The Leadership Crisis with Chief Scott Hughes

Welcome Back And The Big Picture

Announcement 0:01

Welcome to Courageous Leadership with Travis Yates, where leaders find the insights, advice, and encouragement they need to lead courageously.

Travis Yates 0:12

Welcome back to the show. We're so honored you decided to join us today. And we have a returning guest from a few years ago. I'm excited to talk to him, to catch up to him. Uh his name is Chief Scott Hughes. He's retired chief now, and he's the owner of Crosden Consulting. He's also the host of two Chiefs and One Mike podcasts, and he's a member of the board of directors for the National Law Officer Hall of Fame. There's probably not anyone that I've spoken to in recent years that has had their finger on the pulse of what's going on in law enforcement, uh, both from a credibility standpoint and from a practical standpoint. Chief Scott Hughes, how are you, sir?

SPEAKER_02 0:49

I'm doing great, Travis. How's things going?

Travis Yates 0:51

It's going well, man. Going well. And you retired a few months ago, and uh the I know consulting's picking up and you're training all over the state, all over the country. Just kind of tell me what you're hearing from law enforcement out there.

SPEAKER_02 1:03

Uh, morale sucks, culture sucks, we can't find anybody. Leadership's pathetic. Um, our training sucks, they're cutting the budgets. All good things, Travis. It's all positive.

Travis Yates 1:15

Yeah, I mean, that's encouraging. I appreciate you sharing all that. Let's you know, and all you you asked. Well, it's scary. So it's funny you say it because you you mentioned morale and culture and budget and lack of training. It all it's all one, though, right? If you if you can start building on one, everything else improves. And is it leadership is the key? Is it leadership that's causing the rest of that to go downhill, so to speak?

SPEAKER_02 1:43

I think so, man. I mean, look, this we've been we talked about this. I don't know, last time I was on. We've been following each other for a long time on social media, and you know, you know where I sit on this whole thing. It all starts at the top. And I think some of these, I mean, look, I was a chief, I retired 60, almost 90 days ago. And I, in fact, I just before we got we got on this call, I was talking to the current chief who who was my assistant chief, and I said, Well, buddy, how's it going? And he went through some some of the issues going on. I said, Yep, yep, I'll talk to you later, buddy. Glad to see nothing's changed. You know, the cops are great, the guys that he works that works for him are awesome. It's all the drama, it's all the politics. And then, you know, the chiefs I talk to, some of the chiefs I talk to, um, uh, it's not even the chief, it's it's whoever they report to, right? It's the city manager, it's the mayor. And these guys and gals get in these positions sometimes, and they can't do anything because the moment they try to impact or try to make some kind of change or do something that's going to positively impact the organization, they get their hands smacked by the mayor or whomever it might be. So that what what message that does that tell the chief? Well, okay, so much for trying to be innovative and progressive and trying to bring in new technology and new ways of thinking. And so, whenever you find one of these departments that's not that way, that's why those agencies don't have the recruiting problem and the retention problem, because that's the little golden nugget that's out there. But those are so few and far between that it's quite honestly, it's it's kind of embarrassing. Like, does the private sector work like this?

Travis Yates 3:12

Well, they can't, right? No, the private sector can't work like this, they'd be bankrupt. They'd be out of money, exactly.

SPEAKER_02 3:17

They'd be out of money. But yeah, you know, it it's the same old, same old man. It all starts at the top. And you know, even if even if we take the chiefs out of the equation, you know, the average patrol officer, the average sergeant probably doesn't interact with the chief of police. Now, if the chief of police is pushing out some crazy policies and procedures that are just ridiculous, then the chief's gonna have a direct impact on those people, right? But the average cop on the street deals more with their sergeant or their lieutenant than they do with the chief. And I hear at that level is where there's just some serious breakdown. And part of it has to do with the fact that post-2020, 2021, we lost so much experience that as we backfilled over these last four, five, six years now, we're we're promoting kids. And I don't mean kids and air quotes disrespectfully, but the reality is when you get hired at 21 years old and now you're putting stripes in your sleeves at 24. Yeah, damn, you can hardly follow the crash report, let alone now lead a squad of people whose lives depend on you, and you've got to have all these other abilities as a person. Your brain has to think different. And I'm not sure you're developed. I know I damn sure wasn't 24 years old. And I think that's start of the some of the problem we're starting to see also now is these sergeants just they're they're they don't know how to be cops yet, let alone be supervisors. And then so then that just beats the people down below them, and then it's we just keep kicking the can down the road.

