COLLABORATIVE AGREEMENT UPDATE
Urban areas across the country are dealing with issues of crime: assaults, aggravated robbery, drug dealing and use, and quality of life including the social repercussions of concentrated poverty.
This report describes a part of those larger concerns: police - community relations and the legally sanctioned process adopted by the City of Cincinnati to address those issues. The City's population is 54% white, 44% black, and 2% other.
From 1967 through 2000 there were numerous investigations of the Cincinnati Police Department (CPD) about racial issues ranging from shootings of African-Americans to hiring and promotion of African-American police officers.
Between February 1, 1995 and May 6, 2004, there were 18 African American men killed by police. Some of these men were armed. By 2000, more than 400 statements were taken from African-Americans who said police had abused them.
After the fatal shooting of an African-American, various lawsuits were merged and a class action suit was filed seeking a preliminary injunction for the elimination of excessive use of force by the police or a community dialogue. The Collaborative Agreement sought to bring all the parties under the same umbrella.
THE COLLABORATIVE AGREEMENT
March 2001, the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) & Black United Front filed suit alleging:
- African-Americans had been treated differently than other racial groups for more than 30 years.
- Recent deaths of African-Americans and the disproportionate stops and search rates of African-Americans were part of a pattern and practice of discrimination by the Cincinnati Police Department. (CPD).
Judge Susan J. Dlott, US District Court was assigned the case and:
- Determined that rather than the normal litigation course, a facilitated settlement of the litigation would be more productive for the Parties, the justice system and the community.
- Got the parties to agree to alternative dispute resolution.
- Invited the local Chapter of the Fraternal Order of Police (FOP) to participate.
- Appointed the ARIA Group, a conflict resolution training and consulting company to guide the process.
Rather than granting authority to an individual or agency, the parties agreed to a process whereby authority is collaborative with the goal to improve relations. With the April 2001 shooting of Timothy Thomas, an unarmed black man, early rancorous encounters among the Parties moved to negotiation of the Collaborative Agreement (CA), formally established May 2, 2001.
By December 2001, five shared goals were identified to improve police community relations, the ultimate goal of the collaboration. The goals are:
- Police officers and community members will become proactive partners in community problem solving.
- Build relationships of respect, cooperation, and trust within and between police and communities.
- Improve education, oversight, monitoring, hiring practices, and accountability of the Cincinnati Police Department.
- Ensure fair, equitable, and courteous treatment for all.
- Create methods to establish the public's understanding of police policies and procedures and recognition of exceptional service in an effort to foster support for the police.
The collaborative effort holds that different groups within the community share more in common than not and can work together on common goals and solve problems together. It is based on a philosophy of problem oriented policing and recognizes problems are dilemmas in which to be engaged and from which to learn.
The Collaborative was proposed by the Parties, authorized by the Cincinnati City Council and established by Judge Dlott as an alternative to avoid divisive litigation. It includes outreach to the entire community and involved more than 3,500 people in its development.
The Collaborative Agreement provides for:
- Implementing Community Problem Oriented Policing (CPOP) as the principal strategy for addressing crime and disorder problems, utilizing the problem solving process known as SARA (Scanning, Analysis, Response, Assessment).
- Evaluating the implementation of the Agreement by developing a system to track progress in reaching the goals. It is a mutual accountability plan.
- Implementing a commitment to Bias-Free Policing requiring the City to provide police services in a fair, impartial manner without discrimination on the basis of race, color, or ethnicity. This includes measuring whether any racial disparity occurs in police stops of motor vehicles.
- Requiring the establishment of a Citizen Complaint Authority.
- Monitoring and dispute resolution including the selection of a monitor by the Parties together with the Department of Justice (DOJ). A Monitor with law enforcement experience will review and report on the Parties' implementation of and compliance with the Agreement.
- Establishing Friends of the Collaborative, a community advisory committee of Cincinnati organizations. The committee consults with and supports the Parties regarding the implementation of the Agreement.
The Collaborative Agreement focuses on how the police do their job and engage the community. As of early 2005, the Agreement became a Consent Decree or Court Order making the content of the Agreement binding on the Parties. The Collaborative Agreement will terminate in 2007, or earlier if there has been substantial compliance as defined within the Agreement. Any of the Parties can petition the court to request an extension.
