform the community about what we're doing and how we're doing it. So I don't want to say no to the news people because it's a great opportunity for us to get our message out and to remind people that we're out here working for them and what we're doing. So I don't do it every time. I try and spread the wealth a little bit, but you know, I guess for a while I have to be the face of the PD also, so that people know that I'm here, you know, as a transition starts.
Steve Morreale:So you have a face for radio, I can assure you with that, Mark. But no, that's good.
Mark Dubois :Thank you. So I just didn't realize the scrutiny that was going to be involved with the police department. And we have the big story and it is the biggest police department in Maine other than the state police. But interesting with the state police is they're spread out. So we're in a very small area for 160 officers. The state police have, I think, about 300. But they have a heck of a lot of area to cover Big state.
Mark Dubois :So the transparency piece, community policing I mean we're fully engaged in what goes on in this community and we have a community policing unit, we have a nationally modeled behavioral health unit. So there's been a longstanding focus with engagement with the community here. That is probably 25 years worth. But we have some staffing challenges so some of those units are not, they're about half staffed. But we have five community policing offices that are staffed by civilians. So we have space throughout the city in either Portland Housing Authority facility or rented space or donated space. So we have like these little substations that the community policing officers spend a lot of time at but there's also a civilian coordinator and they deal with the neighborhood complaints, maybe minor crimes, they take reports or they notify us and they're very engaged in their specific neighborhoods that they're assigned to.
Mark Dubois :How's recruiting going? Oh, that's a challenge here. So we're down about 30 officers and they've been down that for a couple of years and it's a huge impact. So it's like 20%, so it's a big focus that we have. The challenge is the reality, I guess, is that the state's small. I think there's like 1.3, 1.4 million people, right? So out of that, the vast majority are in the southern part of the state. But how many of them are actually interested in being police officers, right? So we can attract a few and obviously everyone else is doing the same thing. So we really need to try and attract people from out of state to get here to fill these positions. And the cost of living here is extremely high. Housing costs are very high in Portland. For people to come out here sometimes I think it's the underestimate the costs. And then the salary is comparable to, like Massachusetts. So they make less money, but the cost of living is probably close to the same. So it is a challenge. In that regard.
Mark Dubois :We just hired a national recruiting firm. It's called Epic Recruiting. They're from Scottsdale, Arizona. They focus strictly on public safety. Their website, I mean they have San Francisco PD as a client, Hillsborough County Sheriffs. They have a client so we hired them. Last year they filmed in the wintertime and they're filming again, going to be here next week. They're going to film the first week in June, three days and it's almost like a movie production, every specialty we have. They film different scenarios and then they put together a very comprehensive social media marketing campaign, very targeted to the demographics, the locations, that kind of stuff. They develop a recruiting website, full-on recruitment. So we're hoping that that's going to be fairly successful.
Steve Morreale:But yet to so many agencies complaining that one particular agency has a signing bonus for people they're helping with relocation and such and it's pretty competitive out there. That's the problem. And obviously all of the things that have been going on in policing across the globe bring some negativity towards policing. That I don't think is warranted. And of course, most recently you see what's been going on on campuses and the police are drawn into that kind of fray. And that could be you, it could be the Portland police at some point in time with USM or whatever. Thankfully it's not. I understand that. But recruiting is important to sort of bring the agency forward and to bring people along with it, to again develop that relationship and trust or to create that aura of trust. Police.
Mark Dubois :I mean, we have a lot of current issues in the city, but I honestly would think the most important thing for me internally would be getting the staffing levels up to a manageable number. We have a meeting next week with all the unions I just want to bring them all in and talking about our staffing because we have forced overtime multiple people every day. In this time of year it's vacations and all that kind of stuff starts happening. So people are just working crazy hours and they can't go home and it's really based on our staffing. So we're going to take a deep dive and see if we can realign a few things to take the pressure off of, you know, just the minimum patrol shifts that we need to fill. They're just not getting done. So I think, personally, for me I would feel like a huge success if I could get 20 of those 30 vacancies filled, because what it does is now it allows the people who have been grinding it out to go into specialty positions. So the one appealing thing we have in Portland, I think, which stands out amongst all the other agencies and even the state police, is the specialties that we offer.
