Introduction
Constructive community feedback provides invaluable insights that shape more responsive, transparent policing. However, many departments lack systematic ways to solicit unfiltered perceptions from all segments of the populace. Relying solely on in-person forums captures input from a vocal minority. To understand your full community, broad-based surveys are essential. Properly executed, surveys unlock surprising benefits including:
- Capturing honest feedback people may be reluctant to share publicly
- Pinpointing specific agency strengths, weaknesses, and disparities
- Tracking sentiments over time and benchmarking against goals
- Informing leaders on blindspots between their perceptions and realities
- Building community trust and participation through inclusion
This guide explores best practices for community surveys that help agencies incorporate public sentiments into policy reforms, training improvements, and relationship building. Follow these strategies to harness the surprising power of community feedback.
Ask Neutral, Jargon-Free Questions
Survey design heavily impacts results. Ask clear, unbiased questions:
- Avoid loaded words that skew responses. i.e. “Officers harass rather than serve our community.”
- Check for implicit assumptions. i.e. Ask if someone identifies as LGBTQ+ rather than assuming they do not.
- Explain technical terms. i.e. Define reasonable force.
- Ensure binary choices allow a neutral middle option like “Neither agree nor disagree.”
- Randomize and alternate positive and negative question phrasing to prevent response bias.
Non-judgemental wording produces credible insights.
Segment Views Demographically
Ask respondents for anonymous demographic data like age, race, ZIP code, gender, and professional background. This enables comparing perceptions among distinct community groups to identify disparities. Relevant segmentation views include:
- Age categories – Do youth and seniors see policing differently?
- Race/ethnicity – Do minority groups report lower trust or more negative encounters?
- Neighborhood – Do perceptions vary significantly by area?
- Gender identity – Do men and women feel policed differently?
- Socioeconomic status – Do lower income residents perceive inequities?
- Disability status – Are those with disabilities accessing services?
Segmented data reveals whose voices may be muted or marginalized. Tailor outreach and reforms accordingly.
Combine Closed and Open-Ended Questions
Balancing closed-ended rating scale questions with open-ended comment boxes provides structure while capturing nuanced qualitative feedback. Closed questions easily compile into statistics while open questions allow personal stories, suggestions, and details. Together they provide comprehensive insights.
Promote Surveys Through Multichannel Outreach
To increase participation beyond the “usual suspects” who attend community meetings, creatively promote surveys:
- Advertise through social media, newsletters, flyers, local media partnerships, billboards, reader boards, etc.
- Visit churches, schools, festivals, businesses to spread the word.
- Add survey links to department website and social media bios.
- Partner with community groups to distribute via their communication channels.
Meeting residents where they are encourages a representative sample. Make participation quick and convenient.
Keep It Short
With survey fatigue abounding, keep community polls under 10 minutes to boost response rates. Mitigate survey length by:
- Rotating deep dive topics annually. i.e. One year focus on use of force, next on community engagement.
- Limiting open-ended questions.
- Offering email or social media follow-ups for those who want to add comments.
Concise community surveys demonstrate respect for the public’s time.
Analyze Results with Key Stakeholders
To build collective ownership of reform, analyze results with:
- Command staff to signal leadership commitment to community input.
- External oversight bodies and reform advocates to validate findings.
- Community advisory councils to incorporate outside perspectives into takeaways.
- Officers through anonymous collaboration platforms to identify frontline implications.
- Disparately impacted groups to understand survey drivers.
Inclusive analysis fosters diverse buy-in for change. Publish findings to model transparency.
Turn Insights into Impact
Surveys easily become empty lip service without action. To achieve impact:
- Identify 3-5 priority takeaways to prevent initiative paralysis.
- Assign department leads to explore problems and propose tangible solutions.
- Investigate both negative feedback and highly rated services to strengthen what works.
- Allocate funding to pilot proposed initiatives.
- Report back to community on changes made through newsletters, town halls, and annual surveys.
Closing the feedback loop signals the public was heard and community input matters.
Make Surveys Ongoing
Annual community surveys produce trends to track progress and flag new challenges. Benefits of regular polling:
- Leadership gains an objective performance scorecard. Are community perceptions improving?
- Confirms whether previous changes improved sentiments or fell short.
- Surfacing concerns early before they intensify.
- Longitudinal data enables insightful before-and-after analysis when new leaders or reforms are implemented.
Sustained surveys build community confidence their voice has an ongoing forum.
Conclusion
Community surveys unlock powerful insights to align policing with public priorities, enhance transparency, and strengthen police-community relations. Yet many departments fail to capitalize on this tool. Broad outreach, balanced questioning, demographic analysis, brevity, multichannel promotion, collaborative review of findings, change implementation, and regular iteration transforms surveys from a rubber stamp exercise into an engine for real accountability and trust. The public wants to feel heard by its police department. Surveys make that possible. Platforms like Officer Survey simplify launching easy, effective community polls. What surprising insights will you uncover from those you serve when you embrace the power of community feedback? The first step begins now by listening.
Frequently Asked Questions
How often should community surveys be conducted?
Annual surveys allow tracking of trends over time. More frequent quarterly or biannual pulse surveys can diagnostically pinpoint the impact of specific incidents, leadership changes, or new policies. It is highly recommended to conduct pulse surveys frequently.
What survey methods best capture broad community input?
Anonymous online surveys, supplemented by multilingual online polls, QR codes, interception surveying at events, and assistance for disabled/non-digital residents secure diverse feedback. Both digital and analog channels are key for inclusion.
What survey length maximizes response rates?
Keep community surveys at 5-10 minutes with a focus on key benchmarking metrics. Response rates plummet after 10 minutes. Use an annual survey for deep dives and shorter quarterly polls to monitor change. We recommend keeping the pulse survey short that community members can respond to in less than a minutes, so 2-4 questions.
How can police departments turn survey insights into action?
Assign department leads to review results and propose tangible solutions, fund pilot initiatives, track implementation impacts through metrics, and report back on changes made to build a feedback loop.
What technologies best enable community surveying?
Versatile community survey platforms like Officer Survey simplify creating surveys, distributing via multiple channels, collecting responses, analyzing data, and generating user-friendly reports. Click here to get started today!
