Shaping the Future of Police Work through International Insight - Dr. Grainne Perkins Chief, University of Southern Maine Police - The CopDoc Podcast: Aiming for Excellence in Leadership

Episode Transcript
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Intro-Outro (00:02):
Welcome to The Cop Doc Podcast.
This podcast explores policeleadership issues and innovative
ideas.
The CopD oc shares thoughts andideas as he talks with leaders
in policing communities,academia and other government
agencies.
And now please join Dr SteveMorreale and industry thought

(00:24):
leaders as they share theirinsights and experience on the
The Doc Podcast.

Steve Morreale (00:31):
Well, hello again everybody, Steve Morreale
coming to you from Boston todayand we are starting another
episode of The Cop Doc Podcast,and today we're up in Maine, the
University of Southern Maine.
We're going to talk to somebodyin a moment you'll hear.
It's a little strange when youhear the accent, but Grainne
Perkins is the chief of policeand has traveled all over the
world, very, very well healed inpolicing and a doctor, a PhD

(00:53):
herself.
So, Grainne, good morning.

Grainne Perkins (00:55):
Good morning.
Thank you for having me on thepodcast, Steve.
It's strange accents.
I don't know what you'retalking about.

Well, it feels comfortable to me because I
spent so much time in Ireland.
But you are a lady from Irelandwho is now in the United States
.
Why don't you tell us how thehell you got here?
Tell us about where you started?
It looks like you've beenliterally all over the world, so
talk about that.

Yeah, I suppose that I've been very fortunate
in terms of policing, the accessthat I've had to policing.
It's one of those careers thatdoesn't necessarily travel, I
think, as well as some careersand vocations do Started my
policing career off in Irelandback in the mid 90s.
I suppose I was actually aninteresting police in Ireland
for a long time.
I don't hail from a family ofpolice officers at all, or

(01:37):
guards as they're known inIreland but for some reason got
the book at a very young age.
I, ella's sister, was doingpsychology in University College
Dublin and they were trying torecruit PhD students into the
lab of the police service at thetime.
And my sister said to me youmight want to come in here and
listen to this particular personbecause they weren't recruiting
in Ireland in the police andthey had a lank of ban for many

(01:59):
years.
So I went to my school inuniform, 15, 16 years of age and
said I want to be a guard.
How can I do it?
And she said get yourself adegree and come in through the
sciences.
And I mean this realisticallywas before the CSIcom took off.
Nobody had even heard of theword forensics really until the
last sort of 10 years and somepopular TV shows took off, so
got myself an honour sciencedegree in zoology.

(02:21):
I actually ended up on Bostonworking as a profile chemist,
still waiting on the call up forthe guards on Garda Sjeghan at
New Ireland.
It eventually came and it was ano brainer.
It was a job I had my sights on.
So I ended up coming back fromBoston and my now husband's
stroke stalker followed me backto Ireland and we spent 17 years
in Ireland and I absolutelyloved my career.

(02:43):
I started in the trenches likeeveryone else uniform community
policing Actually got pulledinto detective work.
I honestly credit that with theanalytical skills that come
through the science degree.
I always remember my interviewfor the guards.
One of the interviewer said tome you know you're very well
educated and you know we're justthinking would you be bored if
you come into the guards?
I'm like no, please work.
It's not the most excitingthings to do.

(03:05):
And when I explained to themthat I just spent a summer
counting microscopic insects outof a tray, literally by hand,
I'm like I've reached levels ofboredom you can only dream about
.
And I think that analyticalskill really the research
perspective as always kind ofstuck with me.
So got in, loved it ended updetective, detective sergeant,
worked across seven positions inthe city, seven different

(03:27):
stations, which really wasfantastic.

What city was that?
Dublin?
Dublin City, I see, and some ofthe outlying stations.

Outlying stations, very much the busiest
stations in Dublin City I waslucky enough to work in.
When I got promoted I gotpulled into the professional
standards unit, which in NorthAmerica it tends to mean
internal affairs, in Ireland itwas legislated for in 2007.
We, basically a group of uswent around the country looking
for best practices and how wecould inform the rest of the

(03:56):
police service about these bestpractices in an annual report
Informative, but I supposethat's when the education
component of my career reallytook off, because prior to that,
when I was a detective, I cameacross restorative justice
practices and it blew my mind.
I literally stopped me in mytracks with respect to what I
thought justice was.
And then when I saw restorativejustice in motion, I'm like

(04:18):
this is the difference between alegal system and a justice
system.
I ended up going up to Queen'sUniversity in Belfast and get a
master's with Shad Maroon upthere, who did a lot of work on
rehabilitation of ex-prisoners,very, very fortunate with the
type of professors I had there,just opened my mind, really took
that with me, went intoprofessional standards and then

(04:39):
was exposed to theadministrative governance side
of police.
It's a language you need to beoff with, particularly when
you're climbing the ranks, andthat, okay, here's another new
language I have to learn.
So I ended up getting amaster's in public
administration governanceIntentionally.
A lot of people ask me why Ididn't go for an MBA.
I have no inclination to gointo the private sector.
I'm a public servant to my coreand I wanted to do something

(05:01):
that I could put to work.
I'm from a very blue collarfamily and we have a phrase that
you know degrees andcertificates are lovely, but you
can't eat them.
If you can't put thatcertificate or degree to use,
it's not really worth much toyou, unless you're into your
Greek and Roman studies, whichno one in my family is.
Yeah, worked in Ireland andthen myself got an opportunity
to go down to South Africa.

(05:21):
I was in Interpol at the time.

Wait a minute.
Wait a minute.
You just go from Dublin toSouth Africa.
What a damn crazy thing.
We're talking to Granny Perkinsand she is the chief of police
at the University of SouthernMaine, which is in Gorham and
Portland, and you're in.

Lewiston too, Lewiston too.
Yeah, I was in the company inLewiston.

I got you so obviously an Irish gal who is
now here in the United States.
But I read some things aboutyou and we've been able to talk
and how I came to find Grannywas one of her colleagues from
the guards.
From the guard it reached outto me on LinkedIn.
He follows the podcast and saidyou really get to reach out for
this lady.
She's really close to you inMaine and she's probably an hour

(05:58):
and a half away from me and soyou end up with now three
degrees my degrees in publicadministration.
So I understand why you wouldgravitate in that direction, but
I do know that your husband wasan Amazon guy and ends up
taking a job and that's one ofthe reasons you ended up in
South Africa.
Is that a fair assessment?

I think you're on the money.
I was in Interpol I'd only beenthere a year International sort
of police in which anotherangle I hadn't done was really
enjoying it.
And he asked me to take acareer break and I instinctively
said no, because Amazon Ithought it was the mothership,
seattle was calling him home andI thought why would I move from
one wet country to a wet one?
Like no.
And he said no, it's actuallySouth Africa.

