Campaigns

RTAP Campaigns

RTAP understands that creating healthy and thriving Black and Brown communities requires a solution that combines reforming law enforcement practices with increased investment in community-based solutions that eliminate the need for law enforcement intervention in the first place. This approach is supported by research showing that communities of color favor solutions that “reduce the police role and replace it with empowered communities working to solve their own problems” through public health, educational, employment and affordable housing-focused remedies. To that end, we are working on the following:

Prioritize Community Input

In 2016, New Virginia Majority (NVM) organizers canvassed residents in Blackwell, asking them what needs to be improved in the neighborhood. After hearing from over 700 residents, improved police-community relations emerged as the top issue; NVM decided to organize for community oversight of the police department. RTAP came together when NVM and Southerners on New Ground realized they shared the same goal of increasing police accountability in Richmond.

At community meetings, people had the opportunity to share their experiences of policing in Richmond and showed support for civilian oversight. Nevertheless, when these stories were shared with former Richmond Police Chief Alfred Durham and some City Council members, their response was that data was needed to “prove” problems with policing practices. RTAP believes that community members stories matter. We shouldn’t need numbers to give voice to the concerns of our residents; unfortunately public officials do not share our perspective.

RTAP set out to obtain that data using FOIA and community pressure via letters and petitions. While RPD’s recent data releases serve as a starting point for transparency, they also raise many questions about the methodology and quality of data collection. Questions, such as “How many incidents lead to a search?” or “How many searches lead to an arrest?” These questions remain unanswered based on the current data capture practices. RPD’s decision to revise its records management system for the first time in over a decade provides an opportunity for a step in the right direction, increasing accountability and transparency. However, we can only ensure a system that provides robust, better quality, and publicly available data if the community is involved in shaping that system on the front end.

Our community should have a say in all aspects of policing, from the records management system, to the way police interact on a daily basis with community members.

OUR STREETS, OUR SAY!

Civilian Oversight

Civilian oversight remains of paramount importance in Richmond, without which RPD will continue to police itself without any meaningful accountability. According to the New York Times, 7 of the 9 cities most similar to Richmond (based on population, employment opportunities, and geographic metrics) have some form of civilian oversight for their police departments. Although there is no one-size-fits-all type of civilian oversight, RTAP advocates for a system which helps to enhance public safety, broadly understood; provides meaningful responses to civilian complaints; and promotes trust through continued transparency and open communication between RPD and the Richmond community.

Civilian oversight would help to hold leaders and officers accountable for their actions and keep community members informed of decisions and policies that affect their neighborhoods. Oversight can be accomplished in multiple ways, from civilian review boards engaging in review of civilian complaints about alleged misconduct to independent auditing offices that have access to the full scope of police data and can solicit community input to make recommendations for improving police practices.

At a local town hall meeting, Richmond citizens overwhelmingly stated that they do not want RPD to use this technology to police the community. While RPD should work to gather and analyze more robust data, they must avoid predictive policing to continue to build positive relations and foster transparency with civilians. These systems should benefit the community, not just serve to increase policing in our communities.

OUR STREETS, OUR SAY!

Records Management System and Banning Predictive Policing

When trying to answer questions that were of concern to community members, too often we were told that RPD doesn’t capture that data in a way that our community can access. How many searches of pedestrians or vehicles occurred? How many seizures resulted from those searches? We don’t know because RPD doesn’t capture it. We want to be able to answer questions about policing for our community, but this requires RPD to capture that data. We call on RPD to capture higher quality data that reflects community concerns about policing.

While RTAP advocates for better data, changes should not result in the collection of certain kinds of information that can be harmful and/or biased. RPD’s contract with SOMA Global to provide the new records management system raises concern; SOMA Global markets itself as a leading provider of technologies, such as predictive policing and invasive tracking practices, that have proven harmful to minority communities. Predictive policing uses software analysis of data from past police activity to predict potential crime hot spots and offenders. That data frequently reflects biased, and sometimes unconstitutional, policing practices, making it unreliable.

Predictive policing can be racially biased and inaccurate, as demonstrated by discrepancies between predictive targets and actual estimated users of illicit drugs in Oakland, CA (insert graphic next to this paragraph). Black residents of Oakland were targeted at a significantly higher rate than whites based on predictive data analysis, but estimates reflect the opposite reality- whites were significantly more likely to be users.

At a local town hall meeting, Richmond citizens overwhelmingly stated that they do not want RPD to use this technology to police the community. While RPD should work to gather and analyze more robust data, they must avoid predictive policing to continue to build positive relations and foster transparency with civilians. These systems should benefit the community, not just serve to increase policing in our communities.

OUR STREETS, OUR SAY!

Decreasing Surveillance

While these campaigns have been underway, RTAP has become increasingly concerned with the escalation of police surveillance of our communities.

  • Thanks to MuckRock (FOIA request) we’re learning more about the partnership between RPD and Ring to give police increased access to doorbell can footage. A number of residents at our last town hall had concerns about how this partnership would be used. Not only will RPD be able to ask local residents to provide footage through the app, but they will get a number free doorbell cameras to distribute as they see fit. RPD should not get incentives to increase surveillance in our community!
  • RPD has installed surveillance cameras in public housing areas and in Shockoe Bottom. These are already some of the most overpoliced areas in our city. Now they are under 24/7 surveillance by the police. In other cities, there are strict requirements on when police can request surveillance footage from public cameras. Why are we allowing RPD to have our communities under such intense surveillance?
  • RPD has acquired drones to use in surveillance. While RPD says that they will generally obtain warrants before using drones in policing, they also admit that there are exceptions to obtaining a warrant. What happens if RPD flies a drone being used for another purpose past your home and sees something they deem “suspicious”? Military surveillance technologies should not be used to police our community!

These increased surveillance tactics are especially concerning given the implementation of the new records management system, as this system has the ability to compile and store surveillance footage from these multiple systems. RPD’s goal is to have “eyes” everywhere.

Do you know when RPD is watching you?

OUR STREETS, OUR SAY!