Experience Drain And Passive Policing

Travis Yates 4:48

Well, let me tell you something that's not gonna make you feel any better. So you can imagine when you and I started, Scott, you were recognized and even promoted based on activity, right? Proactivity. So consider somebody that went to law enforcement in 2018, 2019, 2020, when literally we were told not to be proactive and almost encouraged to this day not to be proactive, right? Because you get proactive, you start arresting people, people start getting upset, and all you know, you're you're risking uh uh, you know, sort of viral video. I mean, so officers are almost encouraged to just be glorified firefighters, just set back and wait for the call, so to speak. Right. And so the experience level going into those positions is so much more lacking than it used to be. You know, I could put a 21-year-old kid in a very busy department that's really, really busy and they're gonna mature it pretty quick. But if you put them in a in a place that they're almost encouraged to not do much, and what I'm hearing is very similar to you, that's very discouraging, which is hey, why would we do anything? If people do something, they get in trouble or they get accused of something. So we're just gonna set back and wait for something to happen. Well, law enforcement is never supposed to be like that, right?

SPEAKER_02 5:55

You know, I think we've used uh I just had this conversation with someone. We have to get away as a profession from using from using COVID as an excuse, to your point, Travis. And there are too many organizations who have realized, you know what, if we don't do anything, our use of force numbers aren't going to go up, less chance of getting assistance complaint, less chance of having to do reports, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. Well, I don't know about you, but when I raised my right hand and took that oath, I didn't I didn't take an oath to do nothing. You know, I took an oath to go out there and be proactive and go out there and look for bad guys. And that's why I got in this job. I didn't get in this job to sit around in a parking lot and watch Netflix and wait for someone to call me there. Like, we don't need that. We could we could have uh private security driving around our communities if that's what we wanted. I need people out there stopping cars looking for bad guys and and and making a difference. And there are a lot of agencies out there, in my opinion, that have they they they they've just used COVID as an excuse, and we have to get we have to get away from that. And but then you know, then you have a place like what just happened in Wisconsin last week, where you've got these four coppers fighting this dude with a knife, the guy stabs one of the cops, the cops tase him, taser doesn't work, which I don't know about you, but we don't bring tasers to knife fights, so props for the cops for saying, hey, let's at least try something else. The taser doesn't work, and you know, this guy stabs a cop, the cops have to use deadly force, clearly justified. And I'm watching this press conference going, did I miss something here? Did I and I'm not trying to be a punk, but I'm like, did I miss this case? Because what I saw, what I heard, did not reflect what I just watched. And and look, I'm not I'm not gonna bash, well, I am, I guess, a little bit, but like that's not how I would have handled the press conference, but it's not my department either. Okay, but I feel for those men and women who work there right now because what are they thinking? You know, what message does that send to those troops about, hey, if tonight I go out and make a traffic stop and I get involved in something, do they have my back? And you know, again, is there more of the story? Ah, video looked pretty obvious to me, but I guess we'll wait and see.

Travis Yates 8:09

But at the very end, how many times are we going to repeat this? I mean, how many times have we seen this? And then what and six months later they're gonna come out and say, Okay, the officers just what I mean, is everyone just scared? I mean, we talked about the lower level. Uh, if you have a chief scared, that's gonna immediately it flows downhill. I'm a I'm a captain and I'm scared to do anything because of the chief. I mean, I mean, it's just uh I think the one metric you can look at to see the utter and total failure of the profession is recruiting. And you talked about COVID being the excuse. And I'm still hearing, well, there's just a recruiting crisis, and oh COVID, and oh black lives matter, and oh this and defund police. We're six years past that. Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 8:54

And well, but I think I think you got some bad leaders who like to use as an excuse to try to justify their existence. Hey, mayor, city manager, don't fire me. It's not my fault, it's COVID. We can't find people. I think there's some that are hiding behind that as an excuse for their inability to be effective leaders. Again, my two cents. But I'm on your podcast, you asked me, so that's my opinion.

