It Can Build Differently From Day One
A founding police chief can shape how people work before inherited habits become permanent. AI makes that opportunity practical: leaders can examine staffing assumptions, prepare officers, and organize institutional knowledge before the first patrol shift.
Mableton, Georgia, selected Dr. Anita Allen as its first police chief on October 6, 2026, targeting full operations for June 1, 2027 (City of Mableton, 2026a). Its challenge reaches beyond acquiring equipment. How can a new department build reliable service, capable personnel, and public confidence together?
A startup mindset offers a useful approach: understand needs, test assumptions, and deliberately build capacity. Public authority, however, requires continuity and lawful judgment throughout that process.
Why communities are starting over
Mableton says its decision followed negotiations that failed to secure the long-term county policing agreement it sought. Local control and stability were stated objectives. Its FY2027 budget includes $21 million for public safety, although that allocation does not establish the department’s eventual recurring operating cost (City of Mableton, 2026b, 2026c).
Santa Fe Springs, California, plans to launch a municipal department on March 1, 2028, replacing contracted Whittier services. The city aims for dedicated staffing and closer alignment with local priorities (City of Santa Fe Springs, n.d.).
Deerfield Beach, Florida, anticipates restoring independent municipal policing in fall 2027. This differs from a first-ever department: its earlier force merged into the sheriff’s office in 1990. A commissioned study projects personnel savings but acknowledges substantial startup investment (City of Deerfield Beach, n.d.; The Center for Public Safety, Inc., 2025). Projected benefits still require operational proof.
Build a Culture of Curiosity Before a Culture of Habit
If a new department wants to distinguish itself early, it should align its philosophical constitution with a framework. A new police department should build its core around academic rigor, intellectual curiosity, and continuous learning. That means creating a culture where officers study their profession, question assumptions, examine evidence, and improve their judgment, not simply accumulate credentials. Mableton’s decision to establish its own department does not diminish the opportunity to learn from Cobb County Police or the smaller Smyrna Police Department, including the practices that shape their reputations for efficiency.
But another agency’s brand cannot substitute for Mableton’s own intellectual foundation. In the age of artificial intelligence, a department’s strength will increasingly depend on its people’s ability to ask useful questions, evaluate unfamiliar information, recognize flawed answers, and connect technology to community needs. A founding chief can cultivate these habits through academic partnerships, protected learning time, instructor-led case discussions, and a department-created digital library that turns research and operational experience into continuous training.
This culture should extend from leadership to lateral hires and new recruits alike. The department’s identity should emerge from a shared commitment to thoughtful service: curious enough to explore new possibilities, disciplined enough to test them, and knowledgeable enough to exercise sound human judgment.
Build around experienced lateral officers
New departments should prioritize qualified lateral hires for the founding workforce while developing a measured pipeline of new recruits.
Experienced officers can bring investigative judgment, courtroom experience, supervisory capability, and familiarity with demanding calls.
Experience alone does not establish suitability. Examine performance, disciplinary history, documentation skills, references, and willingness to embrace the new department’s expectations. Lateral officers still need local orientation, demonstrated competence, and appropriate certification.
Offer a credible invitation: help build an organization where professional judgment, mentoring, and development matter. Linos (2018) found that career-focused recruitment messages could attract applicants beyond conventional public service appeals.
Support that message with fair supervision, transparent assignments, predictable scheduling where feasible, and meaningful training opportunities. Motivation research emphasizes autonomy, competence, and belonging (Gagné & Deci, 2005). These incentives complement adequate compensation; they cannot replace it.
Use established academies for new recruits
A newly formed department should generally use established, POST-certified academies rather than attempt to create its own basic academy during launch.
Larger training institutions can provide existing instructors, facilities, equipment, and structured instruction. In Georgia, the Georgia Public Safety Training Center operates a main campus in Forsyth and regional academies providing basic training (Georgia Public Safety Training Center [GPSTC], n.d.-a).
