Cleveland delays required police opinion polls as city pushes for early release

Cleveland is close to finishing the 2015 consent decree with the Department of Justice, but a required community survey has been missing since 2018. The agreement, specifically paragraph 361, mandates that a monitor and the city conduct a comprehensive survey of public perceptions of the Cleveland Division of Police every two years. While the monitor completed surveys in 2016 and 2018, no further polling has occurred, creating a gap in official data on how residents view the police department.

Monitor Christine Cole explained the delays during a hearing before city council. She cited the pandemic and a mayoral election as factors that interrupted work in 2020 and 2021. However, Cole admitted she has no explanation for why the survey did not happen in 2022 or 2023. She noted that she recalls conversations about the project but confirmed the monitor's team shares the council's concern about the timeline.

Councilmember Stephanie Howse-Jones has raised the issue at consecutive hearings, including one this past Wednesday. She expressed frustration that the city and the Department of Justice recently asked the court to release them from the decree, a request the court rejected. Howse-Jones argued that the city is eager to exit the agreement without first asking residents for their input. She called the situation unacceptable, stating that officials want to be paid off without talking to the people.

Cole stated that the monitor has already sent a request for proposals for the city to approve. However, the city's Police Accountability Team is currently conducting its own research with help from Kent State University. The city asked the monitor to postpone the official survey to prevent survey fatigue and to align start dates. Cole said the monitor is following the city's request, though she noted the city must approve and pay for the official survey.

Leigh Anderson, head of the Police Accountability Team, told council that Kent State researchers have attended 45 community events. She reported that 355 people have completed the new survey. Anderson said the team met with the police training unit to discuss how they will integrate resident and officer feedback into current training programs. The city has not publicly released the results from this new survey, nor has it shared the specific questions asked of residents.

The last official data available comes from the monitor's 2018 survey. That study found that only 44% of respondents believed the Cleveland Division of Police treated all races equally. Only 25% thought officers treated Black people the same as other people. These numbers were lower than the results from the 2016 survey. In terms of overall ratings, nearly 80% of white adults viewed the police positively in 2018, while just 49% of Black respondents did the same.

Cole told council that her team was ready to launch a new survey after a May appearance. She said the city asked them to hold off multiple times due to survey fatigue. Cole emphasized that she feels comfortable saying the monitor did all it could to get the survey out, given that the city controls the approval and payment process. In response to a request for comment, the city provided a memo from Anderson sent in September.

Anderson wrote in the memo that the sequencing supports a more informed and defensible survey process. She stated the goal is not to avoid the required survey but to ensure the request for proposals accurately reflects the information needs identified through the ongoing research. Howse-Jones ended the recent council meeting by asking to add $100,000 to next year's budget to pay for a community survey.