The Report Points to Sustained Progress in Compliance With Numerous Benchmarks Receiving Operational and General Compliance Designations
Friday, September 20, 2024 — Cleveland — Today, the City of Cleveland announced the findings of the Independent Federal Monitoring Team’s most recent semiannual report ahead of Monday’s status conference in federal court. In the report, the Monitor makes numerous references to improvements and progress being made that has put the City on a sustained pathway to achieving complete compliance with the Consent Decree.
“We have more work to do so it is critical that we not only maintain, but build off of this positive momentum,” said Dr. Leigh Anderson, Executive Director of the Police Accountability Team. “As our work continues we must look in the mirror, ask ourselves hard questions, and make the necessary adjustments to ensure our policies, training, and tactics meet the highest standards of constitutional policing.”
The report is a semiannual evaluation conducted by the Monitoring Team to assess the Cleveland Division of Police (CDP) and the City’s compliance with the Consent Decree. Compliance is measured in four levels – Non-Compliance, Partial Compliance, Operational Compliance, and General Compliance – across ten broad categories, each of which has varying amounts of “paragraphs” that essentially serve as separate individual benchmarks that allow data to be collected on a more granular scale.
THE HIGHLIGHTS
he City received upgrades in five categories – Community Engagement and Building Trust, Crisis Intervention, Accountability, Transparency and Oversight, and Officer Assistance and Support. The Monitor offered positive reviews in each area.
- Community Engagement and Building Trust – The Monitor noted the feedback that community members provided at monthly meetings with CDP “suggests a level of satisfaction with police responses to problems identified by residents and a mutually respectful relationship between the two” and that the Division’s community outreach efforts “continues to reflect a commitment to earn trust, cooperation, and respect from the community.” The City was also commended for nearly eliminating “all of the backlog that existed relative to CPC and OPS document requests” which the City continues to pursue as it complies with state law
- Crisis Intervention – This area received high praise from the Monitor calling it “an important milestone” with the community, and that both cooperation and progress have been “notable” for these issues. The Monitor was also impressed with the City’s new, public-facing data dashboard and offered a positive outlook on the future, stating that the Monitoring Team “expects upward shifts in compliance status” and that the City has made “the case for their Crisis Intervention Program to become an exemplary one”
- Accountability – The Internal Affairs Unit was applauded for their work “to diligently improve upon practices” and credited with “having a positive impact on achieving Consent Decree compliance”
- Transparency and Oversight – The Monitor reiterated the importance of the City’s new Open Data Portal to host crime data “in ways that will be useful to the public and researchers” which was a reason why this area received more upgrades than any other
- Officer Assistance and Support – Multiple upgrades were given based on the Training Section making “significant progress in developing and updating multi-year training plans” and the fact that the Monitoring Team “attended multiple training sessions and observed improvement in classroom management by instructors” and has called other efforts beneficial “by all accounts”
Although no upgrades were provided beyond these five areas, the Monitor also gave glowing remarks in many other instances about:
- Community and Problem-Oriented Policing – Stating that CDP demonstrated “meaningful shifts” and noting that “the City devoted time, energy, and resources to better understanding the principles of CPOP [and that] the City’s concerted effort to putting CPOP back on track is commendable”
- Bias-Free Policing – Applauding “prior strides taken to integrate bias-free policing principles into CDP’s policies and training”
- Use of Force – After reviewing these cases they acknowledged “officers and supervisors are… following the policies as required and as described in the Consent Decree”
- Supervision – The City has partnered with Benchmark Analytics, a nationally renowned vendor, for their Early Intervention Systems. The procurement of this system demonstrates the City’s commitment to improving policing practices within the Division. This is a great step forward towards data-driven practices, which will inform officer performance evaluations and supervision metrics, with the Monitoring Team noting that they “look forward to the City’s continued progress in this area”
The City remains dedicated in its obligations under the consent decree and looks forward to receiving the results of the official assessments for Crisis Intervention, Use of Force, and Search and Seizure. Efforts are highly focused on continuing to build on the extraordinary progress made last October when compliance was increased in 35 consent decree benchmarks – a 400% net increase – and achieving the shared vision of coming into full compliance as quickly as possible. Representatives from the Monitoring Team, Department of Justice, and City of Cleveland will be in federal court on Monday to provide an update to the judge.