Mark Dubois :This is an extremely diverse police department with everything you could think of. I mean the typical stuff. We have six canines and we have a SWAT team. We have a bomb team, and we do that because we have the jet ports. We have officers assigned to the international jet port, so we have a bomb team, and we do that because we have the jet ports. We have officers assigned to the international jet port, so we have three bomb dogs, three patrol dogs, the hazardous devices team, the bomb team. We have Peaks Island, so we have officers out on Peaks Island so you can get away from the crazy city and go out and talk about really truly community policing out there. There's assignments out there. We're hopefully in the midst of getting grants for a Marine unit so we can get a boat, because we have All that shoreline and no boat. Wow, yeah, it's crazy. So we're working on that. And we have bicycles, we have motorcycles, we have community policing, we have detectives, we have federal task force, we have the Safe Streets Task Force, we have the MDEA, so we run the main drug enforcement administration In this region. We have a supervisor and an officer run that.
Mark Dubois :There's countless opportunities in the PD to really do a lot of unique things and we have two full-time internal affairs investigators, which is a great experience for them to get into the CID, into the criminal investigation division right. So internally there's a ton of opportunity. So we're one of the state police. Bangor and us are the only certified homicide investigators in the state. Since I've been here we've had two homicides in the city this year in January. I think. We average two or three a year, maybe as many as six in the last few years. But we also assist the state police very often in their investigations because they have a unit but they're spread out and sometimes they're overloaded. So if there's something close to us, we investigated one pretty thoroughly in South Portland which turned into a Biddeford thing and just moving around. So we routinely help the state police and we're their primary backup for the SWAT team because obviously their SWAT team is pretty spread out. If they need help or if they don't have the resources, they'll call us. So we do travel around a little bit May.
Steve Morreale:I ask this, and this may be not confusing to you, but when you walked in you think well, wait a minute. What's our authority 20 or 30 miles away? I know you have the LEC's down in Massachusetts but there must be MOUs, are they with the state for assistance? Well, it's funny, you asked that because I've asked our city attorney that, like what gives us the authority to do that?
Mark Dubois :Yes, yes, I haven't gotten the definition yet of how we're doing this. It's still. I'm waiting for a response because it's exactly what you just said In mass. It's challenging for me, right In the sense of coming to a new state. There's a lot of things that I have just learned over 30 years of piecing it together. You don't learn it all in the police academy and here I'm still trying to piece this stuff together. So I honestly don't know what our authority is outside the city, but I have to think it's a mutual aid situation and it's been going on for a long time.
Steve Morreale:Well, I just say that because, imagine, I'm sure you, as a lawyer too, have to be thinking about what's our exposure here, right, and how are we covering our people if we're going out? It's wonderful to be going out and helping with homicides or SWAT events, so I've got to ask this question the outsider, right? If you don't mind, I know you'll appreciate it. Maybe the maniacs won't, but we call each other mass holes sometimes, right, we're people from Massachusetts and I say that in a very positive way, but here you are, coming from Massachusetts and why are you asking questions like that? But to me, it's important to understand. You have to get to. Why do we do this? How do we do this? Do you feel, mark, that you are a leader that leads through questions very often to get people to think?
Mark Dubois :Yeah, definitely Early on. It helps me to understand. So if they can explain to me why we're doing something or how it impacts the need for it, you know it totally. It just explains it for me. It's out of sincerity too.
Mark Dubois :I went to Maynard. This was a good learning experience. As a chief, I go there, and it was literally like the next weekend they had Maynard Fest, yeah. So they have the old mill, they have a band, they have a Budweiser truck with kegs on it, they fence it in, they bring in food and then they have fireworks.
Mark Dubois :And I had a couple of detectives who were on the big side, you know 300 pound guys, one particular, and what he thought he was going to do was lay in the parking garage and watch for drug deals, because he kind of thought everybody was dealing drugs for whatever reason. And I'm sitting there thinking we have 300 people standing around a keg of beer. If there's going to be a problem, I want the biggest guy we have in uniform right near that, so they think twice about it before they start fighting or whatever. So I said, well, this year we're going to put everybody in uniform and they're all going to be down in the crowd, because that's really what we're doing here. I don't really care about a hand-to-hand drug deal of a bag of pot or something.
