National Initiative for Building Community Trust and Justice Launches

The National Initiative for Building Community Trust and Justice formed as a collective working to improve relationships and increase trust between minority communities and the criminal justice system. In September 2014,  the Department of Justice (DOJ) awarded a three-year grant to launch this initiative in efforts to advance public and scholarly understandings of these issues and develop interventions.

The initial interventions will be informed by ideas in  five pilot sites across the country. The five sites are Stockton, California; Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania; Minneapolis, Minnesota; Gary, Indiana; Fort Worth, Texas; and Birmingham, Alabama.Each pilot site will develop a detailed site-specific plan that will enhance:

• Racial reconciliation facilitates frank conversations between minority communities and law enforcement that allow them to address historic tensions, grievances, and misconceptions between them and reset relationships. 
• Procedural justice focuses on how the characteristics of law enforcement interactions with the public shape the public’s views of the police, their willingness to obey the law, and actual crime rates. 
• Implicit bias focuses on how largely unconscious psychological processes can shape authorities’ actions and lead to racially disparate outcomes even where actual racism is not present. 

Additionally, the initiative will focus on interventions for victims of domestic violence and other crimes, youth and the LGBTQ community. Following initial research and evaluation of the five sites, the initiative plans to establish a national clearinghouse where information, research and technical assistance are readily accessible for law enforcement, criminal justice practitioners and community leaders.The initiative will be guided by a board of advisors which will include national leaders from law enforcement, academia and faith-based groups, as well as community stakeholders and civil rights advocates. For resources and more information, visit the website.

International Association of Chiefs of Police Convene a National Policy Summit on Community-Police Relations

When distressed communities are asked what improvements they would like to see in the neighborhood, residents often voice public safety as a necessary factor to strengthening their communities, which at times requires working with law enforcement. In order for communities and law enforcement to come together to create a safe environment, building a strong relationship between community members and police is essential. The International Association of Chiefs of Police (IACP) recently convened at a summit and released a report, the “IACP National Policy Summit on Community-Police Relations.” The IACP is an association of law enforcement executives with over 23,000 members in 100 countries. “The IACP’s mission is to advance professional police services; promote enhanced administrative, technical, and operational police practices; and foster cooperation and the exchange of information and experience among police leaders and police organizations of recognized professional and technical standing throughout the world.”

The report provides an overview acknowledging the complexities within each community, assesses current police challenges, and provides recommendations. As law enforcement takes an evidence-based practice approach to including community members, key takeaways from the report include:

• Police are often working with diverse populations, which requires proper training in implicit bias, the “predilections held by all that operate largely outside of one’s awareness,” in order to establish trust with community members. 
• The police department should be more transparent in releasing statistics, arrest information, and other data whether it paints them in a negative or positive light. This can include communicating with the community through media as well as through relationships with community members.
• Chiefs of Police need to engage key community leaders and build a culture of collaboration in the strategic planning process to address neighborhood safety. Create a shared definition of roles, responsibilities and priorities
• Citizen surveys should allow for honest feedback to hold police accountable. Police should incorporate the feedback into their practice.
• Allow the community to see police people as community members, who live, work, and have a stake in the community.

The recommendations from the report are not only a guide to police and community relations, but also are a guide to building community. Because resident engagement is an integral piece to creating strong communities, CSSP’s Building Neighborhood Capacity Program (BNCP) provides resources for resident engagement within the tools and templates section of the website.