City of Alexandria, Virginia
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MEMORANDUM
DATE: FEBRUARY 7, 2018
TO: THE HONORABLE MAYOR AND MEMBERS OF CITY COUNCIL
FROM: MARK B. JINKS, CITY MANAGER /s/
DOCKET TITLE:
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Consideration of the Proposed Alexandria Police Department Data Refinement and Transparency Plan.
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ISSUE: Improving data collection and transparency.
RECOMMENDATION: That City Council endorse the Proposed Alexandria Police Department Data Refinement and Transparency Plan (attached).
BACKGROUND: During the last year, several community groups and individuals in the City expressed an interest in having City Council adopt requirements via an ordinance mandating increased data reporting, as well as changed stop procedures by the Alexandria Police Department (APD). After taking these interests into consideration, during the Spring of 2017 the APD in conjunction with George Mason University completed and released to Council and to the public a detailed report of traffic stop data demographics through 2015. This was a ground-breaking report as such data had not ever been compiled so extensively and reported to our community by APD. It should be noted that, there are few police departments in the nation or the D.C. region who have compiled and released such demographic based traffic stop data.
In my October 20, 2017 memorandum to City Council, I presented the proposal to move forward with an increase in police data transparency. Subsequently, the Chief has met with many community groups and gathered input into an overall Draft 21st Century Policing Plan that also was posted for public comment and will be presented to City Council (see next docket item). These and other voluntary initiatives by APD, show the desire to build community relationships, be as transparent as possible, and mitigates the need to adopt an ordinance.
DISCUSSION: As part of its effort to examine and implement the recommend...
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