(06:38):
So I took a year career breakon the basis that would go down
and see the lay of the land.
I don't have kids by choice.
I can't cook to save anyone.
I'd be more likely to kill youwith my cooking.
So I knew I had to do somethingand contacted a Shad Maroon, a
professor in Belfast at the timeand said listen, I'm thinking
about maybe doing a bit morestudy, any ideas?

(06:58):
And he said this is going to begreat.
Give me half an hour and fullcredit to him.
Within the half hour I had anemail from the director of
University of Cape Town,clifford Shearing, who was an
absolute giant in criminology.
He said come on down, we'd loveto chat to you.
So yeah, on a whim and a prayer, I took a year's career break
and headed down to South Africa.
Fortunately for me,unfortunately for South Africans

(07:19):
, there was a commission ofquarry into policing at the time
, into one of the townships thatthey had such bad customer
service from the police agency,they did a tribunal of inquiry
to which I went to every day andsat down the back just
listening, meeting people tryingto understand the lay of the
land.
I met with Clifford in a coffeeshop in South Africa, I think
within the first two weeks, andhe said you know, lovely to meet

(07:40):
you and chat it through.
And he said by the way, I'mretiring.
I thought, oh dear God, I'vejust taken a career break and
this man is leaving theuniversity.
In fairness, he had me alreadyhooked up with a professor there
who said I think you'd workwell with a Rina Vanderspoi in
terms of policing and yourinterests.
So I spent the year really justfeeling my way around South

(08:01):
Africa, the landscape ofpolicing, making connections to
understand.
Is it something that I could doas far as the PhD went?
And by the end of the firstyear I knew I wanted to do it.
I knew I'd found my topic andit came in inadvertently through
attending the Police Commissionof Inquiry and, yeah, I just
got the bug.
Then I was very, very fortunateto end up working with the
South African Police for fiveyears in one of their most

(08:22):
dangerous townships, where theirmembers get killed at the
highest right in South Africa.

And I see that you have a book on its way out,
danger and Police CulturePerspectives from South Africa
from Emerald Publishing.
Talk about that.

Yeah, the topic itself.
I suppose it's a rework of thePhD itself.
My original interest as adetective surgeon homicide
really was about homicide andhow they investigate homicides
there, and that started thebackground inquiry into the
research itself.
But when I started to read intoit I'm like, wow, the police
officer's getting murdered hereat a really alarming rate.

(08:55):
And when I went to look for theresearch on it I couldn't find
any.
I mean, I had maybe 20, 25academic papers.
I'm like, am I missingsomething here?
There can't be that much inAfricans.
And no, it was a veryunder-researched topic in South
Africa because violence is on acontinuum there from birth right
through to death.
There's levels of it that areaccepted and I think it became

(09:16):
this kind of occupational hazardof acceptance that when you
became a police officer in SouthAfrica it goes with the
territory.
But the more I start digginginto the murder of South African
police officers, the more Istarted to unpack this idea of
danger.
And it's an accepted concept inpolicing, among scholars.
You know the danger, authority,isolation triangle of the

(09:36):
personalities of the work andpolice officer and it was just a
taken for granted concept whichreally blew my mind because,
particularly with theconversations that have evolved
over the last five, six years inpolicing.
To understand why policeoperate in the way that they do,
we have to first take a stepback and understand what it is
they think they're respondingand reacting to, which

(09:58):
ultimately is a danger.
And I think, just unpackingthat idea of what is danger, how
do we formulate danger inpolice?
And that really became thedriving force of the research
that I ended up doing then inSouth Africa.
Again, no better place to do itin a place where they're
subjected to that physicaldanger more than anyone else.
And with that comes thepsychological dangers that
surround that as well.

Your police officer at heart and now a
researcher and a PhD, and you'vetaught and you've been in many
different organizations.
Let me take you back to yourhome country, Ireland, and ask
what you thought you know somuch with social media comes out
almost instantaneously.
Then there were some riots inDublin a few weeks back and

(10:39):
there were some pretty damningpieces of video out there about
the hooligans and in your, thesame place that you policed.
What were you thinking?

The footage was pretty raw.
I think there was a slow marchtowards that riot and it came in
news tidbits prior to that thatwe had an American tourist
there earlier on this year inthe summer who was beaten in an
area very, very close to wherethe riots happened that there
was this slow bubble that seemedto be happening.
So when the riot itself sort ofexploded disappointing but not

(11:12):
surprising, and I think that'skind of a narrative that we're
looking at across mostdemocratic countries at the
moment with respect to howpolicing is actually evolving I
think we're at an importantjunction in what policing is and
what it does, both in theglobal north of America and in
the global south, because it hasto evolve.

(11:32):
George Floyd was the pivotalpoint of it needs to change and
I think that idea of a changeand it speaks to the danger and
the perceptions of danger withrespect to how and why we police
the way that we do I mean theold adage of you cannot police
without the consent of thecommunity.
It is that you want to please.

Did you mean adage the adage?

I lived in Paris for a year and 40s, and
time to bring a little bit ofFrench with that.

I love it, I love it.
Go ahead as you're writing.
It's such a transition thatyou've gone through.
You've gone from policing tointerpol, to professional
standards, to we haven't talkedabout Seattle, but you've been
in South Africa and now you'rein Maine and you are the leader
of a police organization on acampus.
Talk about the transitions, thedifference between your

(12:23):
experience with the Guarda andyour experience here in the
United States, and what you hadto do to adapt and transition.

I think the first adoption was to slow down
because the accent again, irishpeople speak very, very quickly.
It's an easier adoption.
Funny, on the east coast ofAmerica I very rarely have to
repeat myself, unless I use aFrench word, steve, and throw it
into the conversation.

Alright, take your shot, but you take your
shot, go ahead.

In Seattle.
I think the core of what I dois relationship.
It's packaged in a police modelbut really the vocation is
about building relationships andbuilding trust.
Seattle was an unusual spot forme because we ended up there
after five years in South Africaand again I knew I wanted to
stay in the policing arena and,as a civilian moving to America,
I started looking at jobs thatwere on the periphery of police

(13:09):
and but still central to what itdid.
The police accountability jobcome up along with an offer from
the office of the inspectorgeneral and I'll be honest, I
found my clan, as we say inIreland, or the tribe.
Here was very much policeaccountability because I got to
work in policing.
I had 11 sergeants that I thinkwere two civilians by the time
I left as investigators of IA.

