By John L. Glasser III, Ph.D.
I was a newly promoted sergeant in 2019 and decided to return to school to pursue my doctorate. Fast-forward to October 2022, I found myself defending my dissertation for my Ph.D. at Liberty University and publishing it shortly thereafter. I focused my study on police promotions and assignments in New Jersey. The study addressed how officers experience, understand, and navigate a phenomenon called “particularism,” which we know more commonly as the “Good Ol’ Boys Club.”
When it comes to promoting and assigning personnel, this practice is alive and well, and it should come as no surprise to anyone reading this article. Since I published my dissertation two years ago, it has been downloaded over 600 times in 13 different countries, which leads me to believe this issue hits close to home for many of us in law enforcement. My study made some significant findings and conclusions, so I felt it prudent to follow up with this article on what we can all do better to mitigate and navigate the negative effects of the Good Ol’ Boys Club in our agencies.
Brief overview of findings
To better help you understand the recommendations and suggestions of this article, it’s worth briefly introducing the findings of my study.
Officer participants discussed how the Good Ol’ Boys Club deciding promotions and assignments can negatively impact the career progression of better-qualified and deserving officers. They also highlighted the ineffectiveness and/or incompetency of some who are promoted based on social ties over merit, and not surprisingly, they discussed the impact this has on the morale of the agency.
I’m sure it’s not surprising to learn that the word “morale” was brought up 43 separate times during the interviews, and none of those conversations included any positive impacts on morale. Officers acknowledged that these practices are not unique to their own organizations, and some discussed how it’s human nature and present in most organizations across all industries.
Most significant to this article is how officers navigated experiencing particularism in their agencies. Some officers continued to do the best job they could in the face of this type of adversity, while others had more negative ways of coping with the decisions made within the Good Ol’ Boys Club. Some slowed down productivity, some strained relationships with co-workers, some embraced negative attitudes and emotions as a way of moving forward, and some decided not to participate in any future competitive processes for assignment and promotion. Many of these responses were self-destructive and had negative implications for officer wellness and mental health. Fortunately, some of the instances the participants in my study described involved officers initially taking a negative approach to the outcomes and eventually rebounding to a more positive way of moving forward.
The purpose of this article is to highlight what we can all do better, from the rookie officer to the police executive. It’s important for me to note to the readers that I don’t take this topic lightly, and I certainly don’t make these recommendations from a soapbox or an ivory tower. I’ve made my mistakes, I’ve let the circumstances within my agency dictate my emotions and attitude, and my own experiences with the Good Ol’ Boys Club were the motivation for me to pursue this as a research-worthy topic. Hopefully, you will find value in the following sections, where I’ll discuss my perspectives on how you can avoid the common mistakes and pitfalls and how we can all work together on this issue that will likely never cease to exist.
Recommendations to rank-and-file officers
The burden of the negatives associated with particularism cannot fall solely on the police administrators. One of the findings in my study that I didn’t cover in the last paragraph was that most of my participants discussed how particularism is a pervasive and expected part of promotions and special assignments in police agencies. They were not surprised when social ties meant more than merit-based factors in determining promotions and special assignments.
My biggest question to all of you (and myself) is — if we expect the Good Ol’ Boys Club to influence decision-making and we aren’t surprised when it happens, then why are we allowing it to have such a negative impact on us both personally and professionally? I humbly submit to you that there needs to be a more productive way to manage the navigation of our negative experiences with respect to organizational injustices. Choose to be better and to do better — you owe it to yourself and your family. The next few sections below will cover three steps from my perspective and experience that we can take to start that process.
Step one: Focus on your “why”
There’s a reason that many leadership and self-help books and speakers focus on finding your “why” in life. That “why” is what makes you tick as a person and as a law enforcement officer, and we need a certain level of self-awareness to understand and identify our reasons for pursuing and staying with law enforcement.
For me, this started out as growing up watching my father serve honorably over a 25-year career and then the job satisfaction that our profession brought me. Now, it’s being able to lead by example for my children (though I hope they go into a different field) and to provide a solid future for them.
Regardless of your reason for entering and remaining in this profession, remember you are in one of the most noble professions there is, and you should be proud that you’ve endured the most recent years of a hostile social and political climate. Don’t let the injustices within your agency add to the burden you already have as a law enforcement officer. Don’t let negative outcomes in promotions and assignments change your “why.”
I am very well aware that this is easier said than done, but I encourage you to keep pushing forward and keep your own unique reason for entering and remaining in this field as your motivator. Your “why” is your solid ground to build the foundation of your life on — don’t let someone else’s poor decision-making or your emotions get in the way of you remaining steadfast.
Step two: Focus on stress management and wellness
Most of us were warned early on in our careers that we would experience internal injustices. At the same time, we were also told how critically important it is to manage our wellness and stress from our early academy days. Calisthenics and weight training were recommended to us as recruits, but wellness and stress management look different for each and every one of us.
Find something you can be consistent with that gives you a productive outlet, and focus on your consistency and making it a part of your routine. You don’t need to be good at it or make progress at light speed — you just need to show up regularly and take small steps forward.
For me, this means training Jiu-Jitsu in the early morning before my shift. I’m not very good at it, but it provides the physical and mental outlet that helps with stress management. The key is to find something you enjoy that also has a positive impact on your wellness, health, and attitude. If you dread one type of physical activity, don’t force yourself to do it. You’ll just be setting yourself up for failure and inconsistency. Find what works for you and push forward.