* "the Parties" included the Cincinnati Black United Front (since withdrawn from the Agreement), the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) on behalf of the class defined as "the Plaintiffs," the Fraternal Order of Police and the City of Cincinnati.
According to the Collaborative Agreement, the class is defined as all African-Americans who reside, work in and/or travel on public thoroughfares in the City of Cincinnati now or in the future and citizens of any race who have or will be subjected to use of force by Cincinnati police officers.
MEMORANDUM OF AGREEMENT (MOA)
After the civil unrest following the police shooting of Timothy Thomas, parallel with negotiations that led to the Collaborative Agreement, Cincinnati Mayor Charlie Luken invited the US Department of Justice (DOJ) to conduct a pattern or practice investigation. Congress expanded the power of the Justice Department to sue cities over patterns or practices of police misconduct.
The result of the investigation was a Memorandum of Agreement between the DOJ, the City of Cincinnati and the CPD. The MOA required new policies on use of force, reporting and investigating use of force and citizen complaints, new training requirements, early intervention, and risk management. It also requires police department supervisors to document and investigate all incidents involving use of force to determine if department policy was followed and to evaluate the tactics used by the officers.
COLLABORATIVE AGREEMENT and MEMORANDUM OF AGREEMENT
Both the Collaborative Agreement and Memorandum of Agreement address use of force and under both, the city established a Citizen Complaint Authority (CCA). The independent Monitor oversees implementation of both the Collaborative Agreement and the Memorandum of Agreement.
The Cincinnati police/community reform effort is unique, according to the Monitor. Typically, consent decrees and moa's:
- address police accountability only for specific areas of investigation,
- involve only the city, the police department and the DOJ as Parties,
- do not try to evaluate the Parties' and citizens' perceptions re: implementation of policy reform effort, and
- do not address directly the style of policing.
- In Cincinnati the two agreements add complexity to the reform process.
- The addition of the Collaborative Agreement provides the Parties, the public and at times, the court, the ability to evaluate police department implementation of the required policies, procedures and training to comply with the terms of the agreements.
- With these two agreements, there are more Parties participating in the process. The MOA has the usual Parties: City, CPD and the DOJ; the Collaborative Agreement has the CPD, City, the Plaintiffs and the FOP as Parties. While the MOA and the Collaborative Agreement are separate documents, there are interlocking provisions that require them to be interpreted and implemented together.
The Collaborative Agreement:
- Provides for mutual accountability that requires the development of an Evaluation Protocol and the hiring of an evaluator to develop statistical, demographic, and qualitative surveys. (The Rand Study)
- Addresses a style of policing to be used by the department: Community Problem Oriented Policing (CPOP), as a principal method of policing. It requires all Parties to work together and be held accountable for implementing CPOP.
- Calls upon the Parties to collaborate to ensure fair, equitable, and courteous treatment for all.
The Cincinnati MOA with the Collaborative Agreement attempts to address the breakdown in community trust and to bring about a more professional, accountable police department. The Collaborative Agreement requires the Parties with historically rancorous relationships to confront each other, face to face, on a regular basis. That all Parties participate in implementation of CPOP is a level of contact not normally experienced by Parties affected by moa's. It is an ongoing challenge to involve the community in the collaborative process.
PARTICULAR PROVISIONS OF THE COLLABORATIVE AGREEMENT
Following the race riots in the 1960s, police departments throughout the country were urged to use new strategies to reduce crime. The central focus of problem oriented policing is the effect of police activity on public safety including crime prevention. It is a strategy of policing that has evolved over the past three decades.
Community Problem Oriented Policing (CPOP) emphasizes citizens and police, as mutually accountable, working together to produce safer neighborhoods, using CPOP as the primary method. Crime reduction efforts in Cincinnati and across the country have historically focused on the criminal. The traditional approach which focuses on arrest and imprisonment produces what minorities see as a heavy handed or even repressive police presence in their neighborhoods. Although CPOP does not ignore offender-based strategies, CPOP is about focusing more on reducing opportunities for crime in specific situations. It is more a preventive approach than an enforcement approach.