Travis Yates 9:15

Well, you you you started with a very discouraging statement, and I just I don't want to get even more depressing here, but here's my fear, and I'm sure it is yours as well. So let's just take um the typical, I mean, Phoenix Police is a really great department, they're down 600 people. They're that's you know, they're down roughly 20, 25 percent. They're not really making any of that up. They had to spend 98 million dollars last year just to cover the beats. And I'm not seeing some of the right decisions that need to be made to recover that department. As you know, I do that a lot for agencies. Where do we think we're going with this? If an officer, if they're having to fill these beats with overtime, and it's not just Phoenix, it's a lot of departments. They're filling the beats with overtime. These guys are guys and gals are working all this overtime and all of this work. Do we not understand the downhill repercussions of that? The mental, the the wellness and the mental. I mean, there's a reason why for a cop coming into this job today, the research is telling us that 62% won't be here in five years. I mean, no one seems to be addressing this, Scott. I mean, it blows my mind that oh, we see the occasional white paper that talks about this or that, but no one seems to be sounding the alarm going, hey, in 10 years, there's gonna be major cities out of business. And that's you really think Minneapolis is gonna have a police department in five years, they're down 50% now. What do you think's gonna happen, right?

SPEAKER_02 10:41

Two things. One, that could be the that could be the objective for some. Two, for a place like Phoenix, that is me being from Ohio, we're hearing about I don't know, three months, it's gonna start to be miserable. Phoenix is an attractive place to be, right? And you don't have cops going to work in these nice areas. Imagine

Overtime Staffing And The Burnout Spiral

SPEAKER_02 11:00

what the poor North, you know, North Dakota and Minnesota and all that stuff, you know, where it's cold. Anyhow, but but beyond that, and you brought up a great point, let's talk about all this over time. You've got the research, I've got the research. You can Google the research. Look at the look at the amount of heart attacks, crashes, use of force, citizens' complaints, car crashes that happen because cops are just flat out tired, because they're working too much, obesity, divorce rate, all those things are all uh ancillary, if you will, to working all this overtime. Yeah, when I was young, I worked all the overtime, right? Because I was buying jet skis and boats.

Travis Yates 11:42

But it was also optional, Scott.

SPEAKER_02 11:44

When we exactly it was optional. I decided if I wanted to work a bingo detail, if I wanted to work a high school football game. Well, now these high school games are so out of control, they have to have cops there, they have to have people at the at the proms and the homecomings. And we had a shooting yesterday in Seattle at a food festival, so now every every food festival is gonna have to have more cops. Well, to your point, yeah, where do you pull them from? I mean, I can tell you I'm in Cincinnati and our Bengals games, they have not only the Cincinnati cops, not only the sheriffs, but now they have suburban cops who were working details inside the stadium because they can't find enough cops. That was unheard of back in the day when I started, unheard of back in the day to work that that that type of a detail. So yeah, I mean it's a sign of the times, and you know, you and I can go on our podcast and we can scream and we can pound our fist, and I'll keep preaching as long as keep people keep listening. I know you will do the same thing, but at some point, the the powers to be have to wake up and go, you know what? Those guys are right, and what are we gonna do? And I think it starts with when these things like what just happened in Madison, Wisconsin happen, you got to get in front of this stuff and just stop it from the beginning. Look at the look at Sheriff uh uh uh Judd down in uh Florida. He goes on TV and blasts a basketball team for shoplifting from a convenience store. What message does that send to the folks in that community? Does he have a recruiting crisis? I don't know. Um Brady, he doesn't. No, he's not. Yeah, my guess, yeah. My guess is probably not. Why? He supports his people. The community likes that kind of style, they like that policing. I don't think the people in Madison, Wisconsin are real confident right now in the future. I know I wouldn't be if I was a resident, but I digress.

Travis Yates 13:41

Well, it's uh it just seems so easy for me to get up there early on and just be honest. And what you're seeing is is you're like the Madison's a great example. And how many times have we done that already, right? Where they know, you know, you look at you look at the other Wisconsin incident, I forget the kid's name where he he uh he pulled a knife on the cops and the cops had to end up shooting him. And of course, you know, the media and everybody, oh, he's a peacekeeper and this and that. And the the department gets up there and says does the same thing that they do in Madison. He kind of walks around it. Well, they knew that they knew that day what had happened. Just say it. What are you what are you scared of? I mean, in my mind, it's not easy to be a chief. I get that, but is it really easy to do what you're doing? Because they're gonna tear Madison apart because you wouldn't be honest with them.

