Sheboygan, WI (WHBL) – Five years into his post as Chief of the Sheboygan Police Department, Chris Domagalski is not delusional about the risks, rewards, or potential conflicts associated with the job.
That might explain why the chief places a great deal of emphasis on providing extra training for his officers, and supervisors alike. Domagalski believes that when it comes to law enforcement as a whole, adjustment is the key to successful policing.”I think it has to evolve just like anything else. Any other business operation, community, everything evolves. Change is sort of constant in life, and if we don’t change with the times, we’re not gonna be successful for many different reasons.” the chief says.
Recently, the Sheboygan Police Department sent four top supervisors to attend a seminar on Evidence Based Police Strategy, at George Mason University. The seminar was conducted by Dr. Cynthia Lum, and Dr. Chris Koper. Both are criminological researchers with the Center for Evidence-Based Crime Policy.
Chief Domagalski says his team gained invaluable insight from this, and other recent seminars. “Many of the things we’ve tried to do is based on evidence, or research that’s been done. Part of the trick is taking the research and translating it into everyday use. We’ve sent four of our supervisors now to the Southern Police institute to get training on modern day management of police organizations, and they talk about what the research tells us is successful- and some of this stuff is very old. So looking at the traditional police model and recognizing how much of it is a fallacy – it just doesn’t work," says Domagalski.
The chief says many police agencies still think “The Old Way” is the only way to do things, and many citizens have been trained to share in that belief .