By Troy Pierson
Broadcast version by Mary Schuermann reporting for the Kent State-Ohio News Connection Collaboration.

COLUMBUS, Ohio -- Last summer's widespread protests were a call for increased police accountability. Now state legislators are proposing legislation that would require law enforcement to receive emotional-intelligence training to better handle themselves while on duty.

House Bill 362, which Rep. Catherine Ingram, D-Cincinnati, introduced in June, aims to create a multi-step training program that educates officers on how to manage their emotions while dealing with the public.

"This bill is specifically for peace officers' training," Ingram said. "But this kind of training, this kind of awareness of yourself also goes along with everything else that's going on. The pandemic actually exacerbated things that we were talking about when this bill first came to fruition, when we first started talking about it. ... Even more so with our police officers, because they're out in the field every day, but they're people just like the rest of us. They have hardships, they have issues and they have family lives and all those other things that they need to deal with."

The call for increased training stems from recent public concerns on how police perform their duties, which drove citizens across the country to participate in Black Lives Matter protests last summer after the death of George Floyd.

According to the National Institute of Justice, an agency that researches the impact of crime for the U.S. Department of Justice, the stress police face while working can result in serious health complications, such as PTSD. A lack of funding also places departments under stress to provide training for their officers.

"What we keep getting tasked for with law enforcement is to do more and more with less [funding]," said William Balling, the Sidney, Ohio, chief of police. "Right now, law enforcement is in a very dynamic situation for different reasons. It's hard to attract and keep officers [with] the pressures that they're under, with the stress they're under, [and] the dangers they have to go through and the different conditions of the job. It's getting harder to get people in, and when you have that, you're stressing the current officers and the staff to the point that it's a rubber band almost ready to break."

Legislators are seeking advice on how to train law enforcement from leadership professionals such as Jack Slavinksi, who has worked with agencies such as the Ohio Fraternal Order of Police to implement emotional intelligence training programs among their staff.

In a June 2020 editorial in the Columbus Dispatch, FOP/Ohio Labor Council Executive Director Gwen Callender praised Slavinski's training model as a successful means of educating officers to deal with themselves and the public.

"Police officers have tough jobs that are under constant pressure, stress [and] uncertainty . . . so there's this constant pressure in their role, and it's definitely on the increase because of what's going on in our society," Slavinksi said. "So that affects their overall ability to make decisions, to think clearly, to adapt, to use judgment to de-escalate things. So emotional intelligence and the resiliency-building elements of it to deal with stress and adversity and anxiety and all that enables them to better manage their brain functions, so that they're able to maximize their physical processes."

Balling said there needs to be a solid foundation for funding projects such as emotional-intelligence training, so legislators do not have to revisit funding multiple times when appropriating budgets for law enforcement. He recommended using surcharge programs such as Kentucky's Law Enforcement Foundation Program Fund, which states use to generate revenue outside of taxes. Balling says programs such as surcharges can continually bankroll training for officers.

"That money then goes into a fund that's used every single year for training," Balling said, "and then the state could decide what is the training that's needed to help fund the training for all officers across the state. And this would be a fund that wouldn't be dependent on officers writing tickets or arresting people because that always leads to a bad taste in citizens' mouths; but this could be a dedicated fund that's not in the general budget, that is nondependent on a budget year to year to year to be approved, but it's a consistent revenue stream."

While Ingram said there currently are no appropriations in the bill to cover funding for this training, she aims to advocate funding "from every direction possible" so a pilot project can be established.

The bill will be revisited in September when the General Assembly returns to session.

This collaboration is produced in association with Media in the Public Interest and funded in part by the George Gund Foundation.

A package to improve public safety is moving ahead in the California state Legislature - with a floor vote in the State Assembly on the first bill expected this week.

Assembly Bill 2215 puts into statute that police officers have the discretion to send people arrested for low-level offenses directly to supportive services.

Anthony DiMartino - government affairs director with the nonprofit Californians for Safety and Justice - said sometimes public safety is best served when people avoid arrest and instead get therapy, addiction support or help getting a job.