(13:29):
The police accountability modelin Seattle is quite unusual.
It's a hybrid model, so theydeal with internal affairs as
well as public facing complaints, so you get everything.
And really interesting tounderstand and unpack how police
investigate their own.
I mean it's often being calledthe, the Wolf Garden, the hen
house.
I don't subscribe to thatbecause I think to investigate

(13:50):
people, knowing how a systemworks, is central to getting to
the core.
Just because policy says it'smeant to work like this.
We're humans.
We will always find thatshortcut.
And who better to show you theshortcuts of?
We may need to rewrite thispolicy because it's not put in
practice the way it's written.

There are unintended consequences.
We didn't consider that, but Iunderstand yes.

Yeah, like those knock-on effects.
I think I'm very practical whenit comes to policing.
I don't like ostrich management.
Let's you know, we know it'shappening, so can we deal with
that as opposed to pretend it'snot happening?
And I think the George Floydmoment really Seattle turned
itself inside out.
We were the epicenter of Covidfor the first eight weeks
without fail, eight o'clockevery evening.

(14:31):
I was living downtown at thetime.
People stood out and bangedpots and pans for emergency and
healthcare workers.
George Floyd happened and itwas boomerang effect.
The pots and pans were nowbeing thrown at the police and
to see the footage.
I couldn't tell you thethousands of hours we watched in
relation to the footage frombody worn cameras and CCTV to
investigate the police, thepractices, what they did, the

(14:52):
attacks on them.
Again, it cleaned my lenses withrespect to understand of police
in a wholehearted way asopposed to well, I come from
Ireland and this is the way wedo it here.
And then you move to SouthAfrica and the context and the
culture it changes.
But that central idea of youneed the consent that never
changes, regardless of thecommunity, is that you're police

(15:13):
and, be it the gated community,a community of color, you need
their consent and if you don'thave it, you can't please.
The accountability super, superinterest and very intense.
And again it's that pivotaltime in America where we need to
understand policing has tochange.
It's something now I'm startingto look at with a researcher in
Glasgow.
We're actually trying to pulltogether an international

(15:33):
project the how has policingchanged?
I mean the old idea of top down.
You know the Reagan war oncrime will tell you what you're
going to police, we're gonna.
We're gonna feed our policeservices what we want them to do
.
We're now much more reactionarywith respect to society.
We're policing on housed issues.
We're policing divergence incommunities, and that's not top

(15:55):
down, that's literally thecommunity's telling you we need
this to be sorted and I thinkthe police are suddenly front
and center with respect to well,what can we do?

social issues.
So let's talk about that for amoment, and you experienced it,
it seems to me.
Now I'm working with the guardand they're they're trying to
roll out a co-response unit.
They have to work with HSE,which is our HHS, if you will,
and they're having a little bitof trouble getting it going in
limerick, but you know yourexperiences.
The 24-7 police are there andchild and family services aren't

(16:25):
, and the homeless group is notavailable, or it's all of these
mental health, and we go on andon and on.
So I want to ask you about somethings you just spoke about.
You talked about reviewingbody-worn cameras.
As you review when I talked toso many people who do this for a
living actually review based oncomplaints and whether or not
the complaint is sustainable orthat the officer actually did a

(16:48):
good job, and we have some proofto that what was your
experience as you were lookingat it, as the Seattle police
were coming under fire and beingconstantly being complained
about?
Were they holding their own?
Were they being respectful?
For the most part, what wasyour finding?

yeah, I think with the body-worn it's funny.
It's one of those pieces oftechnology apart from cars that
was brought in wholesale.
It was never tested, it wasnever questioned with respect to
.
Is this the right thing to do?
Body one in America is comingin on mass.
We know in Ireland, I mean,they had to pilot it first.
They've been pushing for it.
The police wanted it, but thepublic didn't.

It was the opposite here.
But as soon as I think yourexperience is.
As soon as ACLU wanted it, butas soon as it started to
boomerang back on the people,what do you mean?
You had a complaint.
We have proof to the contrary,because that's not what happened
.
Oh, never mind.
And they want to withdraw thecomplaint, isn't that?
I'm seeing your face.
Is that true?

It is and, again, it's such an interesting
conversation.
As far as peaks and valleysWith the body worn, it's
something that my owninvestigators I always caution
them.
That is a tool and it's onepiece of a larger conversation.
It's one angle.
It's not 360.
You'll get maybe 30 secondsretrospective before the camera
kicks in.
You don't have the full context.

(18:01):
You can never remove old schoolinvestigations from the current
status of where we go to and thetools that we used.
Body worn it's one aspect andeven with that one aspect, I
mean I had a case where we had aquery on in relation to use of
force situation and the bodyworn gave such an interesting
angle with respect to what theofficer did and whether the

(18:23):
right hold was used, et cetera,et cetera, and then we pulled up
the footage from the car andwhen I say 360 with respect to
the other angles that we couldsee it was a great case that I
use, bringing in newinvestigators as well, to say no
more than there's always oneopinion, there's always another
angle and the context to haveall those angles hugely

(18:44):
important when it comes toinvestigations, no matter what
the investigation is.
The body worn for me is reallyjust, it's a tool that we use.
It's not the beyond.

It's not the cure all.
Yeah, I understand and you know, what just came into my mind is
our American football and theuse of video and how sometimes,
no matter what, whatever angle,we cannot completely say that
the foot was out of bounds orwhatever it might be.
And I think, more importantly,what you're pushing is I
understand, I've made arrests,you've made arrests and you
never know what led to it.

(19:12):
It's sort of like I mean, youuse soccer, we use football,
right, there's a push thathappens and I see the follow-up
push as the referee or theumpire and don't realize what
precipitating issue was.
You understand, somebody triedto kick me in the Hootsies and
that's the reason I reacted,because my body was threatened.
We don't see that on the camera.

We don't and I think that the implications of
it then we didn't shoot throughit enough with respect to okay,
we now have this piece ofevidence, let's bring this piece
of evidence to court.
It was actually an Australianresearcher looked into the idea
of secondary victimization, thatwhen this footage is shown in
court, if a respondent didn'tact the way, the jury sometime

(19:53):
think they should react on it.
I think the case in questionwas a sexual assault complaint
and the victim wasn't the cryingdistraught.
I mean, the person wasobviously in shock as this
academic piece was written andthe problem was when the footage
was re-shown in court it didn'talign with what they believed a
victim should be.
So what damage the evidence wasdoing with respect to the

(20:16):
credibility of the witness?
Again not factored into the ideaof well, what else does
body-worn footage do for us?
Is that something that shouldbe chewed through?
Same with the collection ofevidence at a scene that we're
seeing now.
With respect to collectingevidence, it's saying well, how
much weight do we attach tophotographs, crime scene
photographs?
Because that's the angle takenthrough the lens of a
photographer.