I am a firm believer that your spiritual well-being needs to complement your mental and physical wellness. Again, this looks different for each officer. Spiritual maturity is a lifelong process, just like fitness and mental health. If you have religious beliefs, you should seek to better understand and practice your faith. We can often treat this as a private and individualistic undertaking, but most religions in our Western culture have community within the church as a foundational principle. If you have a church, synagogue, mosque, etc., that you call home, I challenge you to find a small group to participate in to focus on your spiritual growth with others in the community. If you don’t have religious beliefs, find a way to build your spirituality with others with similar beliefs and practices. Added bonus if you join groups made up of people outside of the law enforcement community for fresh, unjaded perspectives.
Step three: Remember your oath
We all raised our right hand and took an oath to “faithfully, impartially and justly” perform all the duties of our office. I’ve never heard an oath that included “…except when my agency treats me unfairly” or “…except when I get passed over for that promotion or special assignment I had my heart set on.” I think the selfish part of human nature makes us sometimes forget these principles and foundations of our oath of office and instead prioritize how we see our career progressing.
Keep in mind that the communities you serve count on you to faithfully, impartially and justly perform your duties, even when you’re having a bad day. How would they feel if they knew you stopped caring or slowed down your production because you perceived that your administration did you wrong? Putting our emotions, attitudes and behaviors ahead of the best interests of the community is downright selfish and detrimental to ourselves, our agency, and our communities. Would the rookie version of yourself approve of that kind of response? I highly doubt it.
As a last thought and some tough love — sometimes you have to stop asking why the other person got the assignment or promotion and take a hard look in the mirror and ask yourself instead why you didn’t. I get it, though. Sometimes you were more qualified and it was a downright politically motivated decision that got you passed over. I’ve been there and I understand how you feel. At the same time, remember your oath, why you pursued this profession, and how you can make yourself better moving forward. Your time to shine will come — don’t ruin it with how you react to this one. People will remember the way you navigated this obstacle, so don’t give them ammo to use against you the next time around. Work harder and shine brighter in the face of adversity, and humbly demonstrate that you will always be the hardest-working and most deserving person in the room when the next round of assignments or promotions comes.
Recommendations to police administrators
My biggest recommendation here is to make your processes transparent with specific measurements and explanations for the personnel who are selected. A reasonable officer should be able to see the outcome of the process and understand why the decision was made to promote or assign the selectee. Your officers should also feel like your selections are based upon merit over anything else, even if they are dissatisfied with who you ended up selecting. When they believe they had a fair shot, the likelihood that they will engage in negative or counterproductive behaviors will diminish, and they are more likely to understand the decision you made. I know we can’t make everyone happy, but this transparency goes a long way with respect to morale.
Consider a point system that is released in writing to candidates at the same time as the vacancy announcement that sets clear expectations on what the process consists of and how each component is scored. Within this system, avoid subjective scoring at all costs. For interviews, you might want to ask a question where you are looking for a set number of points to be discussed in the answer, and a predetermined score is given if those points are covered. However you structure it, you should stick to a script and clearly defined scoring guides.
With respect to performance, your annual officer evaluations should be specific and measurable enough where the annual score clearly defines the knowledge, skills and abilities of each officer in an objective way. Your evaluating supervisors should not only be giving a numerical score in each category, but they should be backing up their scores with a narrative on the specific strengths and weaknesses of your personnel. You should be providing them with uniform and consistent instructions on how to score these evaluations as well.
In certain states, we are now prohibited from evaluating officers based upon performance statistics such as stops, summonses and arrests. While those numbers were certainly a valid measure of performance to an extent, I do agree that we as a profession relied too heavily on these numbers. A couple of my favorite scorable areas on new evaluation criteria are attitude, job knowledge, interpersonal communications, and the ability to accept responsibility, direction and change.
Do you have a friend or family member you’d like to promote or give a special assignment? There should be mutual respect in this relationship — they should respect you enough to earn the spot through their own merit and qualifications, and you should respect them (and the rest of your agency and community) enough not to put them in a position they are incapable or ill-equipped to handle. It’s as simple as that.
Finally, don’t blame the civilian administrators or politicians for the outcomes of your internal processes. I’m not naïve enough to think or argue that their influence can’t sway your promotions and assignments toward a certain candidate, but it’s your job as administrators to fight for doing the right thing. You and your command staff know who is truly deserving of promotions and special assignments, and those officers also deserve you having their back and fighting against the political influences from outside your organization. Even if you fail, your personnel will truly appreciate your attempts to do the right thing. Your department will run smoother when the right people are in the right positions — think “square peg, square hole” scenarios.
Final thought
We have a lot of room for improvement in this area, and we owe it to the communities we serve to promote and assign the best people for the job vacancies that exist. This doesn’t have to be an administration-versus-rank-and-file problem, and I recommend that all stakeholders within your agency work together for a fair and transparent process for assigning and promoting personnel.
Administrators, union representatives, supervisors and rank-and-file officers should all be contributing to the discussion on how the agency can select the best candidates to fill vacancies. These decisions have major implications for your agency and the communities you serve, so please don’t take them lightly.
About the author
John L. “Jack” Glasser III, Ph.D., is a Detective Lieutenant with the Brigantine (New Jersey) Police Department, having served since 2008. Jack is a special member of the Vidocq Society and also teaches criminal justice online as an adjunct instructor. He has earned a Doctor of Philosophy in Criminal Justice: Leadership from Liberty University, a master’s degree in Human Resources Training and Development for Law Enforcement from Seton Hall University, a bachelor’s degree in accounting from Saint Joseph’s University, and a bachelor’s degree in Criminal Justice from Thomas Edison State University.