All Cincinnati Police Department personnel received problem solving training using the SARA process for community problem solving, (Scanning, Analysis, Response, Assessment). With the SARA process, city employees and city residents work together through partnerships. A problem is identified; the cause is analyzed, along with a review of the data; a solution is developed and action taken. Finally, the extent of achieving the goal is measured.
As an example of CPOP accomplishments, citizens identified a problem of drug dealers sitting on the Kennedy Avenue Bridge. Using Crime Prevention through Environmental Design, plastic Easter eggs were used to mold concrete "bumps" which were glued to the bridge to prevent drug dealers sitting there and fencing was installed underneath to block a hiding place for drugs. More than 40 people including police glued the bumps onto the bridge and had cookouts for the neighborhood, posted anti-drug messages and passed out information flyers explaining the action. This show of determination by the neighborhood to take control continues and has led to direct patrols of this area.
Community Police Partnering Center
The center was established to achieve two goals of the Collaborative Agreement:
- To "build relationships of respect, cooperation and trust with and between police and communities"
- To create an environment wherein "police and community members will become proactive partners in community problem solving efforts."
The mission of the Center, "partnering" with communities and the Cincinnati Police Department, is to develop and implement effective strategies that will reduce crime and disorder and build positive interaction and trust between police and neighborhoods. The Center, in partnership with the police department personnel, trains community stakeholders in CPOP and the SARA model to implement these goals.
The initial round of SARA Trainings jointly facilitated by the Partnering Center and the Police Department staff was completed in Fall 2004. According to the August 2005 Annual Report, there were 31 neighborhoods trained in SARA Problem Solving, 17 developing CPOP Teams and 20 Active CPOP Teams.
Citizen Complaint Authority (CCA) was established by the Collaborative Agreement as an independent and impartial board to investigate complaints about Cincinnati police officers. A complaint could include excessive use of force, shots fired, deaths in custody, unreasonable search and seizure, lack of service and discrimination.
CCA has a Director and staff, and a seven member Board appointed by the Mayor. The members have education and experience required to impartially review evidence and make judgments about alleged police misconduct. (A national search is being conducted for a director to replace Wendell France who resigned in December '05.)
Complaints are accepted and handled according to an agreed upon process. Between 2003 and fall 2005, the CCA has reviewed approximately 1400 complaints regarding some type of police intervention. About 880 were referred to the CPD for a resolution process; the cases retained by the CCA were allegations of excessive force, unlawful search and entry, racial profiling, discharge of firearms and death in custody, according to the Monitor.
The former Director believed additional assistance with a funded staff person is needed to assist the agency with citizen outreach components. The Director also requested an administrative technician for data collection and compilation and thought the CCA should be given the authority to resolve complaints of minor misconduct through an informal resolution process, such as mediation.
COMMENTS
Representatives of the Parties to the Agreements spoke with the Diversity Committee. They included: Gregory Baker, Executive Manager of Police Relations; Rick Biehl, Executive Director, Partnering Center; Wendell France, (former) Executive Director, Citizen Complaint Authority; Al Gerhardstein, ACLU Attorney for the plaintiffs; and Thomas H. Streicher, Police Chief, City of Cincinnati.
All were asked to comment on:
The purpose of the agreement(s). What has been accomplished? What needs to be accomplished?
General comments are as follows.
There has been progress in implementing the provisions of both the Collaborative Agreement and the MOA. There has been less progress, perhaps, in changing the perceptions of the Parties.
Several speakers said more citizen/community involvement is needed. One speaker said, with hindsight, they should have budgeted for a PR firm if the resistance to the MOA and Collaborative Agreement could have been foreseen. There is a need to inspire and get people to work with the SARA model. There was disappointment expressed about community silence in response to an elected official's characterization of the MOA and Collaborative Agreement as interfering with police work.
There were comments about the initial sluggish response and resistance on the part of the City and the Police Department in implementing some of the provisions. Since the '05 decision by the Judge making the Collaborative Agreement a Consent Decree, there has been a more concerted effort to collaborate and attention given to the implementation of the provisions.
