MADISON, Wis. — Madison police chief Shon Barnes marked his one-year anniversary on the job at the beginning of February.
Coming in after 180 straight days of protests in Madison during 2020, and entering during the budget season while making a priority to have dozens of community meetings–he says a chief regret and top priority going forward is spending enough time with officers in the 400+ person department.
“My days tend to get long and things pop up,” he said. “If I could change anything, probably spending more time internally with the officers, understanding what they’re going through and how to make their job a little bit easier.”
Barnes has faced his share of controversy in 2021. He’s the subject of what’s still an ongoing investigation of a civil complaint filed by a now-former Madison police officer. He also faced criticism for his handling of Lt. Reginald Patterson’s case, who eventually resigned after being caught engaging in sexual activity in a squad car while on duty. Barnes threatened to fire officers who had leaked Patterson’s name to the press, the Wisconsin State Journal reported, after initial reports didn’t identify Patterson as a lieutenant.
“That is something that I won’t back down on,” Barnes said in an interview on Friday. “We cannot leak confidential information, period.”
Still, he says transparency is a top priority for his department with the community: “More transparency is better than less transparency.”
A core goal for 2022 is to build on the problem-oriented policing model pioneered by former UW professor Herman Goldstein, who passed away in 2020. Barnes cited the SARA method commonly used for implementing the model, which involves “Scanning, Analysis, Response, and Assessment”–Barnes said he would add another S, “Sustainability”.
At its core, the framework calls on the public to identify the problems they want solved before digging into the data for a core understanding of what drives the problems. From there, a policing agency develops creative approaches for long term solutions.
“I want to really dig deeper into problem-oriented policing,” Barnes explained. “We’ve restructured some of our community policing teams to have…three teams that are specifically working on neighborhood problems, crime problems, disorder problems.”
While 2021 across the country overall didn’t see the same level of protests as the tumultuous summer months of 2020, he attributes the quieter year in Madison to his department’s development.
“The fact that in 2020 we saw 180 straight days of protest: we didn’t see that in 2021. And that’s because our officers really recommitted themselves to getting to know the community.”
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