Olympia begins process to form civilian oversight group for law enforcement. Here’s how
City of Olympia officials are have begun recruiting members for a civilian oversight group for the police as part of its reimagining public safety efforts to build more confidence and trust in its law enforcement department.
Assistant city manager Debbie Sullivan gave a presentation on the effort to Olympia’s Community Livability and Public Safety committee last week. The goal is to have oversight model recommendations to the City Council by mid-October.
Establishing this sort of oversight was identified as one of the action items to expand the community’s role in the public safety system, under the city’s goal of reimagining public safety. A Reimagining Public Safety Community Work Group was established and made several recommendations in December on how to improve things.
Sullivan said the citizen oversight group’s purpose is to ensure there are fair and thorough investigations free of bias, as well as to build confidence, trust and transparency in the police department. It will improve policies and training, and give the public a better understanding of the department as a whole.
The public safety committee and Social Justice and Equity committee will work together alongside consultant Samuel Martin with SDM Counseling to look at other civilian oversight models around the country, and the Police Auditor’s role will be evaluated. But much of the project is focused on the public.
Martin said the groups will be taking a co-design model, bringing together three small groups of community members, police representatives and the Social Justice and Equity commission to share thoughts and ideas.
“One of the things we‘ve seen in taking this particular approach is really being able to keep community members at the center while providing them the resources necessary to be able to use their collective knowledge and expertise to inform the development of this model,” Martin said.
The community co-design group will be made up of 8 to 10 people from diverse backgrounds and with differing expertise and life experiences with the criminal justice system. Martin said he’d like to include people from different identities as well. The goal is to find people who haven’t been involved in these types of conversations with city officials before.
The process is being broken up into three phases, the first having started May 24. Martin said there will be some small meetings with the Social Justice and Equity Commission, OPD and the city council, then the groups will start looking for community members to be a part of the conversation.
Senior Planner Stacey Ray said recruiting has started, and introductions of prospective co-designers will happen mid-June. Those who will serve in the co-design groups will be notified a couple weeks later.
Phase 2 in the early fall will include individual sessions with the co-design groups and a lot of information gathering to give OPD and the public to prepare the groups for Phase 3’s large assembly. All three groups will be brought together in September and October to refine their recommendations for creating a permanent civilian oversight model.
In the end, Martin said any data compiled about the department and other oversight models, as well as the groups’ findings, will be made available to the public. Ray said the city is in the process of setting up a webpage where the information will be posted, and they plan to use e-news distribution to highlight steps in the project.
The eight to 10 community members aren’t the only ones who will get to participate. Ray said once the co-design groups draft an oversight model, it will be made available online for people to comment on. Martin and SDM Counseling may host other informational meetings as needed.