SPEAKER_02 14:30

I just wrote a piece that basically said, you can get up and in my opinion, you can you can explain why your officers did X, Y, and Z. You can explain the performance, you can perform this, you can explain the stress, you can you can explain why cops do certain things. That doesn't jeopardize the investigation. Everybody's always worried about I don't want to jeopardize the investigation. Well, honestly, you releasing body cam hours after it happened. I'm not sure that that that doesn't hamper your investigation. No, it certainly taints a jury pool down the road, maybe if necessary, but again, not my place, not my problem. But I do think that you you you have to get out in front of these things and just and just call a spade a spade. I mean, is what it is, right? I mean, that's look, I got this much. This is what I can tell you. You know, here's the other thing, Travis. This group over here, no matter what we say, no matter what we do, they're not gonna believe anything we have to say. Okay, we could show them the video, the guy could have the gun pointed at the cop, the cop could shoot him, and this group over here is gonna say, Well, the cop should have done A, B, and C. Okay, fine, forget them. This group over here, they're gonna always believe us, right? No matter what we say. No, we could shoot a naked guy in the middle of the street with his hands up, unarmed. It could have been the worst shooting ever, and they're gonna be like, Well, you never know. Like, like they're gonna support us. The folks that I always tell people to worry about is this group here. Yeah, these are the majority of the people. Forget these people in the middle. Yeah, these are the ones you have to educate and you have to explain things to. That press conference I saw, the people in that room, my opinion, they were over here. You weren't gonna convince them. They they were they went into that room with an agenda. Okay, you're not gonna appease them. Focus on these people here, running your organizations, worry about the majority of your people that you got. How can we make it better for these people in our community, etc.? And that's how you'll be, in my opinion, again, successful.

Travis Yates 16:23

Yeah, and let's just hard.

SPEAKER_02 16:25

It's not hard.

Travis Yates 16:26

We make it difficult. That's what's so crazy to me. I mean, it's not difficult. We make it, we make it strong. It's it's it's just being honest. And so it's just so it's so nutty. We're continuing to see it. Uh, Madison wasn't exactly known as a uh a great, let's be honest, talk about crime anyway. I mean, uh, Chief Koval got ran out of that town, and he was one of the best chiefs I ever knew because he would stand up and be honest

Assaults Rising As Training Shrinks

Travis Yates 16:50

about it. Um, I want to talk about something that no one's talking about, Scott. I know you and I have talked about this, but it just blows me away that since 2019, first off, the last 10 years of FBI law enforcement assault data, meaning officers being assaulted, in the last 10 years, there's been an 80% increase in officer assaults. Beginning in 2019, there's been an increase every single year, culminating in the last year of data, which was 2025 with over 90,000 cops being assaulted, and that's all underreported. We know it. But it's you know, five plus years of increases. And data's data. You know, we see we see data go up, we see data go down. We have never in our history, since the FBI's been tracking this, seen that many years of increases. No one's talking about this. This began around the 2019-2020 era. What's going on? I mean, first off, why isn't anyone talking about this? This seems to me to be a red alert, a red flag for everybody.

SPEAKER_02 17:51

I think a lot of people have their heads in the sand. And until it happens to me or impacts me or my agency or my people, I'm not gonna, uh it's not my problem. Well, it's not a matter of if, right? It's when, because it's gonna happen. Secondly, I think it shows uh how brazen people are today. I think it shows a lack of respect for law enforcement in general. I think we have repeat offenders who they're who aren't going to jail anymore. Again, not to go back to Mass and Wisconsin, but I'm I I have not verified this. I'm reading, heard this guy's got 40-something convictions, and he's got a rap sheet that's pretty extensive. Of course, you're probably not gonna hear about that uh if you turn on the news. But like a lot of repeat defenders, lack of respect, lack of accountability, personal accountability, and you want to hear here's the thing we're not talking about, either Travis. I think we got a lot of cops who are afraid to do something for fear of having to use force and getting in trouble, or worse. I don't think anybody wants to become the next YouTube sensation. And I think we have cops out there who are scared to death to put their hands on people for fear of uh something happening. And again, we've watered this is a whole nother podcast, probably, but we've watered down training to the point where, you know, we there's no a lot of these academies now, they don't box anymore. They're not allowed to ground fight. Somebody might get hurt, or somebody got hurt, or somebody, something happened to somebody somewhere. So now we've we've cut all that kind of training out. Uh we've reduced, we've reduced anything that sounds like it might be violent, right? We've we've watered it down with everybody's favorite buzz buzzword, de-escalation, right? We've we've we've we've gone away from hands-on, face-to-face, putting things online now, watch a video, check a box, print out the certificate, here you went to the training. And I'm not sure that when I know it's not, in the moment when those coppers need that skill set that takes hundreds and hundreds of hours and repetition repetition to become muscle memory, if you will, they don't have it. So now they're on the side of the road, and the for the first time in their five-year career, they're facing somebody who doesn't want to go to jail and they have no idea what to do, and they freeze up. You've seen the videos, I've seen the videos. Hell, there's people now that are making money off of showing, look how ill-prepared these cops were to handle this. And I think you've got a combination of all of that that is just leading to this to this unfortunate scenario. I think the I think the only reason the number of cops being killed isn't worse than it is, is because of uh technology. And what I mean by technology is I think we've got medical, medical, yeah, medical care, we're getting tourniquets on cops, we're getting uh, you know, the vest, those kind of things. I think that's the only reason that the uh deaths aren't up.

