CITY OF GRAND RAPIDS: Police Department Issues Strategic Plan

By Press release submission

Sep 29, 2020

City of Grand Rapids issued the following announcement on Sept. 28.

Grand Rapids Police Chief Eric Payne on Tuesday will present his department’s three-year strategic plan that promises to transform policing in the city. The plan provides defined action steps with measurable outcomes using a neighborhood-based policing model that will help the Grand Rapids Police Department (GRPD) ensure all people feel safe and are safe throughout the community. Payne will formally present the final plan to the City Commission on Tuesday morning at the Committee of the Whole.

The final strategic plan is closely aligned with the City of Grand Rapids’ strategic plan, specifically the priority areas of safe community, governmental excellence and engaged and connected community. The plan establishes a new vision for the police department to partner with the community to make Grand Rapids the safest mid-sized city and make GRPD the most trusted police department in the U.S.

The plan’s equity statement acknowledges that, historically, segments of the community, including people of color, low-income residents and others, have been disproportionately impacted by City policies, policing practices and the criminal justice system. It also includes a commitment to providing fair and just services for all individuals.

Since the introduction of the draft plan on August 7, public engagement has significantly reshaped the final plan. An immense amount of feedback was received from City and Police Department employees, residents, and various organizations such as Linc Up, Urban Core Collective, NAACP-Grand Rapids, Police Chief’s Advisory Team, City’s Community Relations Committee and the SAFE Taskforce to name a few. An implementation framework was developed to build in accountability that identifies a start and end date for every step included in the plan. All information related to the plan can be found HERE. The web page includes all presentations, the draft plan and all written or recorded feedback received from community after the draft plan was released. The page also houses redline copy of the plan to specifically identify where revisions were made. The draft plan included 62 action steps which increased to 101 based on public input. Most of the added 39 action steps were made to the engagement section. In addition, nearly all metrics throughout the strategic plan were updated to be more quantitative and the plan now includes 42 metrics which can be found on the department’s performance dashboard.

“Working in partnership with the community, we have developed a plan that will change how policing is done in Grand Rapids,” Payne said. “I feel strongly that our plan provides our personnel the necessary framework to nurture a culture of service, not only for today, but for generations to come. This transition will be successful only if we come together as a community, listen to one another and work together. As we continue to develop this plan and implement it, we will engage our community in an on-going dialogue with the goal of improving the services we provide.”

The plan – also informed by past studies and input from various external experts that have taken place over the past five years – identifies three strategic priorities: safety, innovation and engagement.

Here’s a breakdown of the three strategic priorities:

Safety

Provide professional neighborhood policing services to prevent crime, enhance trust and ensure safety for every community member, visitor and business. Key objectives include:

Be a positive presence in neighborhoods, respond to police calls for service and engage in collaborative problem-solving initiatives with the community. This will be done by transitioning to neighborhood-based policing that makes every patrol officer a community policing specialist who is focused on crime prevention, improving the quality of life for community members and building trust. Action steps include assigning a patrol officer on each shift to each geographic beat, ensuring beat officers collaborate with residents and neighborhood stakeholders to address neighborhood-specific crime, issues and concerns and ensuring beat officers communicate with neighborhoods prior to the deployment of proactive strategies that increase police presence in neighborhoods. Other strategies include increasing officers’ unallocated time so they can actively engage in their assigned neighborhoods and maximizing the use of data to provide timely and accurate intelligence, including ensuring beat officers regularly receive beat-level intelligence and crime data and using data to hold personnel accountable for department goals and objectives.
Create a data-driven Crime Reduction Team to identify and address criminal offenders. Beat officers will use crime date and community input engage in hot spot policing – targeting of small geographic areas where crime is concentrated. Action steps will include identifying the need and locations for hot spot policing and tracking date related to hot spot policing to appropriately evaluate impact.
Engage with the City’s Oversight and Public Accountability and Equity and Engagement offices to pursue data-driven, evidence-based strategies that address root causes of police-related emergencies. The police department will identify funding for a collaborative approach that integrates community leaders, past offenders and officers in violence-reduction strategies such as Cure Violence or a similar program. Action steps include identifying stakeholders to develop an implementation plan and determining the best violence-reduction model for Grand Rapids. The department also will partner with the SAFE (Safe Alliances for Everyone) Task Force to explore implementing police related recommendations.

