Indianapolis Metropolitan Police Department

The Indianapolis Metropolitan Police Department employs 1,700 sworn officers serving more than 970,000 residents of Marion County, Indiana. Like law enforcement everywhere, IMPD faces the inherently dangerous responsibility to ensure community safety while navigating a complex and ever-changing landscape of social challenges.

Even before increased tension and public scrutiny sparked by viral videos depicting use-of-force events in other departments, IMPD's leadership knew officers needed ongoing training and support to effectively and ethically fulfill their duty.

Negative Bias Warping Officers' Perspective

One persistent problem in law enforcement is guarding against negative bias toward suspects and offenders. If left unchecked, this bias taints an officer's view of the larger community they serve and raises major mental health issues for officers.

One officer described the impact: "You start to get that warped perspective of 'I'm policing a community of crime and social disorder down every avenue that I turn.'"

The bias affected how officers approached their work. "I kind of lost myself because we were very effective at our tasks, but it didn't become about the people and helping the people. It became about the numbers," another officer reflected.

"Us vs. Them" Mentality Preventing Partnership

The culture had developed an adversarial stance. "Part of the culture historically in Indianapolis was an 'us vs them' mentality," one officer acknowledged.

This mentality prevented officers from seeing community members as partners in public safety. Citizens became objects—either vehicles to accomplish enforcement objectives or obstacles in the way of getting the job done.

An officer's story illustrated the problem: A neighbor reported a young man selling crack cocaine, concerned he would hurt someone or get hurt himself. The officer tackled and arrested him, then stood up laughing and high-fiving his partner. "We thought, great job. We got the bad guy."

But the neighbor looked him dead in the eye and said: "You caught him but you didn't have to do what you did. You didn't have to have fun at it. I care about that boy. I've known him since he was this big and I know his mama and I know she cares about him."

The officer realized: "That was one of those wake-up moments where I did the right thing but for completely the wrong reason and did it the wrong way."

Enforcement-Only Approach Limiting Impact

Deputy Chief of Operations Chad Knecht succinctly described the limitations: "When you're a hammer, everything looks like a nail... and law enforcement was the tool we had."

Officers focused solely on enforcement—arrests, tickets, citations. "I think a lot of times we get caught up in reducing that crime and we as police officers are focused on getting the job done, focused on the enforcement part," one officer explained.

This narrow approach missed opportunities to actually solve community problems. Reducing crime is important, but maximizing the positive influence of police officers requires much more than punishing infractions.

Department Chief Bryan Roach, after hearing about Arbinger's work with other law-enforcement entities, enlisted Arbinger's help to empower police officers with an expanded toolkit to respond in more adaptive and helpful ways.

An Arbinger facilitator with law enforcement background led a 2-day workshop for department leadership, focusing on increasing self-awareness regarding the inherent inaccuracies in default ways people see others—including peers, subordinates, and citizens.

Addressing the Root: How Officers See People

The course was specifically designed to highlight the hazard of viewing people as objects—even when they've violated laws—and provide actionable tools to replace this ingrained tendency with an outward mindset.

"I read up on the outward mindset and, you know, looking at training officers and the outward mindset and seeing if they can change things," Chief Roach explained.

Training Internal Facilitators

After the initial session, strategically positioned officers from various units were selected for Arbinger's Train-the-Trainer course to become certified facilitators within the organization. This allowed Arbinger's frameworks and language to become operational throughout the department, initially via the leadership academy.

"So then we went to the facilitator training and brought that back. So we started having real, genuine conversations about law enforcement and policing, how we make our society safer, and how we make the public safer, and how we actually care," one officer described.

Changing How Officers Approach Their Work

Because Arbinger's work focuses on foundational shifts in mindset, it acts as a lens to complement and enhance other training regimens. Rather than changing techniques or policing protocol, Arbinger's solutions help uncover and overcome often-overlooked assumptions impacting how officers approach their duties.