Travis Yates 20:53

It's so outrageous because what we've seen as a trend line for years is when violent crime comes down, assaults against us kind of come down. That makes sense to anybody with a brain. Well, if you believe the data, you know, violent crime is was significantly down in 2025, and our assaults are continuing to go up. I think it's as bad as it's ever been, and no one's talking about it. I'm talking about police organizations, those four little words that we love sometimes. Is there a point, Scott, where we go, where we stop and go, maybe we need a reset button? Maybe enough is enough, or are we already past that and there's no hope?

SPEAKER_02 21:31

Well, you know, I think too, it has everything comes back in my opinion sometimes, Travis, to politics. And it's got to be the right people saying the right thing. Scott Hughes, Travis Yates, we can go on these podcasts, we can preach, we can pound our hands, and this is BS, we need to fix this. But do we have that power? And what who are we impacting or who are we not impacting? Right? In other words, um, you know, if if you and I are uh senator. Or state reps or U.S. representatives, or we're somebody with some power, air quotes again. Now does this have, does it, does this mean something? To your point, there are some organizations out there that carry some weight and could probably be saying a lot more about a lot of issues right now going on in law enforcement, and they continue to remain silent. And I only suspect it's because of politics, and we've never done that. That's the way we've always done it. We don't want to get involved. We don't want to get involved in that. Yet those same organizations release statements in previous years about things that I know I looked at kind of sideways, like, why don't we get involved in that? So, anyway, uh, you could you and your listeners can read in between the lines on that. They're smart folks, they'll figure this out. But yeah, I I think we could and should be doing a lot more. And you know, I'll tell you this too. I'm retired now, so I guess it doesn't matter. I'm confident that uh there are folks in my rank as a chief who are blowing this off. Ah, he's just ah ah ah. But but I bet you if I go to those same organizations and ask them how their morale, culture, everything is, I wonder if I get that same response. Now, does that mean that my organization was always rainbows and sunshines? Of course not. No way organization is. But like I told somebody else not too long ago, if I can keep if I can keep 90% of the people happy 90% of the time, then in this day and age I consider that a win. So when our own groups don't want to speak out for fear of whatever, when they don't want to show support for their cops, when they don't want to release what I think should just be very general statements that, you know, hey, this was good, this is good, this is why cops do these kind of things. Yeah, I I struggle that we're going to affect any positive change ever.

Travis Yates 23:52

Which is it is it to the point, and uh this sounds pretty sinister. I get it. It sounds pretty sinister, but you and I both have time to sit around and think of these things now that we're retired. But I was reading some articles about how the medical industry was captured by politics. You know, they just had the testimony in DC with the Smithsonian lady, and this, you know, the Smithsonian Institute is saying that if you're polite, you know, in their handbook, if you're polite, that's a sign of white supremacy. So they they were essentially captured by politics, right? And they they implemented a bunch of weird, weird stuff that everybody with the brain at the time could see it was crazy. But now, as we look back, you really see it's crazy. Has the police organizations been captured where they are they they have to be mute during these hard conversations, like I don't know, morale and recruiting and retention and more officers being assaulted than ever, because they're not saying anything about any of this, these important things. Why aren't they? And are they being captured by maybe the politics or the money that comes with the politics?

SPEAKER_02 24:52

Yeah, it's you know, it's certainly a possibility. I think again, there's some that feel like just remain silent because you if you speak out on this, then you have to speak out on that. And if you don't, then you don't, you know, if you talk about this, you gotta talk about that. So we don't talk about anything. Well, again, I think you have to use some common sense here, right? I mean, if our cops are getting assaulted at ridiculous rates, yeah.

Travis Yates 25:17

I mean, is that really is that something that they have a choice to just not say anything about?

