CRIMINAL JUSTICE / COMMUNITY POLICING

In October 2020, the Lorain County Racial Equity Center Criminal Justice/Community Policing Committee began meeting with community stakeholders and police chiefs in Lorain County to discuss community policing and racial equity. These conversations have been an opportunity to evaluate our current practices and relationships, and to begin thinking about how we can create an environment in Lorain County that better supports and creates racial equity and equity‐based community policing practices. We define community policing as a collaborative effort between law enforcement, community members and organizations to support and protect EVERYONE in our community. These recommendations have been adapted from the Toledo Black Agenda (TBA) to address the needs, concerns and identified areas for growth that have arisen from our community because of our conversations over the past year.

“[The Toledo Black Agenda] Criminal Justice/Police Reform report focuses a great deal on law enforcement; not because the other phases of the Criminal Justice System are any less important, because they certainly are, but because the primary impetus for the most recent movement and global outcry for racial justice was ignited as the world watched helplessly as George Floyd was murdered by a police officer right in front of our eyes. This unadulterated view into the everyday reality of so many Black and Brown people in this country sickened many, and motivated countless others. The very entry into the Criminal Justice System occurs at the hands of police officers. Racism exists in every aspect of our society and in our systematic structures. When analyzed closely, the disparate treatment of Black and Brown individuals by some police officers has a lasting effect that alters their lives in ways not experienced at the same rate of any other race. There is no question that significant reforms are needed in all phases of the Criminal Justice System” (Toledo Black Agenda, p. 3).

* Create a culture founded on comprehensive community engagement and relationship building

* Invest in restorative justice practices, transparent processes, and relevant training

* Broaden policing perspective by diversifying the police force and creating citizen review boards

* Revisit and reinvest in neighborhood‐ level relationships and partnerships between police and Black and Brown communities

1. Assemble a task force, of law enforcement, social services, and grassroots community members to collaborate in reimagining public safety in a way that reduces the presence and need for armed law enforcement in Black and Brown communities when experiences or behaviors that are inappropriately criminalized (homelessness, substance use) could be better addressed with services and resources that provide more appropriate responses. The Lorain County Racial Equity Institute should host the task force.

2. Create more opportunities for police officers to engage with youth/students in ways that promote positive relationship‐building and greater trust. Investigate steps to reimagine police presence in schools and to promote positive school climates through comprehensive student support services. This can be accomplished through partnerships with the Reimagining Juvenile Justice (RJJ) committee, juvenile court officials, parents, grassroots community members, social services, and youth and students.

3. Increase funding for training for police departments to ensure best practices and adequate training requirements are being met each year. Provide special funding to departments solely dedicated to ensuring quality REI, DEI, and implicit bias training to officers. Police departments in Lorain County struggle to fund and meet their costly training requirements each year. Flawed training compromises the safety of police officers and Black and Brown community members.

4. Support the creation of a county‐wide coalition between police departments and the Police Academy at LCCC to coordinate and share dollars and resources for trainings each year.

5. Design and offer a robust racial diversity training program focused on practicing anti‐racism, increasing cultural diversity, and reducing implicit bias. This can be accomplished in partnership with the Lorain County Racial Equity Institute, Lorain County Chiefs Association, the Lorain County Community College Police Academy and other law enforcement associations. Racial diversity training should be geared towards new officers and offered to other members of the criminal justice system (such as sergeants, lieutenants, chiefs, judges, prosecutors, probation, and parole officers). The training should begin with Racial Equity and Inclusion courses that focus on the history of law enforcement (including slave codes). Additionally, the training program should offer opportunities for members of the criminal justice system to continually learn about and monitor potential signs of implicit bias within their own departments. Lastly, the training program should offer procedural fairness workshops that will acclimate those working in the criminal justice system to greater levels of cultural sensitivity.

6. Build trust and promote a culture of transparency. Law enforcement agencies should make all department policies available for public review and regularly post the following on the department’s website: information about traffic stops, summonses, arrests, reported crime, and other law enforcement data aggregated by demographics (President’s Task Force on 21st Century Policing. 2015. Final Report of the President’s Task Force on 21st Century Policing. Washington, DC: Office of Community Oriented Policing Services).

7. Establish Citizen Review Boards and recruit community members that are representative of the demographics in their respective cities.

8. Create avenues for community engagement and collaboration between police officers and Black and Brown community members to determine together a balance between accountability for criminal activity and safety for law abiding citizens living in over‐policed neighborhoods. Often, the two are treated as the same. Trust must be restored in the police by establishing community‐ based models that seek to protect and serve ALL members of any community through fair and humane interactions. Community members need to see that police officers have a vested interest in seeing the community thrive, not just a police presence.

* Develop greater partnerships between police officers and block watches. 


* Create opportunities for dialogue between community members and police officers in 
over‐policed neighborhoods. 


* Invest in neighborhood engagement initiatives that promote community empowerment 
(restoring the community from the inside out). 


9. Invest in more restorative justice practices, focusing heavily on community support for Black and Brown community members who are reentering society (i.e., restore voting rights, work to create programs for securing housing, create programs for securing employment)

10. Commit to hire, appoint, and elect more Black and Brown people in critical roles in law enforcement, the courts and judicial system, such as, judges, magistrates, bailiffs, police officers, prison administrators and workers as well as prosecutors, to name a few.

11. Promote relationship building between police and the Black and Brown communities by having officers, police/patrol in areas they live so that they get to know community members and community members get to know them. Additionally, support and fund more initiatives such as El Centro’s cultural diversity training for police officers. This will allow Black and Brown community members and police officers to come together, learn about one another and create shared understandings and expectations of community policing in specific neighborhoods.