CLEVELAND — The City of Cleveland released its 12th status report this week, detailing how the Division of Police is faring under the consent decree.
The report states that the consent decree has prompted fundamental changes within the department. The city said that "fundamental change in police oversight and institutionalization of reform policies is well underway."
For the reporting period of Jan. 1, 2022, through June 30, 2022, "significant, measurable progress was made in constitutional policing, such that the consent decree can only be described as bringing substantial, sustained success," the city said in the report.
The report details that the need to "inform, instruct, train, monitor, and discipline officers with respect to use of force incidents, including those involving citizens experiencing mental health and behavioral crisis situations, is what gave rise to this litigation."
According to the report, the city "can confidently say that it has met the broader goals of the court concerning use of force and crisis intervention."
Police interactions
The report states that Cleveland residents show 90% satisfaction with police interactions. Those interactions, recorded and measured under the QR code citizen-feedback program which started in November 2021, shows community feedback regarding the officers in four categories: Overall Satisfaction, with more than 85% choosing "strongly satisfied"; The Officer Treated Me Fairly, with 87% saying they "strongly agree"; Officer Treated Me With Respect, with 87% saying they "strongly agree"; and the Officer Demonstrated Professionalism, with 86% saying they "strongly agree."
Furthermore, the city said in the report that the Office of Professional Standards has seen reduced caseloads and the number of caseloads open for a year or longer has also dropped.
Some of the ways the city said it is engaging the community is placing making foot patrols mandatory to get officers out of their cruisers and face-to-face with the residents. The city introduced Community and Problem-Oriented Policing (CPOP) as a measurable metric of community outreach, which was required under the consent decree.
Data from March 1, when the city started collecting CPOP data, to June 30 shows 280 CPOP forms filed. Each form is a reportable event that may involve one or more officers. Of those forms filed, the majority were filed in the Second District with 69% of the interactions involving community engagement encounters with the remainder not involving a community engagement encounter, the report said.
Many of the issues on the CPOP forms related to traffic incidents, drug trafficking, drug use, loud music, theft and vagrancy, the report outlined.
The primary strategy used to help combat issues often came down to officer presence, the city said. Seventy-seven percent of the CPOP forms created between March 1 and June 30 show the issue was handled and the form closed.
Use of force
When it comes to use of force, which was one of the driving factors behind the establishment of the consent decree, the Division of Police has seen a 43% decrease in use-of-force incidents overall since 2019. And for the reporting period, out of the 117,138 calls for service, which resulted in 2,764 arrests, there were 108 use-of-force incidents, according to the report.
"Thus, there was a use of force incident in 0.09% of all calls. Put another way, more than 99.9% of all calls did not involve a use of force," the report said.
Crisis intervention
Regarding crisis intervention, the city said that despite COVID-19 having an impact on Crisis Intervention Training, "significant progress has been made."
The report highlights that 1,000 CPD officers have undergone CIT refresher training. Officers also received training on interacting with homeless residents. Around 100 officers are now considered CIT members after they went through 40 hours of training. More officers are expected to undergo further training this year.
When it comes to the number of incidents involving CIT forms completed:
- 98% of these incidents were resolved without an arrest
- 88% did not involve handcuffs; 65% involved de-escalation attempts by the officer
- 90% involved “no resistance” after the officers spoke with the subject
- Only 2.4% resulted in any kind of injury to the subject
- Less than 1% resulted in any kind of injury to the officer
- Reporting officers conferred with the Mobile Crisis Team 5.3% of the time
"The City of Cleveland is 'all in' on making Cleveland a national model for police reform," the city said in the report.
You can read the full 12th status report below:
The report comes just weeks after a federal judge ordered the consent decree extended for another two years.
The judge said that based on the most recent semiannual report and information provided by the monitor in September, “It is clear that, while the City has made substantial progress, it has not yet achieved substantial and effective compliance at this time.”
You can watch more in the player below:
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