SPEAKER_02 25:20

Right, right. That and that, and that, and and that would be my point. You know, there's some attacks right now going on on some technology that's really helping law enforcement like crazy. And you've got people attacking it for various reasons. Most of those reasons are because they they think the technology does something that it doesn't do. And but if you talk to the cops who work the streets and who are using the technology, it's completely opposite. But none of these groups that represent our profession are releasing statements or saying something like, hey, no, no, no, no, this is really good, and here's why we need to keep this. This is why we should support this this piece of technology, or this is why we should we should not support that. They're not they're they're afraid, I guess, is the only word I can think of. They're afraid, and yeah, to your point, maybe it's the money. Uh maybe, maybe it's um, I don't know what I want to do when I retire, so I don't want to piss anybody off. Uh, you know, which I know I certainly have, without a doubt. Uh, but you know what? I spent 29 years doing a job that I love, and to see what has happened to it and where I think it's going scares me, not only because I spent 29 years in it, but I think about my kids, I think about their grandkids, and I think about what kind of country do we want. Uh a lawless country with no cops would be absolute insanity. We we we tried that in 2020 in a couple cities that did not turn out real well. So we should have learned our lessons from that. Um, that's what scares me, and that's why I want to, that's why I have no problem, you know, speaking out uh when I think some of the stuff just doesn't make sense, is because we we took an oath. And in my opinion, you've got a lot of my opinions today, Travis, but in my opinion. That's what you're here for, brother. That's what you're here for. In my opinion, when you raise your when you raise your your right hand and you take that oath to do this job, the day I retired doesn't mean the oath is gone. Like I still believe in why I wanted to do this. And I look at these these last few guys that I hired and gals that I hired, and I'm thinking about them when they're when they're taking their oath, how proud I was that moment. And I wonder, man, in 29 years, what's it gonna be like for those guys?

Travis Yates 27:39

Well, I think what's

Support Culture And Recruiting Reality

Travis Yates 27:40

troubles me is um my father was in law enforcement for 27 years, retired in 1999. My father-in-law was in law enforcement, his father was in law enforcement. So there's a you know, roughly 75 or so years of law enforcement history in my family. I think I was the first generation that left the profession worse than when I found it. You know, you think of my father that started in 1971 or 72, whenever it was. Well, man, law enforcement was pretty archaic back then, right? He he told it, he famously tells me a story that his FTO training was catch these keys. That was the training here, you know, number 10-8.

SPEAKER_02 28:20

Yeah.

Travis Yates 28:21

Um, obviously, we made incredible strides during the time, from the time he started and the time he left. The time I started, we didn't have computers, we didn't have anything. I had a notepad on my, you know, so in my era, in your era, we, you know, this wonderful technology and computers and in-core computers and cameras, but every metric that you would look at to see whether success has occurred, we failed miserably in my tenure. The profession is worse than we got. I mean, you just look at the recruiting and retention alone. You just you can just stop at those numbers. I mean, I took a test with a thousand people in a room, they hired nine. I mean, they didn't recruit, people just showed up. And you can tell me all day long it's oh, it's generation. No, it's not none of that. It's none of that. No one's gonna do a job that you've made the job seemingly impossible and there's no support for that job. All the research says that support is the number one key when it comes to recruiting. And people have a rightfully so have uh picture that if they go into this job, they're not gonna be supported, not only by sometimes the people, but also the people inside the job. It's also the stress level, Scott. I mean, I just saw a recent study today where it reiterated again that the biggest stress your cops face are inside the walls of a police department. Yeah. And that's in our control. I have a I have a big problem when we want to lay blame on the media or politicians. No, no. All the decisions we've made in the last 10 years, and I'll just use 10 years, you know, I'll use Baltimore and Ferguson and on and through. All those decisions were our decisions. We made the policies, we made the training, we implemented the things and we said it. We can talk all day about we can blame a mayor, but a mayor's not a police chief. A mayor, you know, period. We have made the decisions to turn this job into an impossibility. So my question to you, and it's not an easy question, of course, which is where do you start? Where do we start to regain, regain this profession being what it should be, which is law and order, law enforcement? It's so simple, it's in our name.

