The National Association for Civilian Oversight of Law Enforcement conference is happening in North Texas this week as Fort Worth serves as the host city for the first time.
More than 400 people in the police oversight world have gathered to discuss police and community interaction.
The Fort Worth Police Oversight Monitor’s department is also preparing to launch a new initiative soon.
They hope to start a restorative justice mediation program. This is where officers and community members can talk out encounters in lieu of a complaint investigation.
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“It’s not about dispute resolution or determining who is right or wrong, but more or less actually mediating the situation so that both sides can hear the other’s perspectives,” Fort Worth Police Monitor Kim Neal said. “It’s going to be a phenomenal program and we hope to go live with that in the next month or so.”
Neal became the city’s first Police Oversight Monitor in 2020. Then, the department asked community members to take surveys about police/community relationships.
“We promised at that time to do another set of surveys to have a measuring source about relationships – whether they have improved or declined or stayed the same,” Neal said.
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The new surveys are ongoing currently.
“We do feel that a change has been made in the department. We’ve made several recommendations to the department – some of them a result of the surveys in addition to us doing some research and looking at best practices and the department has certainly stepped up to the plate,” Neal said.
Community members have several options to complete the 2022 Community Perception Survey anonymously:
