1. Design & Implementation
Community and Police Relations: A Discussion of Race
Nicole Chillemi, R. Chase Dunn, Erika Harrington, Ryan Shaw
Abstract
Results & Conclusions
Method
The strained relationship between law enforcement and communities of color has caused tensions that continue to impact our country today.
Reports show that African Americans make up 8% of the population but 30% of incidents of force and 20% of arrests in Harrisonburg. This event responds to the realities that what is seen in blatant and extreme cases of police misconduct are reflected on smaller, localized levels across the nation.
Students from the Campus Community Civic Collaborative (4C) at James Madison University hosted and facilitated a dialogue that would promote understanding and produce tangible solutions that could be offered to Harrisonburg officials.
After discussing the three options, participants were asked to brainstorm relevant action items within each category. See Figure 2 below for the collected action items.
Then, participants were asked to prioritize the action items through dot voting.
Dot voting is when participants are given a select number of physical markers that they use to symbolize which items are most important to them personally.
See Figure 3 below for the results of dot voting
Overall, the top three items chosen by the participants were the civilian review board, online access to information, and programs provided in multiple languages. According to those present, these actions are essential to Harrisonburg becoming a leader in community and police relations
Facilitation as a method is designed to address complex organizational or community problems. A facilitator is trained in communicative processes that aid people in having productive and positive dialogue.
A variety of methods and tools exist to create dialogue. We used a method designed by the National Issues Forum which creates broad but distinct categories for action; a community then deliberates each of those options to come to a consensus.
This method proved the most appropriate of the various facilitative approaches because the issue of focus—an issue that has been previously discussed at length in Harrisonburg—needed an agenda shift towards actions rather than conceptualizations.
Figure 1
Design & Implementation
As facilitators, we posed an overarching question, asking, “What can Harrisonburg do to become a leader in community and police relations in the context of race?” We offered three broad options to answer this question: Education, relationship-building, and policy change. We then brought the community groups together to deliberate those options.
The conversation was governed by several ground rules:
Speak only for yourself and allow others to speak for themselves
Listen with resilience—try to “hang in” and listen even when something is hard to hear
If tempted to make attributions about the beliefs of others, instead consider asking a question to check out the assumption we are making
This isn’t a debate, it’s a collaboration
Participants were provided with the chart seen in Figure 1 for reference during the facilitation.
Figure 2
Introduction
In order to address these issues within our community, we brought numerous groups together at JMU. We had 15 attendees total, representing JMU’s Black Student Alliance, JMU’s Muslim Student Association, Northeast Neighborhood Association, Southerners on New Ground, community activists, the Harrisonburg Police Department, and the JMU Police Department. It should be noted that JMU’s Latino Student Alliance and Asian Student Union were also invited to participate in order to broaden the perspectives, but representatives were unable to attend.
The group was tasked with reflecting on how Harrisonburg can become a national leader in community and police relations. They were asked to participate in the process designed by our group.
Figure 3
References:
JMU Black Student Alliance
JMU Muslim Student Association
Northeast Neighborhood Association
Southerner on New Ground
Harrisonburg Police Department
JMU Police Department
Data included from a Freedom of Information Request from Steele Dunn