Dr. Shon Barnes was sworn in as Madison Police chief Monday, emphasizing the importance of community engagement and community trust.
“We are never going to move the needle and earn community trust until we recognize how the community wants to be policed,” Barnes said. “That will require all of us coming together … we must make our community safer and our department the national model for exceptional policing.
“Whether it’s community activists or anyone else who wants to meet us halfway and discuss how we can come together and do better for this community, I am all in,” he added. “The community provides the Madison Police Department with its authority to police. They should have a say in how they want to be served.”
Mayor Satya Rhodes-Conway delivered the opening remarks at the ceremony for Barnes, who had been the former director of training and professional development for Chicago’s police oversight group and the deputy police chief in Salisbury, North Carolina, before becoming Madison’s new police chief. Barnes began his law enforcement career as a patrol officer in 2000 at the Greensboro Police Department in North Carolina and moved up through the ranks to captain.
Barnes said that community engagement through effective partnerships will also be a priority.
“Community feedback and insight has and always will continue to be critical in allowing me to shape the direction of this department under my leadership,” Barnes said. “Crime prevention will be a priority for my administration. We will be laser-focused on violent crime prevention and reduction through innovative initiatives and partnerships in the criminal justice system and in the private sector.
“Violent crime reduction will also require us to examine alternative solutions in discretionary arrests of lower-level offenses,” he added. “Clearly, we have to understand we cannot always arrest our way out of problems.”
