Just as the National Initiative for Building Community Trust and Justice (National Initiative) makes its way to Ft. Worth, Texas for its first site visit, Bastrop, another part of the state, seeks to build trust between their community and law enforcement. Right outside of Austin, this municipality plans to get ahead – and stay ahead – of potential issues that could erode community trust by implementing new strategies that enhance law enforcement-community relations. Led by Bastrop’s Police Chief Steve Adcock, the goal of the effort is two-fold: increase transparency and provide people in the community with a direct line of communication to the police chief. Among the many activities within the strategy, a committee made up of community members reviews camera footage from officers’ dashboards to provide feedback on interactions between police and those they stop. The city also sponsors town hall meetings, geared toward different minority communities.

The National Initiative project director, Tracie Keesee, notes that while reviewing camera footage is not a new concept in and of itself, involving community members outside of the police department is. “I commend anyone who takes the substantial next step to try something, anything, that is going to be helpful to connect the police and the community,” said Keesee of the Bastrop committee.

To read more about Bastrop’s strategies, read the full Statesman article
here.

To learn more about the National Initiative, visit the site.

To learn more about the Diagnostic Center’s technical assistance, click here.