West Plains, MO. – In the Next Segment of Local Perspectives, we sat down with West Plains Police Chief Stephen Monticelli to speak about various issues, including the national reputation in law enforcement, how it affects recruitment, how the police try to reach out to their communities, and even his experiences working as an officer of the law.
Transcript of the conversation below:
Dan:
This is Dan here with Ozark Radio News. And I’m here with the West Plains Chief of Police, Stephen Monticelli. We’re going to do a bit of talking on our local perspective series, which is a series that I have been putting together to try to connect with leadership within our communities. Now, since we do have the chief of police here, I wanted to breach into kind of a specific topic, the outlook of the general citizenry within the US, and the police force in general, and how this kind of affects their job and even recruitment. As you know, we’re seeing shortages pretty much all across the US. Stephen, what are your feelings on this? And how does that really affect your job?
Chief Stephen Monticelli:
Well, I want to first thank you, Dan, for the invite. Recruitment, it’s been on a steady decline for probably the last 10 years. After the Ferguson incident, feelings about being police officers diminished. We have not seen that in West Plains per se, about the citizenship. We’ve got a very supportive community here. I’ve been here three years and I’m very impressed by our community, and how they support our agency and things.
Chief Stephen Monticelli:
That’s not done automatically. That’s done by a lot of hard work by the officers tying in with the community. I think we have a good partnership with the community in what we do here. But that has affected recruitment because of the national, I guess, concerns of law enforcement, the press and everything else that has put that negative tone to law enforcement. We’ve got a relatively small number of people looking to be police officers, but we got a whole bunch of police departments that are low staff that are looking for good candidates. So it’s making recruitment very, very difficult.
Dan:
And that makes sense. And actually thinking about this just right now, I do know that across the state, and even across the country to some level. But I know we feel it here in Missouri, is that many different government institutionalized workers are not being paid enough either. Does that affect your recruitment as well?
Chief Stephen Monticelli:
Oh, by all means. Like every other business, it’s a competitive business. Recruits look at different agencies. They haven’t really been involved in those agencies. So they’re looking for pay. They’re looking for different benefits, and they tend to go towards those ones that are paying better and have better benefits. And in this area, in this part of the state, the pay rates are not as high as what you can get going west, or going east into the larger cities.
Chief Stephen Monticelli:
The officers that work for us really like the community. They really like the area, so that’s why they come to us. It’s a constant battle to try to keep up with your surrounding agencies, and keep up with their same salary basis and the benefits that they offer their officers. So it’s a very competitive business now, especially when you’re all competing for those few candidates that are out there.
Dan:
Right. Law enforcement is a very stressful position to begin with, and I think a lot of people kind of understand that as well. I can’t personally imagine. I’ve never been a police officer, but I can imagine that it must be quite a trying position in addition to all of these other troubles, and that might kind of add into this. But from what I understand, you guys also have your Citizens Academy, that’s going to be coming up as well, which might be a way to sort of help people understand your side of things a little bit better. Do you want to tell us about that?
Chief Stephen Monticelli:
Yes. Starting September 7th, we have a Citizens Academy starting. It’s 10 weeks. It’s on Wednesday evenings between six and nine. We do have some opening still. So if you’re interested in putting in for that, do so fairly quickly here by applying for an application. It’s an opportunity to meet the men and women that make your police department. It also provides you some exposure to what police officer go through on a daily basis. You experience car stops, walking through that dark building, looking for somebody. It’s about just interacting with the men and women with the agency and learning what each of the divisions do on a daily basis. So it’s a really good way to learn a lot about your police department and give you that feel of what it’s like to be a police officer.
Dan:
Okay. Yeah. And honestly, that does sound like a really good idea, too. I know a lot of people who would love to know more, but don’t actually want to get involved in the position. And I think that’s just a great connect there that you’re reaching out to deepen that understanding.
Dan:
Now, from your personal perspective here, as being in law enforcement, what are some experiences that have really made a big mark on you? And what’s some advice that you might give to somebody who would be interested in either partaking in the academy or joining the police force themselves?
Chief Stephen Monticelli:
Okay. I’ve been doing this for 42 years, and I’m always happy to say that if I had to make that decision tomorrow to start, I would make the same decision. Law enforcement, it’s not for everybody, but it’s an opportunity to work with the different communities. It also provides you the ability to work with a group of great people with high integrity and high standards to give their time and emotions. You know, one, I don’t feel we ever pay our officers enough. But our officers give so much more to the community and not really get paid for it.
Chief Stephen Monticelli:
I mean, we got lots of officers. We got the national night out next Tuesday, this coming Tuesday. And those officers will be out there. They’ll be shaking hands with community members and talking to them. It’s really about understanding the quality of life issues that our community is having. As law enforcement, we always think that’s high crime, that’s violent crime. But in reality, it’s not. It’s not truly what the quality of life issues are.