(20:36):
How objective can we be withthat singular lens?
Should it be a video?
Should we give the jury thefull 360 of what the murder
scene actually looked like,because with this crime scene
photograph, all I'm getting is astill and your angle of the
weapon relative to the body, etcetera, et cetera.
So I think that technology isone of those.
It's really interesting policeand to see how quickly accept
some things, and then therepercussions we see 10, 15

(20:59):
years later in terms of yeah, wemaybe should have again taken
that research or mindset andtested it before we pushed us
through the system.

It's rare that we do that, I understand.
Let's sort of fast forward alittle bit.
It seems to me that yourhusband, that we talk about
Amazon has had a worldwideperspective.
They keep moving him around andnow you're in Maine, I guess,
this time.
So tell me how you ended up inMaine, because it looks like he
asked for as reading about you,he asked for a transfer, as

(21:27):
opposed to being offered atransfer.
It's an up you go.

Well, that was to Seattle.
Yeah, the move from SouthAfrica to Seattle was a
promotion of sorts for himself,so it was a new team.
We were there five years and wetend to sort of reassess after
five years, so the time wasright then the move from Seattle
to Maine was mine.
This is the quid pro cono.

It was my turn it's my turn yeah.

Yeah, I wanted to do something fresh and I was
looking at new opportunities.
I took some time off afterleaving the police
accountability because I had thebook deal in hand and I wanted
to actually set time aside tojust concentrate and do
something that I had my mind seton but I had never set the time
aside to deal with.
So I took a couple of months tofocus and do that and then
really just start looking outfor positions.

(22:10):
This side, the usual suspectscropped up training academies
and things like that.
I saw this opportunity at theUniversity of Southern Maine and
started to read around theuniversity, the people, and it
really started to excite me,because in Europe we don't have
police agencies and universities.
It's not a dumb thing.
So the idea of being involvedin policing in your own

(22:30):
community in a research settingso many boxes were being ticked.
I thought this could be reallyinteresting.
And again, what can I learnfrom it?
Like, what haven't I done?
I haven't done this.
The type of emergency managementthat I would have done would
have been the intra-police sideof the house or managing murder
investigations.
You know, plain falls from thesky.
We're gonna spin up a victimsupport, calm center, larger

(22:51):
scale, whereas this is reallyhands on with respect to the
community and the folks that youcome in touch with on a day to
day basis.
So once I started interviewingwith the university, I just the
people were solid, as we'd sayin Ireland, you get a great
sense of a community from thefirst people you touch base with
and their ability to stay incommunication with you, and I
had nothing but positiveinteractions and I thought this

(23:12):
is feeling good.
I like what I'm hearing, whoI'm meeting.
I come out in NovemberThanksgiving last year and
thought what have I done?
I think my face was gonna falloff with the cold.
I forgot cold.

Oh, it's not cold in Ireland.
Come on, yes.

It's a different type, as you say.
In Ireland, joe, we get softrain.
It'll still soak you, but it'snot heavy rain here.
That November cold it's stillnot as bad as like December's
fine November cold is just this.
I think it's the North Easter'swarning it's coming, but now
it's been great.
The people are very aligned tothe Irish type of thinking that
we don't take ourselvesseriously, but we take what we

(23:48):
do seriously, and for me that'sa huge difference.
I don't take myself seriously,but put my nose to something
that's police related or workrelated, I can switch, I can
change those gears when I needto, but I think the ability to
laugh at yourself and I thinkthat's why South Africa was
probably a draw as well for me.
Because Ireland I obviouslylived through the Civil War
there, my mom's from NorthernIreland, my dad's from the South

(24:09):
.

We've all been doing more.
Oh, they didn't know that.

yeah, yeah we've all been to Northern
Ireland.
We called it the troubles, godforgive.
You'd never call it civil war.
South Africa, it was thestruggles.
They had the same type of senseof humour where you can laugh
at the absurd and laugh at thenormal.
I find that here in Maine andthe East Coast as well, that the
people have a sense of humour.
It aligns with the way I wasbrought up, that culture that I

(24:31):
was brought up in, and I thinkit works really well for a
police model.
I think people are bitterlydisappointed when they meet me
that they're not getting thetypical police officer that
they're used to.
But I think that's part of thechange that's come on, that the
international model, theglobalization of police, and
we're using it a lot more nowbecause it's what works.

Well, this is so unique.
We're talking to Granny Perkinsand she's now the chief of
police at the University ofSouthern Maine, also a PhD, and
so it's a nice blend of both.
Here you are with a PhD,research experience being
involved, with three master'sdegrees and a PhD program in
three or four different schools,and now here.
So you've got a nice blend, butit had to be startling for

(25:09):
police officers at USM for thisredhead with an Irish accent to
be the chief.
What's that about?

They've been very welcoming and very patient.
They're giving them that much.
I met again when I came up lastNovember.
I met them and I very muchbelieve in setting out my stall.
As we say in Ireland, set upyour stall and tell people what
your stall is.
You know who?
I heard say that Someone inIreland.

Simon Byrne.
Simon Byrne, the chiefconstable at PSNI.
He said that and I had to sayto him assignment, what do you
mean?
Set up your stall?
And I've heard it from two, soexplain it from your perspective
.
Yeah funny.

It's one of those things probably in
training in Ireland,particularly in leadership
training in police, and thefirst thing that you're taught
is well, set out your stall,show people what you're selling
and what you're about.
Tell them.
Don't wait for them to ask youand I think for me, particularly
in the management role, I'vealways done that.
I have to tell people who I amand what I'm about.
You'll go into the listen andlearn mode for three, four

(26:01):
months before you make anychanges or even attempt to make
changes.
You've got to understand thatculture.
So the setting out the stall isreally the first part of that.
When you're in first gear andyou're cruising along and you're
just understanding the lay ofthe land, who's who, who does
what, what works well, whatdoesn't, and listening to your
people.
I think from a leadershipperspective it's very much about
listening to your people.
We're fortunate enough now I'mactually in the process of

(26:22):
hiring three folks at the moment.
I very much stay in theperiphery.
I mean, as I say to the lads,you're working with them, you
select who you want to be with.
You decide right, right, right,right right, I'll do the papal
blessing at the end if we needto, but this has to be driven
from the ground up.
I'm not top down when it comesto management decisions because
I suppose bitter experienceWe've all had that manager who
gives you so much of a choke onit you can't even chew on it and

(26:44):
I never wanted to lead a grouplike that.
Very much a team effort,because it can't be successful
on your own.
It's back to that core model ofpolice and you can't please
your own people if they don'tconsent us.
So to get that buy-in, you setout your story.

Set the story early.
That is such an interestingperspective.
I mean, we've said it here inthe United States the same way
you gotta get buy-in, you haveto get earned trust.
But that consent that you talkabout, that is so important and
vital in the GARDA, is appliedhere.
So you're taking those lessonsand applying them internally
rather than externally,absolutely.
So we continue in ourdiscussion with Granny Perkins.