The CPD is a long established institution. While some police departments across the country began to change from the 1970s, through the 1990s, little modernization occurred locally. It will take time to change the culture of the Police Department.
The police cannot prevent crime without the participation and cooperation of the community. The Police Department has a fiduciary responsibility to keep the community safe and there cannot be policing without arrests.
Citing statistics can prove accomplishments, but it takes time for people to actually see the differences. Of 37,000 arrests, 2.3% required force.
It is a challenge to institutionalize CPOP and have citizens as partners. Other communities have been learning how to deal with problems stemming from multiple conditions: lack of jobs, deinstitutionalization, drugs, and loss of internal social controls. A greater commitment is needed on the part of the City and the Police Department.
EVALUATION
Monitor's Report
With the agreement of all parties, Judge Dlott appointed Saul Green as the Independent Monitor. Mr. Green served as a U.S. District Attorney for the Eastern Michigan District and currently practices law in the private sector in Detroit. He reports quarterly on the progress of the police and the city regarding compliance with the terms of the Agreements. To date there have been twelve reports, the current report covers the Quarter Ending December 2005.
Among the most successful accomplishments of the Collaborative was the establishment of Mental Health Response Teams. There are now about 190 police officers who have had training in handling confrontations between police and people with mental illness.
The Community Partnering Center is in compliance. More than 32 CPOP Teams have been set up by the Partnering Center and addressed numerous problems in more than 40 of the city's 52 neighborhoods.
Relevant to the introduction of tasers in 2004, the use of force policy has been revised. The use of tasers resulted in many fewer injuries to both police and civilians. The use of force policy includes use of chemical spray, canines, beanbags, and foot pursuit. The CPD is in compliance with all of them.
According to the Monitor's report, the Citizen Complaint Authority has been effective in handling citizens' complaints. But because there are a number of complaints that were not investigated by police within the 90-day limit, this section is not yet in compliance.
The Employee Tracking System (ETS) is in place to record data that identifies police officers and units whose activity is above or below average and may require discipline.
The first annual CPOP Awards Ceremony was held in October 2005 hosted by the Partnering Center. Police officers, citizens and community groups were honored for their work in reducing chronic crime and improving safety. The work product resulting from the Collaborative was evidence of what the police-community partnership could achieve.
The Quarter Ending December 2004 report found the CPD uncooperative. According to the Monitor there has been considerable improvement since that time.
The Rand Report, December 2005 (Excerpts)
The Rand Corporation is under contract to evaluate how well the Collaborative Agreement and MOA have worked to achieve the five goals (see GOALS under Collaborative Agreement). This is a baseline report and more reports will come each year through 2008. The goals are assessed by
various evaluation mechanisms that include surveys and analyses. The Rand Report makes no
assumptions.
- A survey of citizen satisfaction with the CPD found that 55% of the public surveyed had favorable opinions about police services and practices, but blacks were more dissatisfied and felt they were the targets of racial profiling. Residents of District 1, which includes Over the Rhine, Pendleton and the West End, had significantly less favorable perceptions of interactions with police. This correlates with the finding that high crime rates occur often in poor neighborhoods.
- Knowing a police officer's name contributes to improved perception of the CPD.
- A written survey of citizens who have had interactions with police produced written results from 126 people (14% return rate) and was insufficient to be valid.
- A random sampling of police was surveyed by letter about opinions of their working conditions. The results indicate that the officers perceived little community willingness to work with them on problem solving and the perception that blacks complained and the media reported unfairly about racial profiling and police abuse of authority. In short, while the majority of officers appeared to be satisfied with the work, they also suffered significant strains from the job. A majority of the respondents had experienced injuries due to interacting with a resisting or attacking suspect. The 29% return rate was considered too low to allow generalization about all police officers.
- The perceived fairness of the complaint process was assessed by matched pairs of officers and citizens involved in the complaint process. Results were too limited to be very helpful, but those who responded thought the complaint process leads to investigations. Some respondents said they did not trust the investigators of the complaint.
- Rand conducted 16 periodic observations of community council meetings and CPOP meetings representing all five CPD districts in the spring of 2004.
