Police Race Relations Survey Recommendations 2005
During the Spring 2005 Quarter, an ad hoc group known as the Concerned Campus
Affiliates conducted an informal, anonymous, on-line campus-wide survey of the
community relationships with the UC Davis and Davis Police Departments. The
survey was not a scientific instrument and was not sanctioned by UC Davis. During
the fall 2005 Quarter, the Office of Campus Community Relations held a Campus
– Community – Police Forum to facilitate a discussion of the recommendations
from the survey.
The following information was compiled from the discussion generated by the
small breakout groups during the Forum held on November 21, 2005. Additionally,
the results of an exit survey will be available from this page soon.
1. Require collection of racial/ethnic data on all stops and all contacts.
• Collect data on all contacts (race, age, ethnicity and gender)
• Develop a “receipt” for the contact
• Identify the perceived race of the driver prior to the contact to dispatch
• Full time person to put CAD data in written form, specifically racial
data
2. Enhance the Complaint Process
• General Comments: complaint forms should be available at OCCR, CCC,
MU, and other campus locations - students are intimidated by the complaint process
and need support and advice, we need to think highly of our officers and recognize
the tough job they do, we also need to know the number of complaints that have
been sustained, concern about filing complaints and how we can make the process
easier, when was the last time we examined the complaint process? What data
do we need in order to assess the complaint process? Stop data? If a complaint
is sustained what happens? What happens to all of the complaints?
• Assessment of current process
• Committee to review process and advise campus leadership
• Education of community about the process
• Release time for study
• Focus groups to discuss concerns about filing complaints
• Need someone who will listen
• Review City of Berkeley model
• Education – to cover police and members of the community
• Use of cameras in cars (audio)
• Who will conduct investigations?
• Is there a resolution process short of filing a complaint?
• Officer to give a copy of the complaint process to the person stopped
• People need to know “who” is stopping them, confusion about
City of Davis vs. UCD PD (give out bus. card; always show badge)
• Police – Student Liaisons
• Identify someone to go to for help in these situations
• Complaints should be handled immediately, within 30 days; once results
are in the discipline should be handed out
• An independent review board should be put in place to conduct the review
process
• Educate the city council to the issue of racial profiling and the need
to have a good complaint process
• Police Departments must be more proactive relative to the complaint
process
• For City of Davis: complaint forms should be available in multiple languages;
make “description of incident” area easier to report; institute
an “Advocate” to assist the complainant
3. Conduct a formal, university-wide survey to explore racial profiling (and a campus task force)
• Work with the Davis Human Relations Commission to expand their current
diversity and discrimination survey to include questions regarding UCD community
and community/police relations specifically focusing on racial profiling.
• Random sampling with over sampling of underrepresented groups
• Offer cash incentives and other kinds of enticements to increase survey
participation.
• Increase visible support of the upper administration. (Survey may “hold
more weight” if administration is supporting research effort)
• Appealing to the direct needs of the general student population
• Use university professors and other UCD resources (i.e. sociology professors
working under a grant) to enhance quality of survey.
• In the survey, include focused questioned directed towards different
groups: faculty, staff, students and law enforcement.
• Assemble a diverse group of representatives from all relevant parties
(faculty, staff, students, UCDPD, DPD) to create the survey.
• Concerns: Random sampling or targeted sampling? Grants and fundraising
for the survey, Is another survey necessary? (What new information are we trying
to obtain?) - Issues of distrust will always exist; therefore another survey
may not be necessary – may be better off focusing resources on non-survey
means of change. However, a more scientifically sound survey may be necessary
to provide “tangible” evidence that there is a problem and to get
administration on board with providing resources/funding for implementing recommendations.
4. Identify campus task force to ensure police accountability in implementing change
• “Task Force” is not the appropriate title for the committee
• The committee should be a diverse body of representatives including:
students of color, faculty, staff and administration; community/external members,
police dept. reps., city council reps.
• What type of power should the committee have? Empowered by the univ.
admin. e.g. the chancellor to develop a process to ensure accountability
• Committee communication with police depts. and public should occur through
the respective representatives on the committee
• Committee charge should be to serve as oversight group, develop a timeline
for change, make sure that other domains have accountability and monitor change,
this process (and committee) needs to be institutionalized and ongoing
• Insufficient resources, decentralize the resources and make them readily
available
• Police Departments must also come up with their own set of recommendations
for change – Acknowledge that problems exist
5. Improve officer hiring and training
• Raising awareness (by police officers ; by the community)
• Diversity Training (role plays and video-discussion)
• Assessment (Tolerance, thorough background check, life experiences
• Training on White Privilege (History of police in US)
• Hiring – Do presentation on community issues; salary issues –
enough pay?
• Leadership accountability – City Mgr. and VC of Administration
• Increasing pool of candidates – vigorous recruitment, targeted,
get more citizens into the citizens academy
• Incentives – more R & R, community members
• Include diverse student in interview group
• Independent Review Board for Hiring for both UCPD and Davis PD
• Training and hiring of officers need to include cultural competency
in all cases
• Officers who have complaints against them should be encouraged to participate
and/or supervisors need to deal with them
• Having a diverse staff does not equate to being a culturally competent
department
6. Enhance community-police communication/Public Education
• Public education about law enforcement role
• More Forums – Public Questions/Answers
• Many police officers do not attend forums so we may need to time events
to get better participation
• More interactions with police officers not related to the “job”
• Independent Board/person to connect City PD with UCPD
• Ongoing education/training about the impact of being “pulled over”
• Intimidation – making officers aware of impact of the power/control
dynamics in contacts
• Get to know you dialogues with PDs
• Ongoing news column (Aggie, Davis Enterprise)
• Distribute at Info Desk “What to do if you are stopped “
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