Police Reform from THEIR Inside Out — The Fishbowl

If you can’t get another person to understand how you feel, get them to feel how you feel

Systemic racism doesn’t merely exist between law enforcement and the communities they serve. It exists within the police force between black and white police officers.

Many white police officers may not be aware of it — possibly because the “white privilege” that exists in many departments makes white officers as oblivious to that privilege as white civilians are — but my black police officer friends are very aware of it.

What follows is a process and half day implicit bias training program that can break through the implicit bias that exists in police, sheriff’s and even some fire departments.

Here are the steps:

1. An entire police department meets in a training room which is arranged theater style.

2. White police officers are seated in the front rows and black police officers are seated behind them.

3. They are shown the documentary 13th. The purpose of the seating as explained above is for the white police officers to watch the documentary and the brutality against black people and to feel that the black police officers are watching them watch the movie. It is anticipated that the white officers will become extremely uncomfortable because they will feel what it’s like to be profiled as racist by the black officers behind them and like the white perpetrators in the film.

4. Following the screening, the white police officers turn around and are paired up one white police officer with one black police officer.

5. Facilitated conversations using the Fishbowl approach take place in the pairings:

Using the technique that is demonstrated in the above video between a depressed patient and their partner, police officers are directed to look into each other’s eyes where Dr. Mark Goulston, the creator of this technique, will direct each person to feel the dialogue that he will provide.

This begins with directing the white police officer to look into the black police officer’s eyes and feel these words that Dr. Goulston will speak:

(Speaking for white police officer): “I didn’t truly know how bad it was for you to go through that — although it doesn’t surprise me — and to be completely honest, I didn’t even want to now. I’m embarrassed at not knowing, but I am ashamed at not wanting to know. That’s because it shows a level of not caring about someone who I work with and who’s even a partner that makes me feel like a lousy human being. And I’m sorry.”

This follows with directing the black police officer to look into the white police officer’s eyes and feel these words that Dr. Goulston will speak:

(Speaking for black police officer, if the white officer had been sincere): “I’m not surprised by what you said, because I have always known that. I appreciate and accept your apology and I am not going to hold your not knowing and not wanting to know against you. That’s because you didn’t know any better and you’re no worse than most of your other fellow white officers. My question is now that you do know how awful it has been, what do you want to do going forward?”

Following this, the conversations between the pairings continue to be facilitated and organically the pairings come up with what they want to do and will commit to do going forward.

Throughout the remainder of the session and depending upon what comes out, Dr. Goulston will continue to do Fishbowl exercises to further deepen the empathy between white and black police officers.

One of the most important learnings and “Aha!” breakthroughs for participants is realizing that they can be empathic (i.e. seeking to feel and understand another person’s experience) and be angry or even defensive at the same moment.

More exercises will follow about how these police officers can take this understanding and tactics out into the field to de-escalate conflicts and confrontations wherever they find them.

The session ends with each person in the training being called upon to speak out about what they learned about their fellow police officer from another race and what they learned about themselves.

This session is an example of the Empathogenic Technique that Dr. Goulston invented where by causing one person to feel what another person feels, in addition to understanding it, it can transform attitudes, beliefs, mindsets and subsequent behaviors.

Dr. Goulston has already uses the Empathogenic technique in several contexts including training FBI and police hostage negotiators to empathize with a perpetrator as a means to de-escalating a situation.

In the following video, Dr. Goulston transforms himself into a cop who is set on killing himself after he had killed an unarmed teenager a year earlier which causes the attendees to get into where the suicidal cop is coming from, because he is one of their own.

Testimonial letter from FBI