(27:18):
Dr Granny Perkins and she is atthe University of Southern
Maine, sitting in Maine todayand headed on another trip.
She is a wander, as they say.
But one of the things we weretalking about is that as you
come into this new job, you arenow a police chief.
You have now converted from acivilian position that you had
in the Seattle Police Departmentand come back to the policing

(27:41):
aspect.
You have young officers andsenior officers.
Take us into the first fewweeks Talked about listening and
learning.
How did you do that?

Yeah, I mean, I think your point there.
I've never had anyone work forme or work with them, and I
think the higher you climb inmanagement and leadership, the
less you believe you're actuallyin charge, because if you think
you're in charge, you're doingthe wrong job.
Your folks are going to tellyou what they need and how.
They've been listened to beforeyou arrived and for me that was
huge with respect to gettingthe lay of the land in terms of

(28:11):
where the agency sat in thecommunity that had a place, and
our community just happens to bethree university campuses and I
very much treat it the same wayI treat it Seattle.
In Seattle, as the interimdirector of police
accountability, I reported tothe mayor.
My mayor is now the presidentof the university, who reports
to another mayor, the chancellor.
The sort of administrativething was very similar to me in
terms of leadership, andpolicing is about clear and open

(28:34):
communication vertically andhorizontally.
The people at the top need toknow what's going on, but, more
importantly, so do the people atthe bottom, because they're the
ones that are going to bring inyour mission, your vision, your
values, your goals, all thebuzzwords, but it has to be
something that makes sense tothem and any change that I did.
I socialize at first.
I'm a huge believer insocializing ideas and I think
that's probably driven from theresearch that I did and

(28:56):
organizational and occupationalculture that you cannot just
bring in an idea.
There's no such thing as ideasby email.
It doesn't work like that.
It's the door stepping that Ithink most police officers they
get it because they do it on aday to day basis.
You knock on people's doorsyour door stepped them and you
ask them what do you think andwhat do you think of this, would
you like to add to this?
And you give them space to havea voice and they have to be

(29:17):
comfortable with theuncomfortable.
Then if the boss comes to youand says, you know, what do you
think of this idea, I tell themwhat I told folks who hired me
in USM, and it's the last thingI pretty much say in every
interview I go into.
You know I'd love to take thisposition, but I have one word of
caution and I'm serious when Isay it Please do not consider
hiring me if you think you'regoing to get a yes woman.

(29:39):
I won't be a yes woman.
I will disagree and commit whenI have to for the right reasons
, but if you're looking for anod and dog leader, I'm the
wrong person for the job that Ivery much like to bring in new
ideas Probably.
I think it was a compliment.
The best compliment I believe Igot of late was in relation to
one of the lads where I washiring recently and my

(29:59):
lieutenant said to me.
He said, chief, you know,they're asking what sort of
chief you wear and we buy thebook and blah, blah, blah blah.
I said right, okay.
The last thing he said to mewas you know, does she think
outside the box?
And I looked at him and I saidright, and what?
What did you respond?
He said honestly.
I said to him think outside thebox.
I don't think she's ever beenin it.

So you're, yeah, you're growing on people for
sure, right I?

think you're going to get that on a t-shirt.
I kind of like it.
It is just the way it's beendone.
Like this Doesn't mean we haveto keep doing it like that.
It doesn't matter if it's shiftwork, it doesn't matter if it's
how we do our day to daybusiness.
It's bringing in differentideas and I think it's different
vocations as well.
I mean I'd like to read, butI'm not a fictional reader.

(30:45):
I like the leadership booksthat we enjoy.
I think problem Adam Grant isone of my favorites.
I just think he brings in somevery innovative ideas with
respect to what to do Anythingin the medical field.
I mean I'm a checklistcom thatif we're building something, I
guarantee there'll be achecklist attached to it,
because if it's good enough forformula one racers and brain

(31:05):
surgeons to have at the side oftheir day to day duties, it's
good enough for us.
You won't forget things if it'sa checklist.

Well, okay, wait a minute.
That's very, very intriguing.
Are you saying that this is oneof the ways that you are asking
your people to figure out whatwe do, so that you kind of can
go through a checklist and rootnigh some of the normal?
I love what you're sayingbecause let me explain this when
I was the chair of thedepartment, people will come and
ask questions.
Right, questions are finite.
There's 25 questions, there's300 different calls that we go

(31:34):
on, whatever it is, and youbegin to say, okay, is there a
way for us to put on paperanswers to the questions so that
we don't continually have toanswer those questions?
How do I do this?
How do I change a grade?
How do it's those kinds ofthings?
I'm seeing you shake your head.
We could be doing that inpolicing and it sounds like
that's something you're movingtowards as a new idea and
outside the box thinker.

Absolutely.
It probably started in Seattleduring COVID that we had to
onboard new investigators and wehad to work remotely, and I
thought this is madness.
The stuff we do, it's all handson and I thought what
technology do we have to handhere, what can we use?
And literally got the team tostart creating an, a online
learning library where they takethemselves on Zoom walking

(32:14):
through a case, and it was doneon the basis that lads will keep
this as an in-house library fornew hires, that people can
forward and pause and see howyou work your way through a case
management system, and it wasreally popular.
We kept it.
Similarly, when I moved to Maine, we're now obviously looking at
major emergency planning.
We had a recent incident up inLewiston.
It was an ours, but we werealready on our pathway of let's

(32:36):
look at our emergency operationsplans.
We've had one in existence thatwas prior to my time.
It was very standard, followedall the rule books and I'm like
I don't like this, as my motherwould say anything for an easy
life, but God forgive me if I'dgive myself an easy life.
I'm like this isn't working.
We're coming out of a COVIDcoma.
Some people are still hybrid.
I need folks to start readingabout emergency management,

(32:57):
because it's not a one womanshow Emergency management.
It's an all hands on deck andpeople need to know what to do.
So we basically ripped up therule book and we're making our
own.
By that I mean what we're doingis siloing out the emergency
operations center into theindividual silos of planning
logistics, the usual suspects tothe pillars of safety.
The request of all our folks isI've given them a template to

(33:20):
make a workbook, and theworkbook has to have everything
top down, bottom up, withrespect to immediate contact,
phone numbers, activity logs,maps, the three phases of the
emergency plan and what happensbefore, what happens in it and
what happens after it.
And they're all checklists,they're literal tick boxes that
people can tick, because Iwanted to create one learning
environment that you need to beobeyed with the language.

(33:42):
You need to understand, ifyou're asked to do something,
what that actually means and,more importantly, you're allowed
to win the lottery and go tothe Bahamas and hand that book
to someone else.

Yes, so it maintains institutional
knowledge Knowledge exactly.

