Police Collaboration/Guides and Tools for Police
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These MOUs outline how police and local advocates will work together, how police will make referrals to advocates and how advocates will follow-up. If MOUs are not possible, informal agreements are better than nothing. In either case, developing strong relationships and involving police in the task force is critical. It can help to have community members and town officials encouraging the police to enter into agreements. Task forces can host meetings to encourage this collaborative community response - pulling select boards, town managers, survivors, and community leaders into the conversation.
Task Forces also provide a valuable feedback loop as community members often report if police/advocate protocols are being followed, and this feedback can be given to police whose response is then shared with task force members. It is helpful to give police feedback both when things do not go well and when they do go well to support productive collaboration.
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These are created by task forces in collaboration with police departments and sometimes district attorney’s offices. Collaborating or at least getting input from police is critical to ensure tools are used. Some guides are laminated and created to fit behind the visor in a police cruiser, some are online so they can be accessed by phone, and some are created to fit in a shirt pocket. Some include just information about domestic violence, and others include a broader range of service information depending on what local police want. We recommend developing these in close partnership with police.
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Task forces have no formal ability to hold anyone accountable, but community members give feedback to task forces members about their experience with police, especially when there are community members on the task force. This feedback can be shared with police, and as needed with town managers or officials. Task forces don’t investigate but can ask the police or town what they should report back to the task force regarding concerns brought forward. Ideally, this feedback loop creates some accountability and transparency. The Ware River Valley Domestic Violence Task Force has also used a Community Input Line for community members to share any ideas, suggestions or concerns about domestic violence which also generates community feedback on police activity - but this only worked when outreach was done regularly about the Input Line.
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Measuring domestic violence rates by using police data is difficult given that an increase in calls to police can mean either an increase in violence or an improvement in community relations leading to more people asking for police help. In the southern hilltowns and in Ware, task forces and police have addressed this by measuring both the number of police calls and the level of injury among callers. This requires cooperation and collaboration with police but provides invaluable information.