Mark Dubois :Well, he lost his mind because he thought he was getting completely screwed over and this is the wrong way to go. And this guy's here one week and he's going to change what he's been doing for 10 years. So they came to me and really upset and I said okay, I'll take it back, you guys do what you guys do and I'm just going to watch you run the show. I'm not going to get involved and tell me how it works. So of course, he went up there and did nothing and we ended up PCing some people because they were drunk by the keg thing.
Mark Dubois :So at the end of the day, the next day, we had a little meeting and I said, just so you know this is never going to happen again the way it happened last night, because you clearly were in effect. But I had to walk it back because the one thing that I do that's been very helpful is I do a lot of ride-alongs with people. So I'll just take, I'll call us a shift commander and say, hey, who's out there that I can go drive around with and I'll spend an hour or two when I have some free time just to talk to the guys and understand, and then I learn a lot. We do a lot of stuff through like the MDT, so the radio's quiet a lot because they get dispatched on the computer. I didn't recognize that when I first got here. I didn't realize how heavily they relied on that system.
Steve Morreale:You thought, big city, nothing going on right?
Mark Dubois :Yeah, exactly, but it's nonstop, which is interesting. So, like I said before, I think, getting immersed in the operation of the police I learn a lot and I do ask a lot of questions. It's genuine because I'm trying to comprehend what's going on. So I have to get certified in the state. Here's the difference in mass in Maine. So Maine has one criminal justice academy, vassalboro, and they have two classes a year. They have one in August and one in January. We routinely, if not always, send an officer as a staff instructor and the reason apparently we do that is because if we have a staff instructor, we have unlimited seats, because we're dedicating a full-time staff and we need that because when we hire a certain amount of people, we need Because if not, they put you on a waiting list and you might not get your offices into the academy because they have 70 seats and there's a cutoff and that's it.
Mark Dubois :So I have to go through the certification process, which is drastically different than MAS. Mas it was the training council, where they look at your resume and recommend some more training if you needed it and saw what you had and said if it met their standard, you were good. You got certified through that basically a vetting process. Here I had to do two entry-level exams. I had to do three years worth of in-service, which was good. I had to do a fatal motor vehicle accident reconstruction report and now tomorrow I'm taking 150 question multiple choice test that is given as the final exam at the police academy.
Steve Morreale:You've been studying huh? Yeah, I'm working on it. You don't want to be failing that. lli ke who is this guy?
Mark Dubois :No, trust me that's what I said too that my training sergeant has to administer it. They can do it remotely, but I was like oh boy, if I flunk this, I'm in big trouble.
Steve Morreale:Let's keep that low.
Mark Dubois :Yeah, you get a couple of tries if you need it. So it's just. Processes here are much different and if you think about it too, which is what I'm learning is that the vast majority of the law enforcement are rural, so it's important for them, if you're coming from out of state, to know how to do an accident report, because you're probably going to be the one doing it. We have a reconstruction team, we have a traffic unit, so I'm never going to do if I do want something really bad happened.
Steve Morreale:So we're talking to Mark Dubois, and he's the new police chief up in Portland Maine, a Massachusetts native who was a police chief in two places. Here we're talking about his approach to leadership and as he transitions to a new department in Maine. As you came in and sat around the table with your command staff and I understand you have a deputy chief, yeah, so I just changed that actually, oh, tell me.
Mark Dubois :So the structure was chief, assistant chief, two majors and then lieutenants and then sergeants. The assistant chief position was vacant. They've had a lot of turnover here, which is part of the instability of the organization. So I didn't fill the assistant chief role and I made a third major, I see Okay, and divided the department up. And honestly, my whole sales pitch with this was we historically here have done very poor succession planning. We talked about it earlier, about trying to get people before they get promoted. So I told the city manager I said look, my goal here is to have three highly competitive candidates to take over for me. When I'm done, literally day one, you start thinking about your exit. Right, who's going to take over?
Intro-Outro:I tell these guys I'm like, hey, if I can hit by a bus.
Mark Dubois :somebody's going to run the ship right. So anyway, we just promoted, we notified him last week but the ceremony is this coming week, so I have three. We really broke the department down in threes. So operations, investigations, really, and then administration. The leadership part of that is any executive level stuff I can send them to. We try FBI Academy one guy just went, another guy's probably going to get going National Academy was a great experience for me, and also SMIP through PERF in Boston. I have somebody going to that this summer. So any of the formal training is great. And then the other approach that I have, which I think helps, is really including them in everything that I do as often as I can.
