When it's time to (Re)Frame the Narrative
For too long, many police agencies have let outside forces define them. The news cycle, special interest groups, and social media critics often set the tone for public discourse. This passive stance is dangerous. It erodes public trust, harms morale, and makes effective policing harder. If your agency is struggling to connect with the community or facing constant negative press, it’s time to stop reacting and start defining who you are. Re-Framing the narrative isn’t about spin; it’s about telling the honest, complete story of your agency, starting from the inside out.
The external narrative always begins internally. You can’t credibly communicate transparency and integrity to the public if your own officers don’t believe those values are real within the department. This article will focus on two linked areas that demand immediate executive attention: fixing the internal culture and mastering crisis communication.
The Internal Foundation: Narrative Starts Here
A public information officer (PIO) or public affairs officer (PAO) can only deliver the message the organization gives them. If the organizational culture is closed, hesitant, or punitive, the public-facing message will fail. Executive leadership must first address the agency’s internal environment.
Fix the Culture, Change the Story
The first step in any narrative shift is recognizing what your people see, hear, and say every day. Officers and staff are your primary communicators. Their daily conversations with family, friends, and community members form a powerful, unfiltered narrative that either supports or contradicts your official press releases.
Ask yourself: Do our internal actions match our external claims?
If your agency claims to prioritize community service, but frontline officers feel overworked, unsupported, and constantly second-guessed, the external message is a lie. This disconnect damages credibility both inside and out. To truly re-frame the narrative, you have to build trust with your own team.
You can improve trust by focusing on clear, consistent internal communications. Don’t hide bad news from your officers. Provide the facts first, even before the media gets them.
According to the IACP, agencies with high officer trust feel supported when they are right and reasonably held accountable when necessary.
Simplify Internal Processes
Complexity breeds suspicion. Agencies often rely on bureaucratic processes that slow and obscure internal communication. Simplify how officers submit concerns, report misconduct, or suggest improvements. When officers feel heard and respected, they feel a sense of ownership. This sense of ownership translates into better performance and, critically, better interactions with the public.
Consider internal training. Instead of just focusing on compliance, focus training on ethical decision-making and empathy. The goal is to make sound judgment instinctive, not just a procedural checklist item. When officers consistently act ethically and respectfully, they proactively frame the agency’s narrative every single day.
Mastering the Crisis: When the Negative Story Hits
The unfortunate reality for law enforcement is that negative narratives often take root during or immediately after a critical incident. These events expose existing flaws in communication and policy. You can’t wait until the following incident to prepare.
Speed and Accuracy Beat Silence
In a crisis, the information void is always filled by someone else, usually critics. Your response must be rapid, but never at the expense of accuracy. In the past, agencies were often advised to wait until all the facts were confirmed. Today, that delay is a disaster. You must establish your presence and perspective almost immediately.
Initial communication should follow this structure:
Acknowledge the Event: State clearly that a serious incident occurred.
Express Empathy: Show genuine concern for anyone who has been harmed.
Commit to Action: State that an investigation is underway, and commit to finding and sharing facts when possible.
Control the Information Release: Direct the public and media to your official channels for updates.
Don’t apologize for things you don’t know. Just state the facts you have and commit to the process. You can frequently update your message later, but establishing yourself as the most reliable source right away is essential.
Quick official statements produce public trust, engagement, or constructive outcomes.
Case #1: Boston Marathon response — rapid official social updates became trusted information. The Boston Police Department used rapid, frequent social-media updates after the 2013 Marathon bombing to correct misinformation and keep the public informed. Independent reviews concluded BPD’s fast, transparent posting helped make it a trusted information source during the crisis.
Case #2: Enfield, Connecticut — department statement led to apology and constructive resolution (Apr 2025). Enfield PD publicly reviewed body-cam footage after an online allegation of racism in a crash response, issued a statement explaining their review, and reported that the person who posted later met the officer and apologized. The department framed its message around facts and community professionalism, and the outcome reported was an apology and a productive conversation.
Transparency is a Strategy, Not a Concession
Many executive teams view transparency as a risk. They worry about disclosing too much information that might be misinterpreted or used against them. This thinking is outdated and harmful to your narrative.
Effective transparency is strategic. It means sharing body-worn camera footage, policies, and investigation updates, even if the information is unfavorable to the agency. When the public assumes you are hiding something, they fill in the blanks, and their assumption is always worse than the reality. Sharing the information, even when painful, lets you control the context.
You should proactively prepare your team to handle requests for information. Your PIO shouldn’t have to fight internal resistance to release public records. Leadership must set the expectation that maximum disclosure is the default position, limited only by legal necessity.
The Role of Leadership in Crisis Messaging
The Chief or Sheriff needs to be the face and voice of the agency during a significant crisis. The PIO manages the logistics, but the executive sets the tone. An executive’s direct communication shows accountability and responsibility.
Your words need to be plain, direct, and human. Avoid jargon like “officer-involved shooting,” “force continuum,” or “perimeter established.” These phrases sound like legal defense, not honest communication. Use simple language. Say: “An officer shot a person,” or “We are looking into what happened.”
Strategic Narrative Building: Going Beyond the Crisis
Re-Framing the narrative isn’t just about managing disasters; it’s about strategically building the everyday story of public safety. This requires moving beyond traditional public relations.
Tell the Stories of Success and Service
Police work involves thousands of positive interactions every day—a child found, a life saved, a community problem solved. These interactions often go unnoticed by the media, which naturally focus on conflict. Your agency needs a system to capture and share these small, powerful stories.
Empower officers to share: Give officers an easy way to submit positive interactions or successful outcomes.
Use visual media: Short videos of officers interacting positively with citizens resonate far better than text-heavy press releases. People respond to faces and authentic moments.
Focus on Impact: Instead of saying “Officer X conducted an operation,” say “Officer X helped clean up a dangerous intersection, making it safe for kids walking to school.” Tie the action to the public benefit.
Measure What Matters
To successfully re-frame the narrative, you have to know which narrative you’re changing. To be done properly, you need better data than just arrest statistics.
Start tracking these metrics:
Public Perception Data: Regularly conduct small, targeted community surveys (online or in person) to find out what people think about your service, not just crime rates.
Internal Sentiment: Use anonymous surveys to measure morale, trust in leadership, and perceived fairness of internal procedures. Sentiment tells you whether your culture supports your external message.
Media Reach and Tone: Go beyond counting negative stories. Measure the reach of your agency’s positive stories versus that of its negative ones. Are you effectively injecting your message into local discourse?
Suppose you measure and report on metrics that reflect police legitimacy (like use-of-force reviews, complaint resolution times, and community satisfaction). In that case, you actively shift the focus away from a purely enforcement-based narrative toward a service-based one.
Aligning Policy and Message
The biggest challenge in re-framing the narrative comes when policy and communication don’t match. If your policies on use of force are vague, your PIO can’t credibly speak to accountability. If your disciplinary matrix is arbitrary, your PIO can’t credibly talk about fairness.
Executive leaders need to conduct a comprehensive audit of high-risk policies—use-of-force, body-worn camera retention, and citizen complaint procedures—to ensure they are clear, modern, and aligned with best practices. Then, you use these new, clear policies as the bedrock for all your communications.
When you speak about an incident, you don’t just say, “We are investigating.” You say, “We are investigating this incident based on Policy 401.3, which requires mandatory review of all uses of physical force, and we expect the results to be made public within 45 days.” This approach demonstrates that rules, not hidden motives, govern your actions. It’s hard evidence supporting your claim of transparency.
Wrapping it Up
Re-Framing the narrative is a strategic executive function, not a tactical public relations exercise. It demands courage from leadership to look inward first and address cultural flaws. It requires a commitment to speed and radical transparency during moments of crisis.
Your audience, the citizens you serve, don’t want to hear empty promises; they want to see evidence of a self-correcting, ethical organization. By starting with internal reform and adopting a rapid, transparent crisis communication strategy, you don’t just react to the story—you write it. You give your PIO the truth to tell, and you give your community a police agency they can trust.
It’s time to stop ceding control of your agency’s identity. You must take control of the story now, before the next event forces someone else to write it for you.