Kelly talks with Dr. Sandy Jo MacArthur and Dr. Luann Pannell from the University of Chicago Crime Lab and Second City’s Tyler Dean Kempf about the work we’re doing together bringing improvisation into the Policing Leadership Academy.  

Can you quickly tell us what the University of Chicago Crime Lab is? 

“What is really interesting about it is that it’s a collaboration with city policymakers, as well as law enforcement agencies, and then community organizations. So, it sort of has all three rungs of the stool, the important components. And they really wanted to bring it together with people who have expertise in those areas to see what they could find about strategies to reduce gun violence, how to reform the criminal justice system in a manner that’s going to positively affect all of those three components.” 

And the program you pulled Second City into – the Policing Leadership Academy – what’s that? 

“Working with a variety of experts from all avenues, we were able to create what is now a five-week course for police leaders that are of the rank, depending on the agency, of captain, commander, in some cases, deputy chiefs. And we bring a group of 35 of them together and we put them through a program that lasts five months, one week a month. We want to create a really robust network opportunity so that people across the country, across the globe, because we have some international guests as well, come together and we look at things like how we use data-driven evidence-based strategies to reduce crime and violence; how do we manage risk within the organization, both inside the organization, but also managing the risk outside the organization? And looking at how do you think strategically? We’re good at thinking critically in moments of crisis, but strategic thinking is a different animal.” 

And what ended up being interesting was that you were already having some conversations about how to bring the kind of learning we provide into the program, right? 

“We are constantly looking at what could improve our learning in these classrooms. So, prior to the stars all aligned with The Second City, we needed a block on how to tell your story. Cops are dropped into a scene, and they have to improv every single thing they do in the field. Many of the folks who are in our class, they’re uncomfortable sometimes just getting a microphone put in their face and asked a bunch of questions. So, we we’re trying to figure out how to do this when the stars aligned in the crime lab introduced us to you all from The Second City. I will just say something was in the works far outside of our control and it was perfect timing because so much is happening out there with our guys in the field every day, our men and women in the field every day, and what you are offering to us and what you taught us in that first class and what you saw where they leaned in immediately is because this is what they have to do every day. We just don’t call it improv.”