And there's continuity then in emergency
planning, which often doesn'thappen when there's a change in
the guard and I can see that.
But on top of that itencouraged everyone in the
emergency plan and mindset toactually put the nose down and
understand their own places.
We're aligning that with thebasic 101 of emergency planning.
How do you get out of abuilding?

(34:15):
When's the last time we didfire drills?
Because again, this COVID coma.
A lot of agencies, never minduniversities, are coming out of
that.
Some things.
People are asleep at the wheelbecause we're still kind of a
half hybrid model.
So the idea of just shaking thesystem and creating something
new, it's going down well, butthat's not anything I can do on
my own.

Well, no, that's a socialization.

Idea of okay folks, can we sit down and break
some bread, have a cup of teatogether?
What do you think?

Yeah, I think that's great and there's so many
things coming at me, but Ithink about the situation that
happened in Lewiston.
Obviously, the situation isjust happening at UNLV.
We just had a shooting on ourcampus, a gang shooting that
came on our campus on Halloween,and how do people react to this
?
And you're going to do anafter-action review.
But it also seems to me thatone of the things in you talked

(34:59):
about relationships that youhave to make sure that you have
is that in every town or citythat you have a campus, you have
to have a good relationship.
So that's a little bitdifferent, because if you're in
Dublin, you're working with theguard.
You don't have to work withthree different police
departments, but you do.

We do and I'll be honest with you in the guards
the same thing applies, but ona different scale, and who you
build that relationship with.
I mean, when I first became adetective and I remember the
group that I moved to were likewhat's she doing?
I literally went around all thepharmacies and introduced
myself with a calling cardbecause we had a huge problem
with robberies and a lot of itwas methadone, which was

(35:35):
indicative of a drug culture inDublin, and I wanted to know
well, who frequented the areaDidn't think much of it, they
were all quite appreciative,whatever.
And then about six months laterthe pharmacies went up in arms
in relation to.
They had a number of tests andstuff and my then boss was able
to say hey, did Granny instigatesomething there about six
months ago?

How did you start?
How did you start?

We already started building something about
this and it was a nice backstopfor us to say we started on
this.
We saw a common.
Similarly, with the university.
The first thing I did, I think,within the first four weeks,
was literally knock on the doorsof all the local agencies, from
Gorham Fire to Gorham PD,portland, the new police chief
there, mark DeBoeff.

(36:14):
From Boston Mahem a few weeksago, portland Fire, because
again, some of our issues wecross swords with each other,
like we have an unhousedpopulation that have been living
in campments that have come onparts of the university.
That involves more than me.
It involves a relationship withour other agencies all the way
out to Gorham.
I mean I've winded them.
I have, oh God, gray standish.

(36:35):
Like we literally backside witha lot of other agencies and
support each other.
I mean Gorham PD or Gray for usthat if we need backup to a
call they'll be there and it'sthat core relationship building.
It's what we do as a service.
We're a public service.

Yeah, I like that.
I want to talk aboutindividuals now and what you see
your role as a police chief.
You have staff members andcommand staff.
You're running meetings.
I'd like to know how thosemeetings go, how you engage
others, what kinds of questionsyou're asking, how you look at
developing other people.
That in a lot of ways I've saidover and over again when you're

(37:10):
in charge, leadership it's allon you but it's not about you.
You said that at the topTalking with Gronja Perkins, and
she's from Ireland but now inthe United States at University
of Southern Maine.

How important?

is it developing other?

Huge.
It's something I know policeare very poor at, we're very
poor at.
You mentioned the idea of aone-to-one with someone and
you'll probably see the back oftheir head before you see the
front.
They'll be out the door.
But it's something that I'veactually brought into my own
department now because peopleneed that space to talk to you,
either to offload or to upload,particularly with junior members
who want to become managers andwho want to become leaders.

(37:44):
Probably one of the things Ican ask the most is exactly that
I'd like to become a sergeant,but I don't think I know enough
about this.
Or I don't think I know enoughabout that the general imposter
syndrome that you get as aresearcher or as a senior
manager, and the way I explainthis to my folks I'm like the
way I see leadership,particularly in policing.
You're the conductor of theorchestra.

(38:05):
You don't have to know how toplay every instrument, you just
need to know what it sounds liketogether.
That's the difference.
You can get down the back andbang the drums, but if you do
that, are you playing for theone o'clock matinee of school
kids or are you playing for thesymphony orchestra at eight
o'clock?
So understanding your audience,I think, is key with respect to
understanding your instrument,understanding your people.

(38:25):
I very much believe in skipinterviews as well, that we have
the rank and file and I likethe rank and file.
As far as communication, I likethe idea of people being
comfortable to be able to comein and talk to you and talk with
you, but I also like to givefolks the opportunity to do skip
levels that they don't have togo to their lieutenant or their
deputy chief.
I'll arrange one to one with myfolks because I think the one

(38:48):
thing that I missed out on it Igot fortunate in terms of
mentorship.
I was very, very lucky that Igot mentors throughout my career
because I wasn't afraid to stepup and step in and say you know
, can I sit in this interview?
As my folks would say?
I wasn't shy about comingforward.
Some people are and when you seethat potential in folks, it's
the one thing I want to exposethem to.
Your junior sergeant isn'tgoing to be right the level of

(39:08):
report rights that you have todo for the chancellor.
But you should be exposing thatsergeant to those reports now.
Get the focus in line that theycan understand the level they
have to write and the detailthey have to write to that
problem that was theirlieutenants or was their deputy
chiefs or was their chiefs.
That should be theirs.
And I think if you get thatmindset early in folks that you
want to develop, you'll reapbenefits that you wouldn't have

(39:31):
even thought of yourself.
Your mindset early.

Yeah, I think you've probably had the
experience of people who like tokeep everything to themselves,
because if I show what I'm doing, then they're a threat to me.
They want my job as opposed toright creating bench depth and
helping people think one or twolevels above them, which is
exactly what you say.
I want to ask this question.
I was thoroughly impressedduring my time with Garter,

(39:55):
garter leadership, garterCollege.
How do you feel now that you'reon this side of the pond?
How do you feel that theyprepared you for this job?

the Garter I think, well, I mean baseline for
police in Ireland.
Well, and not through, thecontext and the culture comes
into play.
I mean the amount of classesI've been to in North America as
part of the train and FBI leadand stuff like that, where I say
to a class of 30, 30 sergeants,the frontline officers don't
carry guns in Ireland.
And I had the same response inSouth Africa.

(40:24):
The go to responses how do youpolice?
And that fascinates me, that tobe a police officer to police
you think you have to be armed.
In Ireland your mouth is yourweapon, like the gift of the gab
is something that you put towork every day.
It's the core of what we do, Imean.

I observed it.
It's amazing.