SPEAKER_02 30:21

Well, I think we go back to what just happened in Madison and we use our friend in Florida. You look, those are those are those are two completely different leadership styles. Yet it's obvious that in Florida, Sheriff Judd has no problems standing up and defending his people and explaining why cops use force when force is necessary. Compare and contrast that to what's going on up in Wisconsin right now. And I think that's where you start. Which one of those two styles would you want to work for? If you're a cop looking for a job, where do you want to go? I told a friend of mine here in southwest Ohio, I would take your your recruiting team and I would drive to Wisconsin tomorrow, and I would set up a uh a table in the parking lot and hand out applications, right? Because, like, why do you want to stay there in that environment if that's if that's how they're going to uh treat you? And again, this is this is my opinion. I'm not gonna make any friends up there, and I apologize now, but try to do that in Florida, right? Go in there and try to recruit them guys away from that kind of leadership. And I'm I'm sure, I'm sure uh Sheriff Judd has his own issues internally down there too, and he probably deals with the same drama we all deal with. But again, generally speaking, he's not I'm more I'm I'm more confident working for that guy than I am working for that guy. Okay, and I think that's I think it starts and and you just you just hit the nail on the head. We can blame the mayor, but if I if if if I left to go be a chief in a different department, I would want to dissect how much power does that mayor, the city manager, have over me. Because if I can't run my organization, and if you're not gonna if you're not gonna listen to me when I tell you this is what we need to do to improve these things, then I'm not your guy. I guarantee you, Travis, and you're probably in the same boat. I guarantee you, if the Madison, Wisconsin police chief announces he's retiring tomorrow, Scott Hughes is not the guy they're hoping comes up there and applies. Right? There's no way that I'm not their guy. Uh I'd last about three seconds. I probably wouldn't get through HR, like the orientation, you know. They'd be like, no, I'm not this guy. Well, good, and I know that and I accept that, but I think the cops up there would be like, please find a guy like him because we need a guy like him. Right now, my wife would tell you, hell no, but you understand what I'm saying. Yeah. So I think I think that's I think that's where it starts. I really, really do. I think it starts with with with leadership at the top. And again, not every day is going to be perfect, and you're not gonna be perfect every day. We're human. But you get into some of these departments, and I and I and I said this earlier when we first started. If if if I went in up there and I said, okay, what do we need? What do we need? What can I change? What's the low-hanging fruit? And you start making these little changes, and you immediately start getting some pushback from from the from the stakeholders or excuse me, from the elected officials, then that already tells me, oh, we're gonna have problems. So then it comes down to, well, I need to do about three and a half years before I can max out my pension. So you know what? I'm just gonna lay low. I'm not gonna do anything for the next three and a half years. Sorry, guys and gals below me. Maybe you can fix it. But right now, with this mayor, with this council, yeah, that's what I'm just gonna write this thing out.

Travis Yates 33:32

I was speaking to a captain and it's a major, major city. And I so I can't, I don't want to give it out because he's still on the job, but we had a similar conversation offline, and he told me, what you just said, he goes, you know, the problem with these chiefs, Travis, is the money they're making. He goes, Chiefs are making, probably not talking about you, Scott, but he said chiefs in these big cities are making more money than they ever made in their life. And he goes, they're not gonna do anything to jeopardize that.

SPEAKER_02 33:59

No, and then they get a gig lined up in some uh private sector, some you know, consult consulting company, you know, something uh, you know, some private sector job or some executive security gig somewhere that uh recruits that. So you don't want to screw that up, right? And but again, it comes down to why did you take this job in the first place? And I in all of my teachings, the higher up you go, the higher, the more money you make because the more responsibilities you have. And I say this on day one of my leadership training, Travis. I said, listen, if the only reason you got promoted is because you want to make more money to to get your pension higher, you're gonna be ineffective and you should probably leave right now. And I can see people in the room go, Well, who the is this? Yeah, right.

Travis Yates 34:47

But is I mean, am I right? It's the truth. No, it's the truth.

The Next Decade Migration And Consolidation

Travis Yates 34:50

And I'm gonna I'm gonna end this with a with an even easier question we've been talking about, which the next 10 years of law enforcement, what's it look like? And I'm gonna start with the answer, then I'll give it to you. I think what you're seeing in law enforcement is you're gonna see almost what you're seeing politically, you're seeing a migration of population, right? You're seeing citizens that are fed up in certain states because of politics and they're fleeing those states. You know, California is an easy example, it's low-hanging fruit. For the first time in history, there's more people leaving the state than coming into the state. People are just tired of it. I think in law enforcement, you're already seeing it. I think you're, I mean, the idea of a lateral hire was unheard of a few years ago. Like what? No one's lateral and hiring you. No, what are you talking about? We would just go to a job and stay there, but the the idea of people laddering from job to job. So we're dealing with a generation now, unlike you and I, Scott, where we almost it was a badge of honor. If we were working in a bad department, well, I'm staying no matter what. I mean, it was a we just stayed. The generation today, that job's a try-out. And you're gonna see migration of police officers to departments, good departments with good leadership in what we're talking about. And then the other departments are just gonna flail. I think we're seeing that now.

