Posted on Apr 12, 2023
For our in-person meeting on April 12, Wyoming’s Albany County Sheriff, Aaron Appelhans, gave us an inspiring view of professionalism in the workplace as exemplified by his approach to staffing and policing in his Sheriff’s Department.  In summary, Sheriff Appelhans defines professionalism for the individual as a combination of traits, skills, behaviors, and good judgement expected from an individual well-trained and well-adjusted to their career and adhering to a set of principles and procedures generally accepted in the profession; for an organization, it is a set of hiring, training, and advancement procedures that avoid the effects of unconscious biases, both explicit and implicit.  Simply, professionalism is not the job you do, it is how you do the job. 
On the job, biases may appear in the guise of looking but not seeing.  In the office, it is important to avoid both overt and subtle intolerance.  Evaluation has to be based on performance or professionalism, not (whether in whole or in part) on such common biases as appearance, gender, religion, beauty, affinity, confirmation, conformity, “halo effect”, or other forms of “he is not like me”.  Is there a failure to see based on real or perceived biases?
 
In his organization, his deputies don’t get to pick and choose their day-to-day assignments or the individuals with whom they work or who they encounter in the process of doing their jobs.  As a result, he puts a lot of effort into recruiting and retaining individuals from a cross-section of the society in which his deputies have to function.  He has been quite successful in transitioning his employee force, and especially his new classes of recruits, from all burly white men to a selection of males and females and different races.  He points out that the population with which his organization deals and the population from which he must draw his recruits is 60% under the age of 40, so he is focusing on hiring and retaining the young for the long term.  The changing face of America makes it incumbent on him (and on all businesses) to hire a diverse work force – bring other types into the organization. 
 
As a final aside, he pointed out that his department, at 55 employees, is a more-or-less medium-size sheriff’s department. 
 
Questions: 
 
Is there actually a culture change going on in his department?  It is an ongoing development. It is, at least in part, a reaction to a Federal lawsuit.  He has been casting a wide net in his recruiting.  He points out that, as a small-town department, it operates in a relatively low-key environment. 
 
How are social mores changing?  He recognizes that you can’t arrest your way out of every problem. Statically, most of the crimes that he deals with occur as a function of some sort of underlying problem and it is better to treat the problem and not the crime in isolation.  As a result, they are partnering with various clinics and hospitals in the county to facilitate referrals out of the criminal justice system. 
Is this approach spreading to other police/sheriff departments?  Some neighboring departments are mimicking these processes.  However, fear of change (“we’ve never done that before”) commonly makes those transitions difficult. 
 
Police are not doctors or psychiatrists so how do they manage that first contact?  They receive very intentional training about quickly recognizing the nature of the problem. 
 
Sheriff, how did you arrive at being a sheriff?  Growing up in Denver, his parents were supportive of his going to college, but insisted that he pay for it so he opted for the least expensive college that he could find that offered a degree in Civil Engineering – the University of Wyoming.  With his Civil Engineering degree, he had an early job with a company building roads but the bidding process was sufficiently shady that he decided on another path.  He met his wife at the University and they decided to stay in Laramie, where he went to work in the University’s recruiting department doing some college counseling working with inner-city and reservation kids.  The Chief of the University’s Police Department suggested that he join that force and, after several years of hesitancy and no promotion in recruiting, he joined the University Police Department.  He started in crime prevention then transitioned to investigation, especially crimes against children, eventually becoming a supervisor.  Then the Albany County Sheriff’s position suddenly became available and he put his name up for appointment.  He was chosen for the position and has since been re-elected to the position. 
 
What is the crime rate in the county?  One of the main issues is homeless people.  Although he has connections with every type of clinic and non-profit for support, Laramie has no shelter.  As a result and due to the nature of the weather, homelessness is less of a problem there than in Fort Collins.  Some 65% of the criminal activity is public intoxication and DUI.  Alcohol fuels much of the other crime.  Around 35% of the crime is property crime.  Troubles with drugs are cyclical, ranging from 6% to 15% of the crimes. 
 
His opinion of the campaign for greater gun control?  He started by reminding us that the 2md Amendment to the Constitution guarantees the right to bear arms.  He then pointed out that the 2nd amendment includes the phrase about a well-regulated militia.  He stated that statistics show that regulation parallels lower gun violence.  He also emphasized that many aspects of gun ownership and gun use are already tightly regulated (e.g., what gun and what ammunition are legal for what hunting purposes) and that regulation is widely recognized and accepted.