It's a de-escalation tool, but the way
the modules are built there, Ithink this is where
globalization has to occur.
Part of our basic training,they have a full TV studio built
in Templemore, yes, andcommunications is one of your
core classes.
Communications how to speakreally you're teaching the Irish
, but that's structured, thatcomes with it.
I mean remember in my own classyou start at one minute and

(41:03):
your final exam is, I think, a10 minute presentation on camera
and the class clown wasvomiting before he had to do his
presentation.
That that's how much themindset changes when you
understand the audience that youhave to communicate a specific
message to.
I think we can borrow from eachother.

I will say this that my experience has been and
continue to remind you we'retalking to Granny Perkins, the
police chief at the Universityof Southern Maine.
Dr Granny Perkins, it is such afascination with the Irish
police, with police from othercountries, certainly in North
America, and vice versa, and yetI think in some ways the Irish

(41:39):
national police, the guarda, isfar ahead of us and in other
ways they're way behind us, andI don't know whether you're
seeing that same thing.
When you have to come back anddo the portfolio and do
reflection, which is somethingwe don't require in the United
States, I think it's a bigmistake.
Talk about that, that portfolio.
We go to the Academy, the guardof college, and then come back

(42:01):
and practice and apply what youlearned and then come back again
and then tell us what you did,tell us where the mistakes were,
tell us what you saw others do,give us an indication of a
community policing situation.
I know you're quite familiarwith that, but American police
are.

Yeah, with two years of a journal that you have
to do.
The journal basically indicateswhat you do on a day-to-day
basis, what powers you used onit.
It's a fantastic way to becomefamiliar with the ingredients of
policing, because if you don'thave ingredients, you're not
making a rest similar to here, Ithink, with the air on the side
of caution, I think that thereflective piece I mean.
Research has shown you'llalways learn better when you

(42:37):
reflect regardless.
But who's police in thejournals?
With respect to the accuracy ofthem?
The dear diary.
Today I went to school and Icollected seashells.
Is that really what happened?
I believe in the journal.
I believe in the journalReflections.
I think, particularly when yougo to instant room coordinators
courses, that that's hugelyimportant.
That becomes part of the SIOmodel.

(42:57):
With respect to reflecting onthe activity log of what you do,
I think a balance has to bestruck between the collegiate
model that Europe tends to pushtowards versus the American
model of let's get you in, getyou out of the academy.
That's sort of 16 weeks, Ithink, of standard here,
compared to two years.
Or I was lucky enough toactually work with the German
police on a scholarship for afew weeks.

(43:17):
That's gone back to the late90s when I went there and their
model blew me away because theyhad actual pathways where you
could join the police agencythrough the academy and be
fast-tracked if you wanted to bean administrator, that, if that
was your gig, if you wanted todo strategy and policy, it could
be fast-tracked through theacademy if you had the right
qualifications.
And that always fascinated mebecause I thought we've all

(43:38):
worked with people who end upsitting behind desks that
shouldn't have joined police inmany people's minds because
they're, you know, the penpushers but yet they're really
good at what they do.
And the problem with police inmost countries is, with rank
comes the higher responsibilitycomes the higher the pay, and
that shouldn't be so.
It's a bit like nursing.
I come from family nurses.
I think that the pay scaleshould be reversed.

(44:00):
Frontliners are the people thatshould be kept, should be paid
well, and people who have theadministrative nine to five
roles.
They'd be lower down on thepecking order.
With respect to the retentionissues that we have to look at
now, I mean it's a one thingthat I've had conversations with
a few chiefs here at a fewdifferent conferences in terms
of what we're doing aboutretention?
How are we keeping our people?

(44:20):
And there's always concernsabout the idea of the lateral
hires and let's give them abonus.
I'll be honest, I'm not a fan.
I want to give the people whoare staying the money.
I don't want to give new peoplemoney just to come in that
there has to be a leveling ofunderstanding with respect to
hiring and retention and I thinkwe're starting to see that it's
starting to level out withrespect to why people are moving
People no more than leaving ajob.

(44:41):
You don't leave a job becauseof the job.
You leave because of the people.
That's the reason why you joina job, because of the people.
It's the reason why I joinedthe university, so it was the
people that attracted me.

Which is terrific.
So we've been talking to GanyaPerkins and we're slowly running
out of time for the episodeBecause it's so easy to chat
with you.
I really appreciate it.
If you had to assess or you hadto write a little bit of your
own journal about what you'refinding different in American
policing than what you haveexperienced or had experienced

(45:11):
in Ireland, what would it be?

I always go back to a conversation, steve, I
had with a friend in SouthAfrica when we were down there
before I knew I was coming toAmerica.
He actually got a job inAmerica and this guy was 36,
grew up in Johannesburg very,very violent area, and himself
and the wife were moving toAmerica.
And I remember saying to him ohmy god, he's so excited, you've
never been da-da-da.
And he turned to me and said,ganya, a bit worried.

(45:35):
I said what are you worriedabout?
And I thought missing hisfamily or something, and said no
, I'm actually worried about theviolence.
And I remember pausing andthinking are you pulling my leg?
The violence?
You literally are from one ofthe most dangerous places in the
world, never mind cities, andyou're worried about the
violence.
He said, yeah, ganya, it's notthe violence per se, it's the
randomness of the violence.

(45:55):
That's what worries me.
I could be shot at school, in abar, at a cinema, and I
remember just pausing andthinking, wow, that's very
outside in type of mentalitythat I had been so nose to the
books with respect to NorthAmerican policing and South
America and you know, the globalSouth.
The reality was the change incoming to America.

(46:17):
For me, it's the randomness ofwhat you have to deal with.

Think about what happened in Lewiston.

Exactly those very unknown variables.
I mean, we've discussions aboutthe gun culture and everything
else, but that's a question wehave to look at.
How do you please randomness?
And that speaks to context, andit speaks to communities and to
culture, and I think it getsback to the core of
understanding the community thatyou please and that you serve
ultimately.
But that's how you understandthe randomness.

That's interesting because for those of
for you who used to investigatemurders and watching what
happens here in America, it'sfunny how, I think, the public
reacts when a police chief willcome on.
We're waiting to hear whathappened.
Was it targeted or was itrandom?
Right.
And if you hear that, oh, itwas a girlfriend, it was a
boyfriend, it was a firm of bossor whatever, oh okay, it's

(47:04):
almost like we take a breathlike, okay, I'm not at risk.
I'm seeing a shake your head.
Is that an amazing reaction?

It is, isn't it ?
Sure, it's not the label andterrarium action.
You know they did it becausethey are XY, they are XZ.

Gang related or it was a boss?