Steve Morreale:Yeah, not hiding the ball. So many police chiefs say I'm responsible for the budget, you don't need to know anything about it. That's a ridiculous way to do things. You've got to have bench depth, right.
Mark Dubois :Yes absolutely and in perspective for me. I'm trying to understand why we would spend X amount of money on something and there's so many things that happen here that I'm just not aware of on a regular basis. So I get filled in and looking at things. So when I have the majors one-on-one or all of us together, I try and include them in really all the conversations that I have and it's just a huge help to me. Eventually I might not need that, but certainly the first three or four years like their advice and recommendations and perspective on coming up through the organization are critical to making the right decision that helps you have command staff meetings.
Steve Morreale:At what point in time are you including the lieutenants, that next layer?
Mark Dubois :So we have monthly supervisor meetings, lieutenants there's 11 and 22 sergeants. So they never included the sergeants. So I have them come every other. So I include all the sergeants at every other supervisor meeting. Have it at 7 o'clock on a Friday because that's like the most people here and the night shift gets out. So one month is just lieutenants and then the next month it's lieutenants and the reason is if one of the lieutenants say isn't there or if they take the night off, one of the sergeants will run the shift.
Mark Dubois :So the stuff we're talking about is kind of important for those guys if they don't get the message. And then there's some issues obviously with the first line level of supervision that we talk about. That I want their input on and I want them to hear from me specifically what I expect. What's going on. We actually have two lieutenants and two sergeants getting promoted and they spend next week just with basically introduction training throughout the department. They spend a whole week of just kind of meetings and exposure to different expectations and they have a half a day with me just expectations of their position. And that was something that for a leadership thing.
Mark Dubois :The one unique thing here is and I'm learning as we go because for the first year it's the first time for me, every time right. So we have a leadership training event for anybody who wants to get promoted is required to attend it and it's a two-day training. This year we brought in Paul Butler who teaches at the National Academy. Pretty interesting guy. He did a great job, I thought. So we go off-site. This year we had about 50 officers and sergeants and some lieutenants attend, so we do a little pre-education. I guess before they're allowed to get promoted, along with they have to do the FBI leader stuff and there's a few other requirements that they have to do and interestingly here it's a requirement, I think, to be an FTO before they become a sergeant.
Steve Morreale:That's very unique. I think that's very good because that's the baseline of teaching and the baseline of setting expectations, I think, and helping to mentor younger officers. So it's got to be the right person.
Mark Dubois :Yeah, it's pretty good. They do have some systems in place here that are really impressive and thought out that have been going on for a long time. So it's interesting the learning curve for me with what we're doing.
Steve Morreale:So, Mark, tell us as we wind down, tell us what some of the things that are on your list or on your mind to work towards improving, to work to better understand what are the top things that you're focusing on.
Mark Dubois :Since the day I walked in the door. The homeless crisis here is by far the most time-consuming issue that I've ever faced. I've told the city manager it's the most frustrating issue that I've ever had in policing. I'm trying to develop a strategy with an end game in mind, a goal, and I think as a city we're still trying to figure it out what we want to get. So we had some pretty big homeless encampments last year when I arrived, some pretty significant ones were 150 tents, 200 people in a city park like the gateway to this downtown, and we've had a lot of violent crime, tremendous amount of drug use, a lot of health issues, sanitary issues, so like everything you could imagine that's bad happens in these homeless encampments. You just walk through it, you know, and then they really disrupt the neighborhood and they really make people feel very unsafe. They tend to steal everything to build up their property base. You walk through there tend to steal everything to build up their property base. You walk through there.
Steve Morreale:There's tons of power tools and everything. No place to plug them.
Mark Dubois :Well, they steal generators too. Oh well, there you go. There was one tent that had a generator running and an air conditioning unit in the tent. Yeah, it's amazing. They're very creative, and I say they meaning the people who are living in the homeless encampment, right, and then it's just a very, very unsafe situation. So it's very complicated. I learned as I went with how we got here and the attorney general has some protocols which basically didn't want anybody getting charged for, like personal possession of drugs, public indecency, which really may be using the bathroom in public, so they had these five laws that they didn't want enforced. Criminal trespass was one of them. So it got really challenging for the officers because those are all the common things that they would typically address and it was happening just out in the open. So, anyhow, one thing led to another.