"We're also hoping to raise awareness that this is something officers can do, and then also encourage partnerships more with officers to look at what's in their community," said DiMartino, "as alternatives to jail booking."

A second bill would increase transparency and accountability on money sent to the counties as part of the Public Safety Realignment.

A third bill would require police officers, prosecuting attorneys and investigators to identify themselves any time they're interviewing a family member of someone killed or severely injured by police.

DiMartino said they also support AB 2499, which would ensure that survivors of violent crime and their family members can take unpaid time off work to address safety concerns and heal.

"We're hoping to broaden the scope a bit," said DiMartino, "and make it more clear that family members of victims are able to also tap into unpaid leave to support their family member that has been a victim."

A fifth bill would make it easier for justice-involved people and crime victims to speak freely during restorative justice programs - by making the communications inadmissible in other legal proceedings.

Missouri went through with its first execution of the year, as Brian Dorsey was put to death last night, just after 6 p.m. CT.

The U.S. Supreme Court on Tuesday declined to stop Dorsey's execution. He was convicted of murdering his cousin Sarah Bonnie and her husband Ben nearly 20 years ago.

The advocacy group Missourians to Abolish the Death Penalty launched several recent campaigns on Dorsey's behalf to spare his life.

Jenni Gerhauser, a cousin to both Dorsey and Sarah Bonnie, expressed belief in his redemption.

"Brian is more than the worst moment of his life," Gerhauser stressed. "There is so much more to him."

Gerhauser fondly remembered him as fun and charming from their visits during holidays. Dorsey's current lawyers said he was in a drug-induced psychosis when he killed the Bonnies in 2006 and his attorneys at the time had been offered money, preventing them from fighting the death penalty with his guilty plea deal.

Gov. Mike Parson confirmed Monday the state would move forward with Dorsey's death sentence, rejecting a separate request for clemency. More than 70 current and former corrections officers had urged the governor to commute Dorsey's sentence, arguing he had been rehabilitated.

Claudia Boyce, also a cousin in the family, said it should not be a decision for the state to make.

"You know, that's supposed to be God's decision, not ours," Boyce contended.

Dorsey received a lethal injection Tuesday evening. Lethal injection became an option for people on Missouri's death row in 1987, alongside lethal gas.


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Amid overcrowding and unsafe conditions in West Virginia jails, state lawmakers introduced bills that would allow judges to take a 'second look' at an individual's original sentence.

If a court determines they no longer pose a threat to the community, the person could be released, placed on supervision, or receive a shortened sentence.

Sara Whitaker - criminal legal policy analyst with the West Virginia Center on Budget and Policy - said West Virginia is one of the few states that has seen its prison population balloon over the past decade, despite declining crime.

She noted that as of last month, more than 500 people in the state were in jail awaiting transfer to a prison.

"As a result, eight out of 10 of the regional jails in the state were beyond capacity," said Whitaker, "with hundreds of people assigned to sleeping on the floor."

The bills failed to advance this session, but Whitaker said advocates are hopeful lawmakers will consider them next year.

The state's jails remain among the deadliest in the country, with at least 91 people losing their lives while incarcerated in the past few years.

According to the West Virginia Center on Budget and Policy, jail bills cost counties $45 million in 2022.

Nationwide, long sentences have led to growth in the number of older people behind bars.

Whitaker pointed out that 'Second Look' legislation could help the state avoid turning its prisons into nursing homes, and said the number of elderly people in prison has tripled in the past two decades.

"In 2019, West Virginia had to open a dementia unit in one of its prisons," said Whitaker. "There are hospice units across multiple prisons. And experts predict that this is just only going to get worse."

Whitaker added that 'Second Look' policies also offer a way to correct past racial injustice in the criminal legal system.

Black people incarcerated in West Virginia are four times more likely than white people to be serving a life sentence with the possibility of parole, and five times as likely to be serving a life-without-parole sentence.




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