Ramesh Nyberg
We must be geniuses.
We, who labor in uniform, in plainclothes, or in tactical armor, are not merely figures of authority – we are reasoning beings, operating with disciplined intelligence.
OR…
High school juniors are complete, empty-headed lamebrains. Now, before all of you with high school children out there get your city-issued knickers in a twist, let me tell you that I have raised six kids, all of them having stumbled through their 11th grades with various levels of incompetence, and I openly admit to having been a 17-year -old lamebrain myself.
Specifically, I’m talking about some simple concepts. Here’s an example: What is a lead? It’s something which needs to be followed up on, right? It’s a piece of information, a tip, a hint of information which might promise more. It’s something you need to get done. My detective friends out there know that you should maintain a “lead sheet,” a to-do list which keeps you organized: What have I completed and what tasks still need to be completed. A witness named Frank tells us that Mario, who works at the pastry shop on 19th Street, knows something about the murder. Your lead sheet should have an entry which says something like, “Identify and interview Mario from the pastry shop on 19th Street.” Right? It seems very simple. I taught my students what a lead is back in September and, as I write this, I’ve spent the last month reminding them how important it is to keep track of and prioritize their leads. I created lead sheets and gave one to every group of three students each – a “squad.” The other day, two students told me, “I have no idea what any of this means.”
Huh? We’ve been doing a mock investigation for the better part of three weeks and now you tell me you don’t know what we’re doing? So, I tried to walk it back. “What is a lead?” I asked. I got blank stares and shrugs. “I dunno,” one girl said. I could tell from polling the rest of my four junior classes that many of them shared her lack of comprehension (forgive my clenching jaw and the clumps of my own hair in my fist). I was bordering on distraught. If they haven’t been able to divine what a “lead” is, what hope do I have for them to grasp ideas like the Sixth Amendment right to confront your accusers, or what it means to appeal a case on judicial error? Have I failed them as a teacher?
I love doing the mock investigations. It’s fun – maybe more fun for me than most of them – and I get to challenge them to try and connect information, evidence and use critical thinking as a foundation to grasp investigative principles. And, to be fair, not all my students give me blank looks and make me doubt my teaching skills. There are some who truly get it, who embrace the process; they are, however, the exception rather than the rule. This is a struggle for the vast majority of them.
Why?
I’ve been grappling with that question for a while. I’ve been doing these mock investigations, teaching them about leads and the concept of “motive, means and opportunity,” since 2009. Over the years, I’ve noticed a change in the students’ ability to understand the things which you and I, as law enforcement professionals (retired or otherwise), consider second nature. The students of 2009 caught on with the concepts much faster and remembered how to integrate them when we started doing these mock cases. Again, why? The answer is probably multilayered, but here are some facts. High school students’ reading and language arts scores have been on a steady decline for the last two decades, but getting significantly worse the last five years. What’s my theory? Young people aren’t reading anymore. Maybe a small segment of them break the mold and have a love of reading, but, for the most part, they spend hours thumbing through TikTok videos, Instagram and Snapchat posts, and chatting with their friends (and not about Mr. Nyberg’s Criminal Justice class, to be sure).
So far, I’ve been talking only about the student’s inability to understand what a lead is. Imagine now the culmination of this project: Write a report. Here are some of the reactions I got when I announced this: “Huh?” “Wait – what?” (one of my all-time favorites), and “How do you do that?”
They stopped short of asking, “What’s a report?” but that’s what I heard in their anxious tones. Understand that we spent a solid week on how to write reports and I gave them a couple of assignments on it: one was to write a report on a simple investigative task which they conducted, and the second was to identify certain elements from a sample report I provided for them, and answer some questions about the report (basically, comprehensive reading). I coached them, telling them that details are important, such as when you interviewed someone and where. I told them not to ever refer to players in a case by first name only; if they knew their full name, they had to use it. Be detailed and don’t assume the reader knows about your case. It may well end up in the hands of a prosecutor who has no idea about any of it. It’s chronological and it’s informative and it’s in past tense. A report, I told them, is them telling their story about what part they played in the case. What did you do?
This turned out to be more confounding for them than their struggles with leads.
As we concluded this three week project, I told them that less than 5% of them would ever become criminal investigators. But, I also told them that there is a very good chance that they will have situations in their careers which will require them to document things and to prepare some type of report to submit to someone. As far as leads, I explained to them that learning to prioritize tasks would help them in daily life. Living involves meeting the challenges of schedules, expectations and things which need to get done. I won’t tell you that I’m on the verge of despair, but I will tell you that we have legions of young people pouring into the ranks of adulthood in June and, next June, and the June after that, who are increasingly deficient in being able to describe things and events using written communications. It’s not a good look for the future of law enforcement, for the legal system and maybe for society in general.
Are we law enforcement folks geniuses? Nah. But, we should count our lucky stars if our young years developed in an environment which valued the written word, the questioning mind, and desire to learn new ideas.
Ramesh Nyberg retired from law enforcement in November 2006 after 27 years of police work. He lives in Miami and teaches criminal justice at a local high school. He also teaches regional law enforcement courses through Training Force, USA. He enjoys getting feedback from readers and can be reached at ramesh.nyberg@gmail.com. Also, Ram has written a new book, Badge, Tie and Gun: Life and Death Journeys of a Miami Detective,which is available on Amazon in both Kindle eBook and paperback. You can find it by visiting amazon.com/dp/B0CTQQKQTV