Chief Stephen Monticelli:
That’s usually traffic-related incidents, loud noises, disturbances, graffiti. Those are the things that really affect a neighborhood feeling safe in their community. It’s not burglaries and worried about being abducted and things like that. That’s not a general thing that really affects the quality of life.
Chief Stephen Monticelli:
So our officers and every segment of our community is different. If you’re living in one side of town, it’s completely different than living maybe closer to the university. Different environment, different types of issues. So the officers in their geographical policing model learn what those quality of life issues are, and then partner with the community to be able to resolve those issues.
Chief Stephen Monticelli:
You know, I can’t have an officer at every intersection. We have to have the community. We have to have the community support. The community needs to be able to pick up the phone and call an officer and explain what they need, and be our eyes and ears out there when we’re not there in their neighborhoods.
Dan:
Okay. And that actually does make a lot of sense to me too. I’ve talked to a lot of people over my life. I’ve met people from other countries that have been kind of in culture shock as to how different the US works. I think that is something that people often forget, is that every community is essentially its own microculture and microcosm of how things work. And that could change wildly from community to community. And of course that extends to local law enforcement as well.
Chief Stephen Monticelli:
That’s correct.
Dan:
And so while there might be a problem in one location, it may not be as pronounced in others, or it might even be worse depending on where you’re at. It’s hard to say without actually experiencing that. That’s one of the interesting things about the US in general, is that just going from one town to the next things can change rapidly.
Chief Stephen Monticelli:
That’s correct.
Dan:
Now, do you know if that kind of affects your position? We kind of touched on that a little bit, just even in West Plains, how different sections of town can cause the citizens to have different needs.
Chief Stephen Monticelli:
Oh, by all means. You have to in this position and even most of our command staff, it’s very important to understand what’s happening in the country and in the world because we have found that what’s happening on one side of the country will eventually get to us. And so it’s important to keep those understanding of what’s going on so you can be prepared.
Chief Stephen Monticelli:
We’re lucky. We’re in the middle of the states. So if it’s happening on the West Coast or the East Coast, we got a little bit of time to better train, better react if it happens in our community. That’s why I said, even on the other side of the state. What we were seeing in the east side of the state and all the negative feelings of law enforcement. We weren’t seeing that here. And we never really saw it here.
Chief Stephen Monticelli: Part of that is because of the relationship the police department has with the community. But like I said, it’s not easy work. It’s hard work. It’s our officers getting out there, working with the community, not just taking a report and walking away. But to communicate with the community and have that understanding.
Chief Stephen Monticelli: We deal with people when it’s the worst day of their life. It may be an officer’s fifth burglary report that he’s taken for a day, but that victim, that’s a life-changing experience for that person. Somebody entered their residence, went through their property and it’s a deep effect, where the officers just taking the report. He has to have that understanding how it affects that member.
Chief Stephen Monticelli: So we talk all the time about put yourself in the victim’s spot and think about how that victim is feeling and react to those feelings like it was a member of your own family, it was your mother’s house that was burglarized, to get them to be more compassionate and things. So we work hard on that.
Chief Stephen Monticelli: Again, our geographical policing plan really is geared towards working with the community and wanting to hear from the community. That’s why we started the Community Police Advisory Committee. I really want to hear from a variety of members of the community of what they’re hearing out there, so we can react to those issues and address them.
Dan: All right. Well, I think this has been a productive talk. It’s been great having you here. Is there any last message that you might want to get out there to anybody?
Chief Stephen Monticelli: Yeah. You asked a question. I don’t think I answered it about what my guidance for young people in the community to have that interest in law enforcement. This is a high integrity position. We’re looking for good people. I would strongly recommend get your education, get as much education as you can. And then if you want to serve your community, if you want to change your community, that’s an opportunity to be a police officer within your community.
Chief Stephen Monticelli: Some of our best officers are people from our own community right here, because they joined the department to be able to change the [inaudible 00:11:10]. They enjoy working here. They want to want the community to be safe. So they work hard to make that happen. So if you’re wanting to serve a community and be service to your community, being a police officer is an excellent opportunity for you to do that.
Dan: Thanks everybody for listening to this. This has been a new entry in the local perspective series. Hopefully we’ll get a lot more in here. But as of now, it’s been great talking to you, Steve.
Chief Stephen Monticelli: Well, I appreciate it.
Dan: I really appreciate it too. We’ll be looking forward to hearing more from you. We’ve also got Connor Burns, that should be coming in a little bit more regularly to talk about more issues happening with the West Plains PD. And I’m really looking forward to the fostering relationship.
Chief Stephen Monticelli: Fantastic. Thank you.
Dan: Thank you.
