Police and Military as Good Strangers

The objective of this project was to understand why and how some police officers and military personnel are more effective than others at managing civilian encounters without creating hostility – ‘Good Strangers’ (GSs). We conducted cognitive task analysis (CTA) interviews with 17 US police officers and 24 US warfighters (Marines and Army soldiers). The interviews yielded a total of 38 incidents (17 police and 21 military), which we used to identify critical skills for functioning as GSs. These skills centred on having a sensemaking frame that established a professional identity as a GS – Someone who seeks opportunities to increase civilian trust in police/military. This frame requires skills in gaining voluntary compliance, building rapport, trading off security and other frames versus trust building, and taking the perspective of civilians. Practitioner points To work effectively with civilians, police and military personnel need to use a Good Stranger frame, which casts each encounter as an opportunity to build trust. This GS frame requires skills such as trading off security to be seen as trustworthy, perspective taking, gaining rapport, gaining voluntary compliance rather than coercive compliance, and de‐escalating tense situations. The GS frame may be surprisingly easy to acquire for some police and military; observation of role models and their effectiveness seems to be a powerful training opportunity. Other training leverage points involve peer pressure, becoming more effective at gaining civilian cooperation, and recognizing the problems created by failing to build trust.