Mark Dubois :The city here runs three shelters. They house a lot of people externally also. We were fortunate enough to expand the shelter capacity which in turn overturned or at least nullified the Supreme Court ruling that we're waiting for a decision on about homelessness. The ruling essentially was followed in the Ninth Circuit that if you don't have shelter space, you can't move them from an encampment. You can't move them If you don't have an alternative for them? Yeah, but it wasn't really clearly defined. I mean, is it one-on-one or is it just one space and everybody has to leave? Or if you have one bed, is that enough Because nobody wants to use it? We expanded the shelter we typically have between 20 and 30 open beds so we were able to resolve the encampment and try and get people housed.
Mark Dubois :But now what's happening is they just surface. They move around, they're transient now throughout the city and it's literally every day. We're taking tents down telling people they can't stay here, we have to move and the criminal justice system is not really designed to penalize people like that. They need help. They're either mental health or serious drug addiction. So it's just a daily discussion that I have with city leadership.
Mark Dubois :Other city departments the highway department, our parks and rec department are responsible for all the parks, which they're constantly going and cleaning up areas and identifying problems. So it's very frustrating. I think we still need to have a hard, honest discussion about what we want to do, because I think there's almost some value in not so much incarceration but forced drug rehabilitation, where they don't have the option to just say no, I'm not doing that because they're living on sidewalks it's bad for them and they're not going to make a good decision. But waiting for them to decide they want it gets over, I just don't think it's going to happen. And fentanyl is so dangerous I mean we've had last year we responded to 577 overdoses. I read that you've used Narcan an awful lot.
Mark Dubois :In all honesty, that's just the ones that we go to. I mean, it's probably triple or more than that that we just don't get called to. So it's a huge problem.
Steve Morreale:Let me wind down by asking this it sounds to me what you're talking about is so many of the social ills fall on the shoulders of police because they are the only organization that is there 24-7. Drug isn't, homeless isn't, child and family services isn't. They're just not available. So I think you, as a leader, realize that you can't do it without collaborating with other organizations, and sometimes you have to grab them kicking and screaming that you got to help with this problem. So are you seeing receptivity? Are you understanding that that takes some leadership to put the right people around the table to deal with societal ills?
Mark Dubois :Yes, I mean we are tasked with dealing with this issue more than any other city department or public organization or private organization. In the city we have several privately run shelters that a lot of the activity happens around and to a certain extent they're failing their clients. There's not a lot of accountability with the external. Maybe inside the shelter where they're providing some services, it's working, but when you go outside and there's 50 people with all their belongings sleeping on the sidewalk and they're victimized too.
Mark Dubois :that's the thing I mean. You can ignore all that stuff. But we actually today so one of the responses we've had some very focused enforcement efforts. So we've done three one-day events we bring in our crime reduction unit, we bring in the MDEA and we bring in a bunch of officers on overtime and they focus in a couple of areas that we have some big problems. So up till today we've made 20, I want to say 20 arrests, but they're all for like trafficking and fentanyl. They're big numbers and that's what they're focusing on. We for like trafficking in fentanyl. They're big numbers and that's what they're focusing on. We're working on that pretty regularly too as far as our enforcement efforts, along with a bunch of other daily activities. But yeah, it's a very challenging topic that I think if every organization that had their fingers involved in this were fully engaged, we'd be more successful. But I think there's a lot of denial and really just not doing what they promised they're going to do.
Steve Morreale:Right. So we're winding down with Mark Du Bois. He's the police chief in Portland Maine and I'm going to ask a couple of questions to end. How do you see your role? Look at the very beginning, mark. You told me that you have learned what to do and what not to do from good bosses and bad boss and that you customize your own approach to what you were used to. Talked about Ken Hutchins for a little bit. Rest his soul. He was a stake in the church, as you well know, and he brought that to sitting in his office. I spent many a day sitting in his office, like you did.
Steve Morreale:I'm sure. But we learn. But what do you see your role as developing others for the future.
Mark Dubois :Probably the most important thing that I do, I think thinking back and looking back, you hear, for a short period of time you can make a pretty massive impact on an organization if you can kind of get their culture into that development mindset.
Intro-Outro:Yeah.