"One of the first things he came out with was, 'Treat people well. See people as people. And I want you to work hard,'" an officer recalled.

Training participants took deeper responsibility for the impact of their actions and attitudes on fellow officers and community members. An increased capacity to see others' humanity while patrolling opened cooperative possibilities that had previously been inaccessible.

"I think that you're not going to be successful in anything, no matter what it is, if you don't see people as people, but especially in policing. When you're getting called for a 911 reason, it's not the highlight of their life right there. I think if the police officers can just stop for a moment and try to understand maybe what they're going through before you are too quick to judge or too quick to act," one officer explained.

IMPD made unprecedented progress toward fostering an organizational culture that respects each person's innate human dignity and produces highly effective policing.

Real Conversations About Policing

"We started having real, genuine conversations about law enforcement and policing, how we make our society safer and how we actually care," one officer reported.

Officers worked to consider the perspectives of those they interacted with daily. The difficult dynamic between social challenges and police work seemed more manageable.

Broadened Approach to Community Safety

Deputy Chief Knecht described the new approach: "Rather than only looking for someone to arrest, with an outward mindset, the question became, 'How can we make that neighborhood safe?'"

He described the broadened sphere of interest: "Now we consider many factors, such as school attendance and after-school activities, as well as economic and employment factors. For example, help a person get their license straightened out so they can get to and from work, instead of writing more tickets they can't afford."

"When we look at community members as having headaches and issues and problems, allows you to put yourself in their shoes and their situation and really makes you buy in and have ownership to problems," another officer explained. 

Supporting Families, Not Just Solving Cases

As a major metropolitan area reckoning with gun violence and homicides, IMPD knew impacted families and neighborhoods needed more than efficient investigations and professionalism—they needed a shoulder to lean on.

"After each homicide we have our chaplain's office contact the victim's family and then we ask them if they'd be interested in a prayer vigil and want to make sure that they see us as not just police officers or detectives that are trying to solve that case, but actually people that they can lean on," an officer explained.

Community Partnership Replacing Adversarial Stance

The shift from "us vs. them" to genuine partnership transformed public interactions. "Now you see them from a different perspective, if you will. All of us want peace. All of us want to go home safe, that we want our homes to be safe. That requires us to work together and not be against each other or not believe that's how we're going to have a safe or better Indianapolis," one officer reflected.

This perspective directed more time and energy toward helping things go right within the community. In more difficult policing situations, it helped officers not take vitriolic responses personally. Instead, they could better de-escalate as they recalled their role as public servants with a goal of making the city safer.

"The police-community partnership I think absolutely is active here in the city of Indianapolis. You are seeing people who are legitimately thankful for what you represent and what you do for the citizens of the city," an officer observed.

Personal Impact on Officers

The changes extended beyond professional effectiveness. "I see a staff that's not focused on themselves anymore. Consistently reaching out a hand to help somebody else," a supervisor noted.

One officer shared the personal impact: "Being a student of leadership and having the fortune of working in this environment has impacted my own personal life quite a bit. Anytime I get to go to the yearly conference and my eight-year-old daughter tells me... she tells me, 'I miss you when you're gone, Dad. But when you come back, you're a better person.' That really makes it all worth it." 

Indianapolis Metropolitan Police Department proved that negative bias, "us vs. them" mentality, and enforcement-only approaches don't just harm community relations—they limit officers' effectiveness and take a toll on their mental health. When 1,700 officers shifted from seeing citizens as objects (vehicles to accomplish goals or obstacles to avoid) to seeing them as people with needs and challenges, they unlocked new approaches to public safety. The result: officers who help people get licenses so they can work rather than writing more tickets they can't afford, chaplains organizing prayer vigils for victims' families, and genuine community partnership replacing adversarial policing. The transformation demonstrates that changing how officers see the people they serve isn't "soft"—it's the foundation for effective, ethical, and sustainable law enforcement.