Building a Roadmap For Community-Led Police Reform
Project: Community Commission for Public Safety and Accountability Roadmap
Client: Community Commission for Public Safety and Accountability
For many years, advocates have called for reforms to strengthen police accountability, improve policing, increase engagement, and build greater trust between the police and Chicago residents. In 2019, the City Council adopted an ordinance to create the Community Commission for Public Safety and Accountability (Community Commission), a new community-led Commission that will give residents powerful new tools to provide oversight of the Chicago Police Department (CPD), COPA (Civilian Office of Police Accountability), and the Police Board.
“Building a new City department from scratch is an extraordinary undertaking and Civic Consulting Alliance is an extraordinary partner. The launch toolkit, onboarding plan, and training materials that Civic Consulting Alliance developed will be crucial for ensuring that commissioners have the knowledge and information that they need to effectively carry out their duties starting on day one. Civic Consulting Alliance has built an incredibly strong foundation for the Community Commission’s success”
We provided organizational design and strategy development to support the Executive Director, Adam Gross, in developing the operational structures the Community Commission needs to provide effective and meaningful community oversight of the police and police accountability agencies. As a result of this foundational work, the Community Commission is equipped with the structure and strategies needed to immediately begin working toward its goals to improve policing, increase resident engagement, build greater trust between the police and Chicago residents, strengthen accountability, and make the city safer and more just.
Looking Forward — 2022 and Beyond
In the months ahead, Civic Consulting Alliance will support Executive Director Gross in the development of an onboarding process that will enable interim Commissioners to begin to carry out their duties in an effective and timely manner, as well as build out processes and procedures for executing the Community Commission’s most immediate priorities. As the Community Commission begins operations, we anticipate providing support for future phases of work, which may focus on defining processes by which the Community Commission and forthcoming District Councils will facilitate community co-creation of public safety.
Thank you
Polk Bros. Foundation for the generous project-specific grant, pro bono support from Protiviti, and Northwestern University