Coordinate admission requirements, available seats, sponsorship, graduation schedules, and subsequent field training before making staffing commitments. Academy enrollment is a development milestone, not immediate operational staffing.
Recruit in cohorts that the department’s field training officers can realistically support. Pair academy graduates with carefully selected lateral mentors. Established academies provide foundational preparation; the agency remains responsible for teaching its geography, systems, expectations, and community relationships.
Make continuous training part of operations
Training should continue after graduation and orientation. GPSTC’s online offerings include recorded presentations, interactive assignments, videos, and supporting materials, with POST-credit opportunities for in-service learning (GPSTC, n.d.-b).
Schedule protected learning time and select courses according to actual needs. Online instruction can support legal updates and knowledge development, while practical skills still require appropriate supervised instruction and assessment.
Alongside these resources, create a department-owned digital training library. Include approved report examples, fictional cases, short demonstrations, evidence submission guidance, prosecutor feedback, and lessons from recurring mistakes.
Organize the library by tasks officers perform. Give each item an owner, review date, and authoritative source. Link to outside courses instead of copying protected material. Department-created learning should not be represented as POST-approved unless that approval exists. Also, standard operating procedures (SOPs) should reflect the department’s needs rather than a cut-and-paste template from another department’s policies for expediency.
AI can help draft practice questions, organize content, and retrieve relevant material, and instructors validate it. Start modestly with a useful collection that grows through experience, rather than buying an elaborate system before identifying training needs.
A quarterly review can connect training to operational performance. Track recurring report corrections, instructor assessments, evidence submission problems, and whether officers retain skills on later exercises. Let supervisors recommend new library entries from observed needs, using fictionalized material that protects case information. This creates a practical learning cycle: identify a weakness, assign targeted instruction, practice the task, and reassess performance. Completion certificates document participation; demonstrated improvement provides the stronger sustained operational signal.
Practice reasoning before polishing documents
Connect the digital library to scenario-based documentation practice. A fictional burglary can unfold through witness statements, photographs, conflicting times, and additional evidence.
Officers first write independently, then receive AI-assisted feedback and instructor review. Later exercises introduce search and arrest warrant drafts. Score accuracy, chronology, unsupported claims, and reasoning. Recognizing insufficient evidence should count as sound judgment.
A fresh exercise without AI tests learning. Bastani et al. (2025) found that unrestricted AI assistance could improve practice performance while weakening later independent performance in mathematics. That finding is not policing evidence, but it explains why assisted output should not substitute for demonstrated competence.
Separate introductory scenarios could serve students and interested civilians. Their simulated documents carry no legal authority.
Learn from departments already operating
Menifee, California, launched in July 2020 with more than 60 officers and 17 professional staff, supported by investigative and evidence functions (City of Menifee, n.d.). Middletown, Kentucky, began developing its department in fiscal 2017–2018 and now identifies itself as an accredited agency (City of Middletown, n.d.-a, n.d.-b).
These examples illustrate the importance of experienced personnel and supporting infrastructure. Available evidence does not establish that either is uniformly superior across management outcomes.
South Fulton’s 2026 independent review found inherited policies poorly suited to its current needs, according to FOX 5 reporting (Moyer, 2026). Founding leaders should adapt borrowed practices deliberately.
Use AI to examine service decisions
Combine dispatch data, call duration, travel times, court commitments, and resident concerns to explore staffing alternatives. Conventional analysis provides the baseline; AI can organize narrative information and explain scenarios. Analysts verify assumptions, and chiefs decide what coverage is acceptable.
Administrative uses include organizing public feedback, drafting meeting summaries, and comparing vendor proposals. Measure correction time and implementation costs alongside potential savings. These applications are recommendations, not verified deployments by the departments discussed.
Earn confidence through visible progress
Ask residents what dependable policing should look like before selecting technology. Publish regular updates explaining costs, staffing progress, decisions, and changes prompted by feedback. Build persuasive marketing around citizens’ self-interest and the department’s operational needs.
