A Case Study in Policing

From listening to the Davies (2021) podcast, I was able to identify two pertinent topics related to certain course topics/themes:

1. The first topic from the podcast is related to the diffusion of innovation. In Ithaca, NY, there has been a shift from standard policing procedures to what they call the Department of Community Solutions & Public Safety. The goal of this approach was to remove the idea of armed response to minor events like traffic stops, which garnered the support of 60 out of 63 Ithaca police officers (Davies, 2021).

How this relates to the diffusion of innovation is that the innovators came up with a new way to handle situations that do not involve armed police officers. The idea caught the interest and attention of the Ithaca Police Department; thus, Ithaca have become early adopters of the idea. Thanks to the exposure of a more community member approach due to the podcast, I believe this innovation is currently in the phase of getting other communities on board with the idea. Essentially, they’re looking to gain an early majority, and eventually late majority. Honestly, there will be of course laggard communities that will hesitate to this idea (Rare, 2015).

2. The second topic from the podcast is related to design thinking. Continuing with Ithaca, NY, the idea of creating a Department of Community Solutions & Public Safety is a sound example of the community following principles of design thinking. This in large part is because community members spoke up regarding high instances of armed police response to situations where it did not warrant it. They wanted the police to listen to “the voices of us” (Davies, 2021).

How this relates to design thinking is that the idea has humans as its focal point, closely following the first stage of design thinking empathy. Policymakers empathized and defined the problem of unnecessary armed responses, highlighting steps 1 & 2 of design thinking. From there, they ideated the concept of a community and people-centric approach in dealing with the problem by formulating and prototyping the Department of Community Solutions & Public Safety, highlighting steps 3 & 4 of design thinking (Gibbons, 2016). Testing the department’s efficiency had garnered success not only with the community, but with the police department itself. The innovation got support from 60 out of 63 Ithaca police officers (Davies, 2021). Due to its overwhelming success of the test phase, step 5 in design thinking, the department has been successfully implemented, the final stage of design thinking (Gibbons, 2016).