Yes, you know we can box it off and
psychologically we can makesense of it then that you know
that was a once off, it's youknow won't happen here type
thing.
But for me it's that randomnesspiece, it's kind of central to
what we do and it's the slipperyeel.
You're never going to be ableto pin it down.
The only way to understand itis to understand the folks that
you're working with on aday-to-day basis.

The slippery eel .
Another.
We call it the slippery slope,but it's a slippery eel.
From where you are from, I'mlearning, I'm learning.
I have to say so.
So thank you, listen as we winddown what's on your bucket list
.
What is it you want to do?
I know you're headed somewhere,but what is it you want to do?
You like to travel.
What are the things you want toaccomplish?
I like to travel.
Do I say?

world domination.
I don't know I genuinely.
Where I'm at at the moment isgreat, Super interesting.
We're building a lot of newprojects and stuff.
I think collaboration is keyfor me going forward.
There's a lot of other agenciesinternationally that I still
want to see what it is and howthey do what they do.
I think the collaboration keyis going to be front and center

(48:19):
going forward.

That's great, and so you're so close to Canada
and you're so close back homefive, six hours in your back
home, whether it's Shannon or inDublin, and so that makes it
very, very convenient for you, Isuppose.

I agree with that and so Anywhere.
But Shannon, I'm a dope.
I'll be flying into Dublin.
I won't be going to.

Shannon, I'm sorry about that.

You'll be bringing me down here, Corkness.

Yeah, well, you, oh, I'm sorry.
I know how you feel about thatSouthern part.
So if you had the opportunityto talk with somebody who is
famous, who would you want totalk to?
How would you want to picktheir brain?

I probably have to dig them up now because he's
passed.
But Ernest Shackleton would beprobably one of the people I
admire the most.
I know I have a print of himsomewhere in the house.
With respect to his Antarcticadventures, in terms of the
exploration, I love and again Isuppose the traveler in me that
I like that anthropology, thenew cultures, but I think his
leadership, I think his story,it gets told but not often

(49:13):
enough.
With respect to the enduranceHaven, I think it was 28 in
total men on board a ship.
They all survived.
There wasn't any massiveoutbreak of fights.
It was a quiet, stable sense ofleadership that brought people
on literally a global adventure.
I think I'd love to chat to him.
I'd love to see what type ofcharacter he was.

(49:34):
There were a few Irish.
Tom Crane obviously would havebeen one of his right arms on
the endurance trip.
I think I've always just beendrawn to the Antarctic
exploration because it wasunexplored.
And then to do with why?
A building a team into theunknown?
It's always fascinated me.
I've shelved the books here onit.
Yeah, probably ErnestShackleton, I think, would be my

(49:55):
go-to in terms of if I couldchat to anyone.

Your legacy.
What do you?

want to leave.
What is your legacy?
Do you think?
What would you like?

your legacy to be what do you want to leave
behind?
Why do you do what you do?

I don't know, but honestly, I asked myself
quite a bit in terms of it isone of those things you think
why am I doing what I'm doing?
You could have the mantra, interms of what you, you know,
your management or yourleadership, to be firm but fair.
I think anyone who knows mewould probably say what you see
is what you get and what youhear.
I'm pretty straight withrespect to I think that might be

(50:25):
an Irish trait.
You know it is and yet it's not.
Some people are packaged a bitsofter.
I would have a turn of phrasethat would be fairly unique to
me.
As my mother would say,slippery ale could be one of
those phrases.
I think the legacy for me wouldbe just hope when you've helped
someone.
As cheesy as it sounds Anycouple to add here, there's no
better day than when someonesays to you thanks and it's an

(50:46):
earnest.
It doesn't matter what thatthanks is for.
But when someone genuinely saysthank you for helping me, it
doesn't matter if it's the kidwho's the instigator of the
trouble or the kid who's thevictim of the trouble.
I think that thanks is that'sthe bow on the end of your day.
If you've done a good job, it'sgood enough for me.

Well, I think I just spoke with another police
chief a little while back, andone of the things that he said
is I am not looking wasChristian.
I am not looking to count beans.
I'm looking to make sure thatwhat the people who work with me
do makes a difference to others.
What's your thoughs?

I'll be honest.
It's like he's echoed my openstatements to my own crew.
I'm like it's.
The first thing I'll say is I'mnot a bean counter.
I'm not looking at the clock tosay that's five past nine.
You're like that's not my gig.
The idea is they know whatthey're doing and if they know
what they're doing and enjoywhat they're doing, we're all
winning.

They do it with respect and they do it with the
right reason, with the rightheart.
I think that we can continue tobuild big police police
departments back in our in thetrust back.

Where we are.
It's again.
We're being driven by whatsociety wants and we're back to
the consent conversation that ifyou have folks in your agency
who don't have the traits andcharacteristics you've just
mentioned, the culture will eatthem up and spit them out.
They won't last because thepeople that they're police and
won't want them and theircolleagues won't want to work
with them.

That's great.
Well, thank you so much for allof your time.
I know you're gearing up for atrip to South America.
I wish you the best of luck andI hope to be able to chat with
you again.
We've been talking with Dr.
Grainne Perkins, Chief ofPolice at the University of
Southern Maine.
You have the last word aboutpolicing.
Do you have hope?

Absolutely.
I think policing fromeverything that we've listened
to and heard over the last fiveyears the defund, the police
movement I understand the mantra, I understand the ask, but I
think it's about reimaginingpolicing, reimagining what it is
we want from our police,because every community, every
person deserves someone they cango to and ask for help.

(52:42):
As I said before, it doesn'tmatter if they're instigator or
the victim of it.
But I think to remove thatright from communities is a
disservice and that's what weshould be there for.
That centerpiece of I need helpand be ready I think that's the
future.

Be ready when somebody asks for it.
Well, thank you.
So that's it.
You've listened to anotherepisode of The Cop Doc podcast.
I appreciate your timelistening.
We've been hearing from peopleall over the world.
We just heard from a colleaguein Maine.
Thank you so much for beinghere, Grainne!

Thanks for having me.
Really enjoyed it.

Thanks, so stay tuned for another episode.
You've been listening to TheCop Doc Podcast, Steve Morreale.
Have a good day.

Thanks for listening to The Cop Doc Podcast
with Dr.
Steve Morreale.
Steve is a retired lawenforcement practitioner and
manager, turned academic andscholar from Worcester State
University.
Please tune into The Cop DocPodcast for regular episodes of
interviews with thought leadersin policing.

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Shaping the Future of Police Work through International Insight - Dr. Grainne Perkins Chief, University of Southern Maine Police

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.css-14f5ked{margin:0;word-break:break-word;display:-webkit-box;-webkit-box-orient:vertical;box-orient:vertical;-webkit-line-clamp:2;overflow:hidden;}Shaping the Future of Police Work through International Insight - Dr. Grainne Perkins Chief, University of Southern Maine Police