Ethical Policing Is Courageous (EPIC) is a peer intervention program developed by the NOPD, in collaboration with community partners, to promote a culture of high-quality and ethical policing. EPIC educates, empowers, and supports the officers on the streets to play a meaningful role in “policing” one another. EPIC is a peer intervention program; a program that teaches officers how to intervene to stop a wrongful action before it occurs.
At its core, EPIC is an officer survival program, a community safety program, and a job satisfaction program. EPIC represents a cultural change in policing that equips, encourages, and supports officers to intervene to prevent misconduct and ensure high-quality policing. Everyone benefits when potential misconduct is not perpetrated or a potential mistake is not made.
EPIC seeks to inculcate active bystandership into everything an officer does, and to provide officers with the tools and resources needed to do it well. EPIC incorporates lessons learned instituting active bystandership in other sectors. EPIC strives to redefine police culture so that intervention to prevent or stop harmful action is not an exception to good team-work; it is the very definition of good teamwork. To do this, EPIC reaches throughout the NOPD and touches everything the Department does. EPIC:
- Redefines critical loyalty;
- Changes (or at least adds to) what we look for in the officers we hire;
- Trains officers and supervisors to identify danger signs;
- Equips officers with the skills they need to intervene before problems
- occur/escalate, and to do so safely;
- Supports and protects officers who do the right thing; and
- Provides officers with resources to help them make ethical decisions.
The Department’s management is fully committed to peer intervention and to the key role it will play as we all work together to transform the NOPD into a premier law enforcement institution.
The materials below are available for use by police departments across the country. For more information, please reach out to EPIC at EPIC@nola.gov or at (504)658-EPIC.
View EPIC Website