OPINION: Former long-serving US police officer Keith Lazaron warns that the seeming increase in political influence demonstrated by some district attorneys can have a damaging impact on policing, as communities lose faith, law enforcement agencies lose morale and stability, and victims lose trust in a process where police and district attorneys are operating as ideological adversaries rather than accountable but co-operative partners.

OPINION: The public perception of policing is of a straightforward chain of command; but experienced officer Keith F. Lazaron II, who currently serves with the West Kittanning Police Department in Pennsylvania, warns that in US law enforcement the behind-the-scenes pressure exerted by the ‘stakeholder table’ of elected officials, administrators, insiders and connected community voices can lead to a shift in policing away from professional standards and toward political survival.

OPINION: Law enforcement agencies with “good policies” often continue to get bad outcomes; experienced officer Keith F. Lazaron II, who currently serves with the West Kittanning Police Department in Pennsylvania, explains why policy (what an agency sets out as its standard for behavior) almost always loses out to culture (what officers know gets tolerated) – and what good leaders should be doing to ensure policy and culture align more closely.