Before launch, explain emergency call arrangements, service continuity, and complaint channels. If timelines slip, explain the consequences and revised plan.
Savannah’s Flock misuse investigation led to employee terminations and criminal charges against four former employees; the charges are not convictions (Georgia Bureau of Investigation, 2026). Briefly explain technology boundaries and accountability without allowing surveillance debates to dominate formation.
Finally, budget for recurring equipment, training, evidence storage, prosecutor coordination, mutual aid, and succession. AI can support planning and continuous learning. People remain responsible for police authority, professional judgment, and the service promised to residents.
Starting a new department may seem like an uphill battle, but the long-term pay-offs can be great. In the Age of AI, where self-determination is encouraged, this is a good time for a police department to gain independence.
–Klyvorek & OpenAI
KLYVOREK helps law enforcement professionals strengthen report-writing skills through realistic fictional scenarios, self-paced practice, and AI assistance. The officer provides the facts. KLYVOREK builds the draft. The officer reviews, refines, and improves it.
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References
Bastani, H., Bastani, O., Sungu, A., Ge, H., Kabakcı, Ö., & Mariman, R. (2025). Generative AI without guardrails can harm learning: Evidence from high school mathematics. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 122(26), e2422633122. https://doi.org/10.1073/pnas.2422633122.
City of Deerfield Beach. (n.d.). Police. https://www.deerfield-beach.com/2275/Police.
City of Mableton. (2026a, October 6). City of Mableton appoints Dr. Anita Allen as first chief of police. https://www.mableton.gov/m/newsflash/Home/Detail/50.
City of Mableton. (2026b, June 24). City of Mableton adopts FY2027 budget focused on responsible spending and stronger city services. https://www.mableton.gov/DocumentCenter/View/914/Press-Release—June-24—City-of-Mableton-Adopts-FY2027-Budget-PDF.
City of Mableton. (2026c, June 4). City of Mableton to begin development of public safety division. https://www.mableton.gov/m/newsflash/Home/Detail/37.
City of Menifee. (n.d.). Safety element S-8: Police services. https://www.menifee.ca.gov/900/S-8-Police-Services.
City of Middletown. (n.d.-a). Career opportunities. https://www.middletownky.gov/DepartmentsSubPage/6/career-opportunities.
City of Middletown. (n.d.-b). History. https://www.middletownky.gov/DepartmentsSubPage/7/history.
City of Santa Fe Springs. (n.d.). Santa Fe Springs Police Department. https://www.santafesprings.gov/551/Santa-Fe-Springs-Police-Department.
Gagné, M., & Deci, E. L. (2005). Self-determination theory and work motivation. Journal of Organizational Behavior, 26(4), 331–362. https://doi.org/10.1002/job.322.
Georgia Bureau of Investigation. (2026, August 21). GBI arrests four former Savannah Police Department employees for misuse of a license plate reader system. https://gbi.georgia.gov/press-releases/2026-08-21/gbi-arrests-four-former-savannah-police-department-employees-misuse.
Georgia Public Safety Training Center. (n.d.-a). Basic law enforcement training section. https://www.gpstc.org/training-at-gpstc/training-bureau/basic-law-enforcement-training-section.
Georgia Public Safety Training Center. (n.d.-b). Online training. https://www.gpstc.org/training-at-gpstc/online-training.
Linos, E. (2018). More than public service: A field experiment on job advertisements and diversity in the police. Journal of Public Administration Research and Theory, 28(1), 67–85. https://doi.org/10.1093/jopart/mux032.
Moyer, J. (2026, February 5). South Fulton police audit finds department using “outdated” policies. FOX 5 Atlanta. https://www.fox5atlanta.com/news/south-fulton-mayor-previews-independent-audit-police-department.
The Center for Public Safety, Inc. (2025, December). City of Deerfield Beach police department transition feasibility study. https://www.deerfield-beach.com/DocumentCenter/View/21221/Deerfield-Beach-Law-Enforcement-Final.