- The community council meetings appeared to be open and opinions were valued. Most viewed the police as a partner. The CPOP meetings were viewed positively as helpful, the training good and the problem solving mostly effective.
- Traffic stop analysis showed that about 20% of stops were not recorded on the required contact card and important items on the card were missing on an additional 16%. For unknown reasons, stops of black drivers tended to be longer than stops of white drivers. The stops had poorer quality communication and more frequently led to searches. Communication was better when driver and police were of the same race. But Rand concluded that on the basis of the figures they had, racial profiling was not an issue.
- Rand realizes they must find a way to get more complete data on police stops.
- The black community still thinks racial profiling is a problem. The system of recording traffic stops will be automated by spring of 2006, which should result in more complete data collection. (From the January 24, 2006 Rand Report community presentation)
- Video and audio police-motorist interactions were analyzed in 313 randomly sampled interactions. On average, blacks experience more proactive policing than do whites. The findings were similar to those noted above (longer stops, more searches, etc.) The more proactive policing, which may be in response to a community's request for more policing to reduce crime, may result in apprehending more offenders, but may have high costs for community relations.
- Minorities and women were under-represented among sworn officers and their numbers tended to diminish with rank. Blacks and females were over-represented as recruits relative to sworn staff but under-represented relative to city residents.
- Limitations to the analysis included low return of written surveys, missing and/or incomplete contact cards, videos that cut off before they should, and videos of poor quality. There was little evidence that missing data was associated with the race of the drivers or the officers. This is a baseline report and Rand hopes that future samples will show a substantial decrease in missing data.
FUNDING
The plaintiffs took the lead for securing funding for the Community Partnering Program through grant applications. Early estimates were $175,000 per year and less as CPOP took hold in the community. Other costs associated with the Collaborative Agreement are the responsibility of the City subject to certain provisions, and estimated to be $5 million. The cost of the 5-year Rand contract is $1.7 million.
FUTURE STEPS/CITIZEN INVOLVEMENT OPPORTUNITIES
Cincinnati's commitment to problem solving includes a clear emphasis on and commitment to citizen involvement in the problem solving process. Following are opportunities for citizen involvement.
- Join or help to establish a CPOP team in your neighborhood. 352-2972 or cpopcenter@gcul.org
- Work with the Friends of the Collaborative to educate others about CPOP and the Citizen Complaint Authority process.
- Encourage the use of problem solving and the Partnering Center throughout the Cincinnati community. 559-5450
- Attend public forums to discuss police community relations and/or public safety.
- Join Citizens on Patrol Program (COPP), a neighborhood based program under District Commanders. COPP volunteers receive an 8-hour training course. As of August 2005 there were 898 trained members, and about 500 are actively patrolling 26 of Cincinnati's 52 neighborhoods.
- Crime Hot Spot Camera Program trains volunteers to use equipment and work with police to monitor cameras viewing activity in crime hot spots in selected communities. www.cityWatcher.com
- Citizen Police Academy: Citizens can observe and take part in police training.
- School Resource Officers (SRO) provide security, mediation, mentoring and friendship in both public and parochial schools. In operation since 1968, Cincinnati was the third city in the country to offer this program. SRO was designed to improve relationships between the police and young people while making schools safer places to be.
- Crime Stoppers: Call to report crime in the community. 352-3040
The Parties to the Collaborative Agreement concur that CITIZEN PARTICIPATION is the key to making Cincinnati a safe, workable and livable environment.
References:
Improving Police-Community Relations in Cincinnati: A Collaborative Approach.
Monitoring the Cincinnati Collaborative. Remarks of Saul A. Green Delivered at the Vera Institute of Justice May 6, 2004.
Summary of the Collaborative Agreement Approved August 2002. October 5, 2005.
Community Problem Oriented Policing. Collaborative Agreement Problem Solving Annual Report.
August 2005.
Rand Corporation Technical Report: Police-Community Relations in Cincinnati, December 2005.
Report prepared by the Diversity Committee:
John Fine and Sylvia Mersfelder, Co-chairs, Bette Evanshine, Rose Kearney, Chris Moran and Betsy Pierce.
March 2006
|
|
