The Police Perspectives: Building Community Trust blog series is part of Vera’s Police Connecting with Communities of Color project. The series explores the importance of—and provides guidance on how to build and enhance—positive relationships between law enforcement agencies and the diverse communities they serve.
All Posts
Series: Police Perspectives
The mechanics of diversity recruitment
Every police department should be expected to have a competent, professional workforce that is responsive and accountable to the community it serves—as well as reflective of it. In Arlington, Texas, we have learned that workforce diversity is a key ingredient ...
Series: Police Perspectives
The supervisor’s role in promoting fair and impartial policing
The efforts of law enforcement agencies to promote fair and impartial policing need to include training for supervisors in identifying bias—both explicit and implicit—among the officers they supervise. Supervisors need to know when to intervene and take correc...
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Altovise Love-Craighead
Series: Police Perspectives
Building trust through trauma-informed policing
For many victims and witnesses, a police officer is the first criminal justice official they encounter. In order to cultivate and sustain effective relationships with these individuals and ensure effective and swift case processing, it is critical that police ...
Series: Police Perspectives
Avoiding 'profiling by proxy'
When an individual calls the police and makes false or ill-informed claims of misconduct about persons they dislike or are biased against—e.g., ethnic and religious minorities, youth, homeless people—police must be careful to avoid “profiling by proxy”. This ...
Series: Police Perspectives
Dealing with contentious incidents
Contentious police incidents, such as an officer-involved shooting or use of excessive force by an officer, understandably generate considerable attention from community leaders, residents, the media, and elected officials. Some of that attention can manifest ...
Series: Police Perspectives
Effective approaches to connecting with diverse communities
As police officers, we are vested with an awesome amount of power and authority that must be used responsibly. In order to truly serve the public—while respecting and protecting its constitutional rights—we must proactively take steps to understand and respect...
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Susan Shah
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Caitlin Gokey
Series: Police Perspectives
New blog series explores importance of police/community trust
Across the country, people of all races and ethnicities are talking about police-community relations in the wake of high profile law enforcement encounters that resulted in the deaths of Eric Garner in Staten Island, Michael Brown in Ferguson, Missouri, and Ta...
Blog Series
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Dispatches from T.R.U.E. -
Addressing the Overuse of Segregation in U.S. Prisons and Jails -
Beyond Innocence -
Breaking Point: New York's Mental Health Crisis -
Gender and Justice in America -
It Takes a Village -
Justice in Katrina's Wake -
My Brother's Keeper -
Unlocking Potential: Perspectives on Education in Prison -
Two Societies: The Haunting Relevance of the Kerner Commission’s Report -
Dispatches from W.O.R.T.H. -
Dispatches from Germany