He sees the tradition of cooperation in the Ohio law enforcement community as the lynchpin to the state’s ability to perform its most essential job: keeping its citizens safe.
“Where Do We Go From Here?” will be his topic on Feb. 22 when Moore delivers a Black History Month speech to the Springfield-Clark County Section of the National Council of Negro Women at Clark State Community College’s Hollenbeck Create Arts and Conference Center.
Tickets of $55 are available from NCNW members or from Young Hair, 1928 E. High St., (937) 324-4301.
At 52, Moore is nearly 30 years into a career devoted to improving law enforcement services, the last three spent at the current ground zero of American political conflict, the U.S. Department Justice. There he led the Bureau of Justice Assistance, a one-stop consulting shop for law enforcement organizations tackling the issues before them.
That job followed 18 years of the American University law graduate’s similar work with Ohio Attorney General’s Office – work he says was made possible by productive relationships with law enforcement people and citizens of every stripe from Lake Erie to the Ohio River and the border of Pennsylvania to border of Indiana.
“I don’t know if it’s changed here,” he said in a phone interview from Columbus. “But the reason I’m worried is I see politics taking over so many aspects of our lives. And not in a positive way. I would really hate to see that happen, because we’ve been able to solve problems here” – problems he currently describes as “massive.”
Of them, the chronic shortage of police officers “is the only part that gets discussion,” Moore said.
Some also may have noticed television advertisements funded by the Ohio Department of Corrections aimed at filling positions in state prisons, but Moore said challenges are much broader even than that.
Prosecutors, public defenders and crime scene investigators also are in short supply, he said, creating system-wide law enforcement staffing challenges that elude short-term solutions.
Because it will take time, he said, “we’ve got to be building pipeline programs to get people into these fields.”
While all this might sound like the stuff discussed in seminars at large hotels that have little significance to people who don’t attend them, Moore says they hit home on every Ohio street corner and byway.
“The most important job of government is to protect its people,” he said. “Our every freedom flows from feeling safe, being safe. All the benefits of citizenship (depend on) public safety … and there just are not enough people interested in these jobs.”
Traditionally, “Ohio has been an incredibly collaborative community justice entity,” he said. “People work together — it’s just kind of an expectation,” his wider experience has shown him does not exist everywhere.
Because of that expectation,” he said, “We have been able to lean into on issues in a way that other states have not.”
The same trust has given Ohio “the most problem-solving courts of every state … a model that works and it costs less money, so it checks so many boxes.”
He says the foundation of that cooperation is an openness that goes hand-in-hand with the ultimate the goal of the Diversity, Equity and Inclusion programs that have been targeted in the opening days of the new Trump Administration.
“Sadly, what underlies most of this is this unwritten idea that people who aren’t qualified are getting jobs. I would never hire a person who was not qualified to do a job,” he said, adding that he had a complaint filed against him by a person from a pool in which “I didn’t like any of the candidates I had for the job.”
In assembling a team, he said, “I always felt I needed a staff that came from everywhere and that came from all kinds of experience. I didn’t want a staff of just men; I didn’t want a staff of just women. Because you have to be able to identify problems to identify solutions. You have to know and understand the underlying issues that impact communities. You want people with all kinds of experience because you miss things.”
He offered as an example a fundamental problem that was threatening the effectiveness of Kentucky Drug Courts: a lack of affordable transportation.
“Someone said, ‘Just have them take Ubers.’”
It calls to mind Marie Antoinette’s famous quote “let them eat cake.” As people on the ground in that part of Kentucky knew, Uber was not available in the areas of highest need.
“You have a very different understanding of life depending on where you are,” Moore said.
And, to him, that underscores a second trend he sees as an obstacle to overcome the attitudinal barriers at the heart of the staffing infrastructure problem in law enforcement.
“We’ve got to get people interested in public service,” he said, “it’s hard when we hear constantly bashing of people in public service.”
That, he says, is a problem to overcome in determining where we go from here.
How to go:
What: Where do We Go From Here?
When: Feb. 22
Where: Hollenbeck Center at Clark State.
Sponsor: National Council of Negro Women
Tickets: $55
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