Innovation

Leverage partnerships and technology to improve services, decrease crime and increase efficiency. Key objectives include:

Explore alternative responses to certain calls for service. This includes a co-response model that integrates permanent behavioral health professionals to City’s Homeless Outreach Team. It also includes developing and piloting a mental and behavioral health team that can co-respond to calls for services related to mental health and non-violence substance use, among others, and developing a plan for a community assistance team comprised of non-sworn personnel who can assist and work with beat officers to address neighborhood concerns that are non-criminal and more in line with quality-of-life issues. The police department also will collaborate with the City’s Mobile GR-Parking Services Department to transition parking enforcement to non-sworn City employees outside the police department.
Partner with the Kent County Prosecutor’s Office to coordinate victim advocacy and restorative justice program.
Leverage technological opportunities to decrease crime and increase efficiency while ensuring objective and constitutional use and accountability. This includes continued evaluation of the constitutional use of unmanned aerial systems as a first-responder, re-visiting the effectiveness of gunfire detection technology and developing a real-time crime center with access to public space video that is actively monitored. The police department will hold community meetings to seek input on unmanned aerial systems and gunfire detection technology and provide education on them.

Engagement

Build community trust and mutual understanding by enhancing community engagement strategies within the framework of neighborhood-based policing. Key objectives include:

Align engagement with neighborhood-based policing. This includes enhancing communication with residents, businesses and visitors through regular neighborhood meetings and events, social and traditional media, website and apps. The department will hire a non-sworn public information officer, collaborate with the community on the development of a communications and engagement strategy and develop specific plans for more timely release of information and transparency related to neighborhood calls for service while still protecting the privacy of those involved. It also will better educate the community on police operations by reimaging its Citizen Police Academy and increasing participation – particularly among Grand Rapids residents – in its Youth Police Academy. The department will ensure equitable engagement representation throughout the city by creating equity-centered training and staff development for community engagement and mapping and publishing engagement efforts.
Partner and collaborate with the Oversight and Public Accountability and Equity and Engagement offices and community stakeholders to increase community trust through transparency and accountability while elevating the community’s voice in police operations. The police department will provide accurate and timely data to the newly launched Police Metrics Dashboard for community education and transparency and use data on community sentiment through surveys to constantly evaluate and improve police services while ensuring equity. Newly added is a formal performance management strategy to ensure this plan is implemented, progress is measured and performance is reported publicly. The department also will add a formal structure to the police chief’s newly created advisory team so it can provide input on the department’s budget, policies, performance metrics and outcomes, among others.
Attract, hire and retain high-performing employees who embrace a guardian mentality and neighborhood-based policing philosophy. This includes reimagining recruiting strategies to ensure the department’s demographics are representative of the community’s. The department will collaborate with the Greater Grand Rapids NAACP, Hispanic Center of Western Michigan, Urban League of West Michigan, among others, on recruiting strategies. It also will recruit within neighborhoods as part of the City’s Grow Our Own initiative.
Ensure a guardian culture and impartial policing philosophy is valued and promoted throughout the police department. All employees will be held accountable for knowing and incorporating the department’s values, vision and mission into their daily interactions with community members. Training will be provided to sworn personnel that emphasizes the guardian mindset while preparing them to be warriors when necessary. Impartial policing values will be incorporated into all departmental training.

“Today, I call for strong support for this transformational plan,” Payne said. “We are united in advancing equity, justice and reform in Grand Rapids. I also ask for support of our police department and the officers who tirelessly serve our community every day. Their work is critical to keeping our neighborhoods and community safe.”

“I firmly believe that working together in unity is the only path forward and the only way we can make lasting change. We are stronger together. This notion is what drove me to prioritize our values of service, equity, integrity and accountability. It steered me towards the vision of partnership with the community and it was the foundation of our mission – to ensure all people feel safe, and are safe, at all times.”

Original source can be found here.