The Honolulu Police Department needs a culture change, and the Honolulu Police Commission should make it a top priority when it decides who the next chief of police will be.
There are many HPD problems, including wrongful arrests, racial disparities in the use of force, overtime abuses, and police misconduct that has cost the city millions of dollars in legal settlements.
This essay focuses on three problems that are rooted in HPD’s organizational culture – the values, beliefs and assumptions that shape the behavior of the 1,700 sworn officers whose mission is supposed to be “serving and protecting with aloha.”…