Constitutional Policing: Organizational Values

Voiceover:

00:00

This is The Beat—a podcast series that keeps you in the know about the latest community policing topics 

facing our nation.

Nazmia Comrie

00:08

Hello and welcome. My name is Nazmia Comrie and on behalf of the COPS Office, I’d like to introduce 

you to Chief Scott Thomson of the Camden County Police Department. Chief Thomson is here today to 

discuss Constitutional policing. Chief Thomson, Camden city’s shootings are down 43 percent in two 

years and violent crime down 22 percent. What do you attribute to your success?

Chief Scott Thomson

00:30

What we’ve been able to do over the last two years was to leverage the greatest force multiplier that 

we have in reducing crime. And it’s not technology, it’s not equipment, and it’s not training—it’s to be 

able to empower and get the people to come out of their homes to occupy their neighborhoods, their 

streets. And we had tipping points in public safety wherein we’ll have more good people on the street 

than we will have bad people that are out there. For far too long, the people in the city of Camden have 

been held hostage in their own homes. They’ve had to look out the bars on their windows and watch 

criminals and drug dealers operate with absolute impunity in their neighborhoods, which has negatively 

defined the lives of people that live there on that street. But when we deployed walking beat officers 

that literally were going up and down the block during daylight hours knocking on the doors, introducing 

themselves to the people that lived in the neighborhood, asking them what were the issues that were 

negatively defining their lives for the last multiple years, and how can we work with you to address 

those issues—when we started to do that, what we found were that people came out from behind their 

doors, sat on their front steps, allowed their children to play out and ride their bikes in the street. And 

not only did it enhance the communication of neighbor to neighbor, but it greatly enhanced the 

communication between the community and the police.

Comrie

02:00

Thank you. How have you been able to engage a community that has a history of mistrust toward the 

police?

Thomson

02:07

Well, we’ve certainly had our challenges in the city of Camden. Over my course of years with the 

Camden City Police Department, we had put over 11 officers in jail. There was a point and time when we 

put five officers in federal prison for a series of violations of the law and the public’s mistrust. So when 
we started our new police department on May 1, 2013, we were starting in a deficit with regards to how 

the community viewed people that were charged with protecting and serving them. So to bridge this 

gap as quickly as possible, we employed tactics and strategies that enhanced—in fact, in some regards, 

mandated—human contact, interaction between the officers and the people. The only way I could get 

cops to truly empathize with the people that lived in the neighborhood and get the people that live in 

the neighborhood to truly trust our officers, was to have as much human contact and interaction as 

possible. So we deployed those types of strategies and techniques, and it worked tremendously. The 

people that live on the streets, when they saw our officers engaging the children out in front in foot 

races and push up competitions, playing—our cops were the steady quarterbacks in the street games of 

football, basketball leagues—particularly through the youth, we were able to build a tremendous 

amount of trust and good will with people in our city.

Comrie

03:36

And how has the culture of your department affected the way your officers interact with the 

community?

Thomson

03:41

Well, the impact on our culture has been just amazing. Now one, again, with the new police 

department, I have the luxury of building culture as opposed to the challenge of changing it. I can tell 

you, when I became chief of the Camden City Police Department in 2008 when I would require officers 

to get out of their squad cars and to walk down neighborhoods and talk to people, you know, that was 

against the status quo. That was not something that was routinely being done for quite some time and it 

just seemed to be outside of the mindset of many of the officers and even some of the good officers. 

But when we started the new police department, everybody came in with the understanding and 

expectation of what the mission was and the creed in which we would perform our mission.

So our mission in very simplest terms is to reduce the number of crime victims and to make people feel 

safer. Every member of my organization can recite that to you. And our creed, which is actually 

emblazoned on our badge and has been incorporated in our oath of office, is “service before self,” 

meaning we will subjugate our own needs for the greater good. So with this as the starting point and 

being able to have the officers engage with the people that live in some of the most challenged 

neighborhoods in this country, it really strengthened the empathy that needs to be there in the officer 

that’s working within that neighborhood. The officer needs to understand, and I believe that most of 

ours truly do, that we need the consent of the people for us to be efficient and effective and that the 

laws that are there for us to enforce are not for us to enforce on the people but to enforce with the 

people; meaning that we just don’t indiscriminately apply zero tolerance types of tactics and strategies. 

Right? Zero tolerance is zero common sense. And it immediately polarizes the people. As does the 

militarization of neighborhoods—taking a bunch of cops and putting them in riot gear or putting a 

command post out on a corner and have officers walking around holding rifles—does not enhance 

people’s feeling of safety and well-being. In fact, it can have the complete opposite effect, 
notwithstanding the fact that that tactic will essentially not have any violent crime occur while we’re 

there, but it’s not sustainable. So again, leveraging the greatest force multiplier there is which is the 

people themselves, when we’re able to connect with them, the culture within the organization is that 

the officers understand that this is the absolute prerequisite to having safe, healthy communities, it 

gives us a tremendous, tremendous return on our investment and it makes our public safety gains that 

we have sustainable for the future.

Comrie

06:19

Thank you for your time and expertise today.

Voiceover: The Beat Exit

06:22

The Beat was brought to you by the United States Department of Justice, COPS Office. The COPS Office 

helps to keep our nation’s communities safe by giving grants to law enforcement agencies, developing 

community policing publications, developing partnerships, and solving problems.

Voiceover: Disclaimer

06:39

The opinions contained herein are those of the authors and do not necessarily represent the official 

position or polices of the U.S. Department of Justice. References to specific agencies, companies, 

products, or services should not be considered an endorsement by the authors or the U.S. Department 

of Justice. Rather, the references are illustrations to supplement discussion of the issues.