SPEAKER_02 36:01

I mean, I think it's already happening.

Travis Yates 36:02

I can I can tell you from the the agencies I help in recruiting, they are slaying it from the state of New York. They are slaying it. When they lay out, when they lay digital ads on the top of the state of New York, they are killing it, right? And uh probably Wisconsin now as well. So I think in the next 10 years, that's gonna all eat that's gonna all sort of sort its way out. People are gonna land where they land, then that will affect income. And so I think in the next five years, you'll see the first major city go out. Like I think not exist. And that's gonna be crazy. People think I'm crazy. And what's gonna happen is you're gonna see sheriff's departments having to take over these jurisdictions. So I think that's you can you can check us in 10 years on this podcast. But I think in 10 years from now, which would be, I don't know, I don't want to say I'm so old, Scott, but in 10 years from now, you're gonna see really good departments, really good leadership flourishing. You're gonna see really, really bad departments doing a lot worse than they're doing now. And they're on average, on average, they're down 15, 20% of staffing. They're gonna be doing a lot worse to the point to where it will become economically feasible to just get rid of the police department and contract out with local sheriff's departments. And the big difference with sheriff's departments is the sheriffs, they don't, they may be a political sheriff, but they don't care about all this nonsense because they're elected by the people and the people want to be safe.

SPEAKER_02 37:20

Yeah. Well, though.

Travis Yates 37:21

What's your cost of the next decade?

SPEAKER_02 37:22

Well, first of all, the community gets the policing that it, you know, it expects or that it that it pays for that it or that it that it allows. How's that? Right? I messed up the quote, but basically, you vote for whatever sheriff you want, and that person or you know, their style is what kind of policing you're gonna get. So I think you're gonna get, I think you're gonna see uh privatization to some degree. I think you'll see that. I don't know what that looks like exactly. I think you're seeing a little bit of that now. We are starting to push some things um in some places, like we're not going to certain call, we're not taking crash reports anymore. That's not our that's not our job. We're not going to nonviolent mentals. That's not our job. So I think you're gonna see a lot more of that, some of that, and maybe even some privatization. I do think you're gonna see some consolidation. I really do. Now, my fear there is uh, and we've seen this already, right? You got Louisville, you got Indianapolis, those are the two that pop off my head quickly where they've got rid of they got rid of, but the the county and the city have combined. I still think you're gonna have issues if it's a poorly run sheriff's office. You're still gonna have an overproblem, you're gonna have a problem with with people that still not want to join that agency. Um, but I think uh you'll start to see, I think the first step will be some of these smaller places kind of go away and get gobbled up, if you will, by the larger agencies around them to form like more like a police district almost, I think is where we're headed. Um, you know, some fire departments do this already. You know, I can remember a guy telling me how many ladder trucks do I need in a five mile radius? You know, how many structure fires do we have where I need a fire, a ladder within a five-mile radius? You know, probably not that many. So you'll see like fire districts. I think policing's gonna follow that. Um but at the end at the end of the day, we can we can have uh, I don't think we'll ever get to where we have like a national police. You know, that's been brought up a few times. I don't I don't think we'll ever get there because I know the kind of policing that we want in my community where I live now is is distinguishable, as a friend of mine would say, from some other communities around this country. I don't think we'll ever get to that, but I do think you will see some local control being given up, if for no other reason, for for for financial reasons. I mean you can only uh you know, the more training we make cops take, the more expensive these academies get. It's just it may just come down to dollars and cents.

Travis Yates 39:41

I hope in 10 years they listen to it, Scott, and they go, those guys were full of it. They didn't know anything. But I'm afraid, I'm afraid there's gonna be an ounce of truth in what we each said. So, Scott Hughes, man, I can't thank you enough

Where To Find Scott And Final Charge

Travis Yates 39:52

for being here. I've always uh been very impressed by everything that you've done, a wonderful career, uh, great uh mentor for other leaders as well. Where can people find you? Where can they reach you?

SPEAKER_02 40:03

Crosden Consulting, C-R-O-S-D-E-N, Crosden Consulting.com.

Travis Yates 40:09

Good stuff. Scott Hughes, thanks for being here. And if you've been listening, if you've been watching, thank you for doing that. And just remember lead on and stay courageous.

Announcement 40:19

Thank you for listening to Courageous Leadership with Travis Yates. We invite you to join other courageous leaders at TravisYates.org.