Good morning Freedom City Working Group, I am reaching out to formally invite everyone to OPO’s upcoming community event regarding the Analysis of APD Racial Profiling Data report that our office released in January alongside the Equity Office and Office of Innovation. This is event is an opportunity for community to learn about what the data says about racial disparities in policing in Austin, share feedback with City of Austin staff and APD, and provide input on what meaningful action and accountability on this issue looks like. The event will take place on Saturday, February 22 from 10am-12pm at the North Austin YMCA on Rundberg. Please note that the event is hosted and facilitated by the Office of Police Oversight, Equity Office, and Office of Innovation. APD decision makers will be present to participate and hear from community. There will be a brief panel discussion followed by facilitated small group discussion. This is the meeting I went to today. The room was packed with people of all colors. Some are residents, community members, volunteers like me for different organizations, police, nursing students, each with their own reason for wanting a better understanding of the vast amount of racial disparity in policing in Austin. I'll give her a quick rundown of the big picture of the meeting. First, there was a panel, in which several people from the Office of Police Oversight, Equity Office, and Office of Innovation raised their concern about the lack of improvement in the data as far as racial disparities in stops and arrests of minorities during police stops. The chief of APD Officer Manly was also present, expressing his desire for those numbers to change and for Austin policing to reflect the true "non-racist" character of our town. Their goal is to have 0 disparity among the races, proportionally speaking. Below is each page of the report, with dat from 2015-2019. When Officer Manly was asked about which recommendations he was not willing to implement, he literally took a few minutes to read the recommendations in the report. It seems unthinkable to me that he would not have looked at them before or considered and pondered over this matter, which did not sit well with many in the audience. He then proceeded to answer that none are an absolute no, but they would not pass control to another organization, but always willing to accept input. He expressed a concern over extra training, saying that there are 1959 officers in APD, and for every one hour of training, they lose work product of one officer for a year. Add 40 hrs of this training, but we just work product of officers of 40 officers. We have to look at the approach holistically instead. (this statistic point seemed oddly impossible). Officer Manly also made a request: he is looking for a program that captures data that lead to bias based on actions. A better program that has more data like geographical data and other points that can give more information about where things are going wrong, and if anyone can write one or knows one, to let him know. The goal of the APD is get to eliminate racial disparity by 2023! We have some work to do... One of the most shocking statistics from this report as far as I'm concerned is this map, which shows warnings and citations given out by police officers for traffic stops. If anyone knows the geography of Austin, you can see clearly the diagonal line intersect which is I-35. The number of citations versus arrests that were given on the West side of 35 (aka the "white" side) versus on the east side of 35 (the black and brown side of Austin) is astounding. Even the Mueller area on the east side, which is now pretty much white, is reflected here. This goes to show how much more likely the police are to not apprehend/punish white people versus black people. In Austin this kind of data is so easy to visualize because of it's unique geographical segregation. When we sat in groups for questions and discussion, I raised a question to the police officer in our group about this graph. He said: usually I tend to just go on defensive mode about these things, but you cannot escaped the clarity of data on this map. We are definitely being biased towards white people and that needs to be dealt with. I appreciated him for his honesty. Officer Troy suggested that community or experts need to analyze training material and video going back all the way to training cadets. Police just can't do it themselves because they are blind to their own biases. I also asked him about why he thinks there doesn't see to be an improvement in the data after Freedom Cities was implemented. First, he said he was on the board of the Freedom Cities group so he is well aware of the expectations. He said it boggled his mind that the data does not reflect what he saw in his own experience, because he claims he saw a big decrease in arrests and increase in citations, but the overall data does not reflect this, and we have to figure out what went wrong. I asked him about the fact that in the raw data, it looks like in all the cases where a minority was arrested for an recommended citation as put forward by Freedom Cities was OK'd by the supervisor, he said that perhaps we have to look at the data and see if it's the same person who is OK'ing these arrests and perhaps that person needs extra training. Most of the folks in our breakout group expressed their concern at the fact that Officer Manly seemed unprepared to answer questions about the data in the report or to have specific suggestions for improvement. They all share alternative views of policing and what that could look like according to a different paradigm. A suggestion to look at how other small towns have had more success in their efforts, like Nashville and Oakland was given. my raw notes from the meeting, which include things that don't make sense because I can't get the spellcheck from my ipad to turn off:
What does it mean that data reveals that 50% police stopping w 8% population in traffic stops - black people? Latin x 31- 33 stops and 43% of arrests Why is this? what can we do collectively to prevent disproportionality ? Disproportionality analysis is title 6 and title 7 judicial and fed investigation permitted to look if everyone is affected. Can pull voting age and drivers. What is the percentage/ . And what is the experience- methodology. Not waiting for some legal context - proactively do this analysis. Canon predicts a negative outcome by someone’s race. When you set as goal problem solve, work together to bring numbers back to where they’re supposed to be. Our mission as the society of Austin is to make the most liberal city in the nation. But in order to achieve that vision, being courageous need to Janos that race determines the quality of life. Every data set, who’s on top and on bottom. Healthcare, economic opportunity, criminal justice who gets stopped searched arrested. From equity perspective equity race no longer predicts life outcomes . How to eliminate racial disparities. Equity is an encore for strategies plan,. It’s embedded in everything not successful until figure out how to change that. Defined. Chief manly how does police dept deal w this for fair admin of justice This report took our data that they take plus proportionality another view of data. What we found is disparities like other cities across the country, want to try to move things forward. Using more citations vs arrest, freedom cities. Driving while license invalid reduced arrest. Our goal is to reduce and eliminate we do everything to eliminate disparities. Want to analyze deeper want 911 311 calls where crime concentrated more police officers in those areas. If communities, how many out of warrant vs discretion., Recommendations for APD, one of important training implicit bias training. Should be ongoing. Looking for potential biases that may not present themselves while cadets. Identify those that have biases in that level. How do we see one another, bias. Community how they are perceived. Room for training and consistently and involve community more in that. The goal to get to zero by 2023 we should eliminate racial disparity. What alarms most work is not enough or not right work. Gotten worse year after year. Acknowledgement and goal setting most important recommendation. So zero 80 percent of this is caustic 20 percent disparity. What will have the biggest impact in drawing the disparity down. Interventions for at risk officers. Collaboration is important to identify officers that disproportionality stop ppl of color and look at ways that interventions can be put in place. March of last year. Work w fto and community. Over time that will help us get to 0. That is an important recommendation, officers- interventions. Holistic approach to policing. Discipline may not be appropriate response. Cultural competence, relatability Police- we created a position civilian PhD from local university to make sure we’re providing appropriate training. At the initial stage of training. Harvard program employee, pretesting to see if have bias. City that was founded on segregation, so naturally has remnants. We are Descendants of that policy. We recruit on a national level they have to understand that. Committed to do everything we can to reduce - what are driving disparities. Identifying officers at risk. Early warning. Track records. If there is a type of program that captures data that lead to bias based actions they are interested. Aspect of community is non started, its impact ed, it starts w community. Should be involved in solutions. Innovation offices bring in community w only experts. People closest to the problem give best solutions. Would data and geography help? Looking at geography, we can drill down in data., problem solving tool. Will help create a solution., Kerry. Use of force in traffic stops. We’re actually in the process of submitting to the state. We produce our own report and it has a little extra data. Does not have population data. We need to decide as a city how we want to put out a report, all in the table? Or w opio equity and innovation,., what will this year's report be? What are the recommendations that APD is not willing to act on? None in absolute no, we would pass control to another —- but always willing to accept input We are for training. 1959 officers, for every one hour of training. Lose work product of officer for a year. Add 40 hrs of this training, but we just work product of officers of 40 officers. We have to look at the approach holistically. Maya, office of police oversight. Supplemental material based on questions that come up in a group. Kelly from the equity office. Groups rules: share the air. Don't dominate a conversation, allow other ppl to speak. Don't interrupt. One person one mic. Respect all voices. Prioritize voices of directly impacted ppl. Listen to understand. Be a community. Group agreement. Breakout group Ginger jasmine equity office Undoing white supremacy Austin group Troy (police) looks at things through a blue lens and wants to broaden his lens. People’s institute for survival and beyond Community of color united for racial justice Trying to do things but no change in data Disheartening Freedom cities arrest less people but didn’t change the outcome Freedom gave more questions than answers Hire someone from outside to look at invisible curriculum Look at all the videos that are shown to cadets and have community members look at that so that are not planting seeds. Police doesn’t have the lens for it Video that has been shown around the country deescal; training video female unclothed, it wasn’t until we went through community that women asked why we cant fuzz out her body bc she is exposed. Power of working together can world What does change look like? Racial. Profiling, under-policing white ppl Might help shift some of unintended consequence Parallel track or report to change the frame or structure If goal is to correct behavior beyond racial profiling are we asking police to do too much some things address for social infrastructure Have other cities' police dept have this goal and success? Oakland and Nashville Community policing. Is it police officers who don't live in those communities? Officers must live in that community. Majority of Austin police officers do not live inside the city limits, APD has the highest salary median to any police dept in the south. Union has said that affixed isn’t affordable, twice the median income, and when prompted to institute a model, police union block to live in city. City staff not being paid enough. Eliminates outliers on each side of average. Training hours to remove bad or good? Concern for the culture. All in service training? Is that calculated the same way?
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |
AuthorDaniela Weil is a kids' writer/illustrator who lives in Austin, and a member of Congregation Beth Israel. Daniela works as a volunteer there and for RAC-Tx. Archives
February 2020
Categories |