Mark Dubois :You know they talk about, like the learning culture and learning organization. There's a lot of value in that If you get everybody kind of moving in the same direction about developing people, holding each other accountable, having high standards. That professionalism from top to bottom is critical and I feel like, honestly, if I'll be successful, I walk away from here and that's the kind of organization that I'm leaving behind, with people that are capable of taking over seamlessly, because the biggest instability this organization had in Portland and I've watched it for 10 years was the turmoil they had with turnover with police chiefs and acting police chiefs and interns, and a couple of people were here for a year.
Steve Morreale:I'll tell you one. I went up to the office when James Craig was here from LAPD. He didn't last long. I said to him did you mean to go to Portland Oregon, not Portland Maine, james? It was very very interesting, and then he went to Detroit and so I do understand. So there has to be some, like you said, stability and a focus, a common core mission, much like you find in the military. Yeah, absolutely, and that was lacking.
Mark Dubois :I think that's what I bring to this is I'm here for the long haul.
Intro-Outro:I'm not trying to get another job, I'm not parlaying this for something else.
Mark Dubois :This is like my last job for sure.
Mark Dubois :I came here because I want to live in Maine. I had built a new house, so we tore down the camp, like three years ago, and built our retirement home, so to speak, sold our house in Massachusetts not when I got the job, but the intention was I was going to be here regardless. So I don't want to go anywhere else. So you know, I'm going to be here as long as they like me and, you know, as long as I feel like I'm doing a good job that has a lot of value for here, because of how unstable it was for probably a five year stretch. Looking back, yeah, that's good.
Steve Morreale:So if you had the chance to talk to somebody who has been, you've looked at from afar, who's either alive or dead, to get some advice who might that be?
Mark Dubois :Geez, I get it now. I mean, I met with Ken Hutchins several times before he passed away he was great and Bill Baker, who lives down the street. I get a lot of advice from Bill. Still, that's great. I think back on military stuff.
Mark Dubois :In the JAG Corps I have the unique experience of dealing with a lot of one-star generals, which is just not typical in the military right. It's just you don't see them and the generals are there for a reason. They're normally extremely successful. They're very we're the stewards of the taxpayers' money. That was a JAG Corps general talking about that, so and it's like show up, earn your pay, don't just coast. You're here for a reason, but it's not your money, and always appreciate that Taxpayers' expectations and whatnot. So I kind of take that to mind every day too.
Mark Dubois :It's like I'm in a very fortunate position. I feel very, very fortunate of the career I've had and I always keep in mind that people are paying me to be here the taxpayers and I want to earn my pay every day and appreciate it, and I try and instill that in the people that are here too. It's like you can come to work as a patrol officer and not do anything and get the same money as somebody who comes in and works their tail off all day long, but then at the end of the day, how do you feel about yourself? That's kind of what I try and instill in people, because we're here for a short period of time, ultimately, when you start really thinking about it. So I want to make the biggest impact I can while I'm here.
Steve Morreale:Well, it's an important job. You're in a great place, I think, to lead and I certainly hope that you are successful with what you're attempting to do and I certainly hope you pass your test, but I know you do. So I want to thank you very much for taking the time I know how busy you are and for reaching back to me. I look forward to meeting with you when I get up to Maine pretty soon, but I do appreciate it. We've been talking to Mark Dubois and he is the police chief in Portland, maine. Last word how do you feel about the future of policing?
Mark Dubois :I think we're in a pendulum right and we're swinging back to people appreciating what we do and the significance and the sacrifice that officers make. We hit a low point probably three or four years ago. There was a lot of riots, you know, nationally it was bad. We were in a bad way. I think that's coming back. You know the future is. I look forward to it. It's such an honorable job and it's such an important aspect of our society that I think most people appreciate it and most people are not vocal about it and the unhappy ones are vocal. But that's coming back around. So I think we're in a good place. Here in Portland we get a lot of appreciation from the community recognizing the hard work that the officers do. So I think I'm very optimistic with where we're going and how we're getting there.
Steve Morreale:Well, I wish you good luck in recruiting and all of the things you're trying to make happen in Portland.
Intro-Outro:So, mark DuBois, thanks very much for being with us.
Steve Morreale:Thank you, it was my pleasure. That's it. Another podcast in the books.
Intro-Outro:Thanks for listening to The CopDoc Podcast with Dr Steve Morreale. Steve is a retired law enforcement practitioner and manager, turned academic and scholar from Western State University. Please tune into the CopDoc Podcast for regular episodes of interviews with thought leaders in policing.
