Researchers to Work with Law Enforcement, Community Leaders on Steps Toward Changing Policing

A national initiative focused on changing the relationship between law enforcement officials and the communities they serve will bring representatives of police agencies and researchers together on Duquesne’s campus for discussion and the development of a research agenda. This event, hosted by the Center for Community-Engaged Teaching and Research (CETR), is the first in a series of conversations among community leaders, government officials and researchers.

Pittsburgh is one of only six cities nationwide participating in the U.S. Department of Justice’s National Initiative for Building Community Trust and Justice. A morning forum on Wednesday, Jan. 13, will explore ways research might be used to improve local policies, training and relationships.

The agenda for the invitation-only sessions in the Power Center will include a focus on the Pittsburgh context, presented by Chief Cameron McLay of the Pittsburgh Bureau of Police, as well as a look at what collaborative research agendas could be pursued in Pittsburgh.

The director of the national initiative, Dr. Tracie Keesee, who is co-founder of the Center for Policing Equity at the University of California Los Angeles, will provide a report from the national research roundtable. The deputy director of the Allegheny County Department of Human Services, Erin Dalton, also will lead discussion on how the national initiative might be supported by the work of the Pittsburgh research community.

Besides Tracey McCants Lewis, assistant director of clinical legal education at Duquesne, representatives from the University of Pittsburgh and Carlow, Chatham and Carnegie Mellon universities will be among respondents and presenters.

After registration and breakfast at 8:30 a.m., President Charles J. Dougherty and Dr. Lina Dostilio, director of CETR, will convene the session. The session will conclude at noon with closing remarks by Karina Chavez of the Pittsburgh Council on Higher Education.

“I am so pleased that Duquesne and CETR are hosting the first of these research forums,” Dostilio said. “Having our researchers involved in building a more socially just approach to policing and doing this research collaboratively with community members is exactly the kind of mission-oriented work we are called to do.”

The National Initiative for Building Community Trust and Justice is a three-year, $47.5 million program funded by the U.S. Department of Justice to improve relationships and increase trust between communities and their police departments, and to advance public and scholarly understanding of the issues contributing to these relationships.

Pilot sites will focus on implicit bias, procedural justice and reconciliation. Academics will collect data on topics such as officers’ attitudes about fairness, diversity, gender, equity and their on-the-job performances as well as statistical information on use of force, existing policies, discipline and demographics.

Principal partners for the national initiative are the Center for Policing Equity, John Jay College, the Justice Collaboratory at Yale Law School and The Urban Institute.

Questions about the initiative and forum can be addressed to Dostilio at 412.396.5893.