information is in a police report – as reporting parties, witnesses, victims, and even arrestees. In addition to endeavoring to seek feedback from a broader array of individuals in the Vallejo community, VPD should also target input from its criminal justice and social services partners. VPD officers regularly interact with prosecutors, jail supervisors, judges, public defenders, juvenile justice administrators, probation officers, and social workers. Because of those interactions, individuals in these other agencies have significant insight into the performance of individual officers and VPD as an organization. We urge VPD to actively and regularly seek such feedback from these professionals. RECOMMENDATION 42: VPD should devise additional ways to solicit and encourage feedback from all of its communities regarding the performance of the Department. RECOMMENDATION 43: VPD should devise a feedback loop for its criminal justice partners (including the District Attorney, Sheriff, Judges, Public Defenders, Juvenile Justice Administrators, Probation Officers, and Social Workers) regarding the performance of its officers and the Department as a whole.
Independent Oversight One pillar of President Obama’s Task Force on 21st Century Policing addressed the importance of oversight and community collaboration and recommended that law enforcement agencies establish civilian oversight mechanisms: “Some form of civilian oversight of law enforcement is important in order to strengthen trust with the community. Every community should define the appropriate form and structure of civilian oversight to meet the needs of that community.” (Recommendation 2.8) This call for formal oversight reflects a growing sentiment in the United States, where the outcomes of individual high-profile incidents in recent years have heightened a sense of division between police and segments of the public. Expanding public involvement – and increasing the extent to which police officers are accountable to entities outside their own agency – is an important way of bridging gaps of distrust, alienation, and misunderstanding.
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