LAPD’s Citizen Advisors Praise Panels, Study Finds

Members of the citizen panels that advise leaders of Los Angeles’ 18 police divisions say they are largely happy with the work of their groups and with the LAPD’s response to them, according to a survey released by Police Department leaders Thursday.

According to the survey, 61% of all Community-Police Advisory Board members believe that their groups reflect the diversity of the communities they represent, and two-thirds approve of the selection process that put them in their jobs. More than three-quarters of the advisory board members believe that the boards are having a positive impact on life in their communities, saying their efforts have helped target crime problems and build trust between citizens and police.

Those results are hardly surprising--the people surveyed, after all, are members of the very groups they were asked to evaluate. Nevertheless, Police Department officials said the findings demonstrate that community-based policing continues to make steady progress in Los Angeles.

“It’s a continuing process and a continuing development,” Police Chief Willie L. Williams said at a session that included some top LAPD brass, along with members of many of the city’s police advisory boards. Williams emphasized that development of community policing can be expected to take seven to nine years--the chief has been at the helm of the LAPD for about 4 1/2 years--but added that already “we’ve not only built trust, but we’ve built a true partnership.”

Williams and other Police Department officials said the survey released Thursday should not be interpreted as evidence that community policing has triumphed in Los Angeles. In fact, Police Commission President Raymond C. Fisher said the philosophy has not penetrated as deeply as some had hoped.

But the results do indicate that the advisory boards--a linchpin in the community policing process because they represent the group that most formally brings police and community members together--have begun identifying community problems in their areas and working with the LAPD on solving those problems.

“We aren’t there yet. . . . We haven’t achieved 100% effectiveness,” Fisher said. But he added: “Generally, I can say the commission and the department are quite pleased with the results of the survey.”

As it seeks to measure how effective its community policing efforts have been so far--and what it needs to do to advance those efforts--the LAPD is preparing to survey residents outside the advisory boards. Police Commissioner T. Warren Jackson announced at Thursday’s session that the department has received a $371,000 grant from the National Institute of Justice to develop such a survey.

In part, the survey attempted to probe advisory board members’ views on topics that have dogged the LAPD’s community-based policing efforts for years--most notably the question of how the boards are chosen and whether they are sufficiently representative of Los Angeles’ diverse neighborhoods. Under the LAPD’s system, police captains are responsible for choosing advisory board members.

Others outside the department have lobbied for a more community-driven approach, suggesting that neighborhoods elect their own leaders. The Police Department opposes that approach.

The chief and other LAPD leaders said the survey results validate their selection process. Sixty-seven percent of the board members rated the selection process as satisfactory. Every one of the 18 captains surveyed agreed.

But critics called that finding meaningless.

“It’s absurd that they would ask only the people who are part of the advisory boards what they think of the selection process for those advisory boards,” said Ng’ethe Maina, a community organizer with AGENDA, a group that has played an active role in the community policing debate. “In a lot of ways, I think that the atmosphere around the selection process is one of privilege: If you were chosen, you were one of the chosen few.”

Similarly, Maina argued that the boards do not adequately reflect the city’s diversity, excluding many people who do not have much contact with police.

“If you’re not tied into the LAPD loop somehow and on the good side of the senior lead officers, you’re not going to be a member of a [Community-Police Advisory Board],” he said. “It’s really a closed society.”

Williams did not address that point directly. But he said the survey results indicating that roughly a quarter of all advisory board members are not satisfied with the diversity of their groups represents a call for improvement. Fifteen percent either did not answer or said they did not know.

“This is one challenge that we have to continue to move on,” he said, adding that he does not view that as a criticism but rather as an observation that can help guide police planning.

Although Thursday’s session was dominated by the release of the survey, police captains and many advisory board members echoed the generally positive assessment of the community-policing process so far. They cited area after area in which progress had been made.

In the LAPD’s 77th Street Division, longtime advisory board member Cleve Freeman said community members helped focus attention on a neighborhood crack house that had become a focal point for crime. Working with the LAPD and other city agencies, residents pressured the owner into cleaning up the property.

“Now it’s a nice house,” Freeman said. “It’s got fresh paint and a remodel. . . . We cleaned that crack house up.”

Capt. Richard Gonzales, the commanding officer of 77th Street Division and co-chairman of its advisory board, said the record is full of successes such as that one. At the same time, Gonzales emphasized that there is much work to do.

“You’re constantly trying to get better,” he said. “I tell my officers when the community tells us we are ‘their’ Police Department, that’s when there will be true partnership.”