THE INSTITUTE FOR URBAN RESEARCH Dr. Natasha C. Pratt-Harris, Principal Investigator Dr. Raymond A. Winbush, Director “The Community’s Experiences and Perceptions of the Baltimore City Police Department Survey Report” Submitted to the Baltimore City Police Department Consent Decree Monitoring Team TABLE OF CONTENTS Table of Contents …………………………………………………………………………… 1 About The Institute for Urban Research at Morgan State University………..…………... 2 I. Executive Summary.……………………………………………………………………… 3 II. Methodology…………………………….……………..……………………………….. 4 A. In-Person Interviews………………………………………………………..……… 4 B. The Survey………………………………………………………………………….. 5 C. Who was Interviewed: …………………………………………………………….. 5 1. Convenience Sample 2. Purposive Sample 3. Random Streets List Sample D. Characteristics of the Sample ……………………………………………………… 6 III. Key Findings…………………………………………………………………………..… 8 A. Public Safety, Crime and Violence in Baltimore City…………………………….. 8 B. Satisfaction with Policing in Baltimore…………………………..……………….. 9 C. Trust and Confidence in BPD……………………………………………………... 11 D. Fair and Equitable Policing by BPD…………………………..………………….. 1 E. Respect Shown by BPD ………...…………………………….………………….. 15 F. Use of Force by BPD……………………………………………..……………….. 15 G. Accountability and Misconduct…………………………….…………………….. 16 H. Frequency and Nature of Encounters with/Perceptions of BPD………………..… 16 IV. Summary and Conclusion ……………………………………………………………… 19 References …………………………………………………………………………………... 22 APPENDICES: SELECT TABLES AND FIGURES Appendix A Safety and Satisfaction……………………………………………………………… 24 Appendix B Murder Rate…………………………………………………………………………. 70 Appendix C Crime Rate………………………………………………………………………….. 90 Appendix D Comfort and Communication …………………………………………………… 112 Appendix E Encounters…………………………………………………………………………… 150 Appendix F Summary Tables of Perceptions and Experiences……………………………… 221 1 About The Institute for Urban Research at Morgan State University The Institute for Urban Research (IUR) at Morgan State University in Baltimore, MD was established in 1978 and mandated by the State of Maryland to identify and research urban issues in the region, and when relevant, share the information with policy makers. During its 40-year history, the IUR has conducted countless surveys on community attitudes toward state and private institutions. It focuses on survey research involving populations that are traditionally overlooked, underserved, and rarely asked questions often reserved for majority populations. Its eight-member staff reflects a diversity of disciplines so that robust “snapshots” of the studied communities and institutions are produced that maintain integrity and avoid biased stereotypes of Marylanders. 2 I. EXECUTIVE SUMMARY The Consent Decree between the United States and the City of Baltimore and the Baltimore Police Department (“BPD”) requires the Monitoring Team to investigate and report on “the Baltimore community’s experience(s) with and perception(s) of BPD and public safety.” Dkt. 2-2 ¶ 23. The Consent Decree also requires the Monitoring Team to survey both police officers and custodial arrestees “regarding their experiences with and perceptions of BPD and public safety.” Id. The Monitoring Team already has completed and issued reports on its initial set of focus groups of police officers and its initial qualitative survey of custodial arrestees. The Monitoring Team engaged the IUR to conduct its preliminary community survey. IUR identified as its principal investigator Dr. Natasha C. Pratt-Harris, an Associate Professor and Criminal Justice Program Coordinator in the Department of Sociology, Anthropology, and Criminology/Criminal Justice at Morgan State University in Baltimore, MD. Dr. Pratt-Harris directed a team of coordinators and interviewers (the research team) to conduct the survey using the methodology summarized below. Consistent with IUR’s mission and the objectives of the Consent Decree, IUR conducted interviews of Baltimore residents between September 25, 2018 and June 30, 2019, investigating community opinions and views of policing in Baltimore using a survey. The IUR interviews included 645 participants. The results tell an important story about community attitudes toward policing. Simply put, the results reflect, through narrative reporting, what a large and diverse sample of people in Baltimore think about policing based on their perceptions and experiences involving the following: 1. Public Safety and Crime: The majority of participants disagreed or strongly disagreed that BPD effectively reduces crime and keeps people safe. 2. Satisfaction with and Trust in BPD: Satisfaction with and trust in BPD are low. However, participants reported feeling conditionally comfortable communicating with BPD “if and when they had to,” depending on factors such as who initiated the conversation. 3. Police-Community Engagement: Participants were more likely to report that BPD does not have a good working relationship with the community. However, participants reported wanting to build or improve relationships between BPD and their community. 4. Respect: The consistent finding throughout the interviews was that, in contrast to participants reporting that the BPD did not show respect toward civilians, participants reported that they themselves were more likely to treat the BPD with respect and less likely to treat the BPD with disrespect. 5. Fair and Equitable Policing: A majority of participants reported that they personally observed BPD engaging in racial profiling, engaging in excessive force, and using verbally abusive language towards civilians. 6. Misconduct/Discipline: A majority of participants disagreed or strongly disagreed that BPD officers are effectively held accountable for misconduct. 3 7. Police Encounters: A majority of participants rarely or never encounter BPD officers themselves. Of those who described encounters with police, very few narrated encounters with officers engaging in routine activity (on patrol). The large majority narrated law enforcement encounters (e.g., call for service, traffic or street stop), which we have categorized as routine, positive, negative or neutral (see Appendix E). II. METHODOLOGY The research team conducted n=645 in-person interviews of adults 18 years of age and older. These interviews form the basis of large-scale research on individual experiences and views on public safety and policing in Baltimore City. This section includes a description of the nature of those interviews and the research team’s approach for identifying interviewees. The methodology was designed]- to identify a representative non-probability sample of Baltimoreans that included traditionally harder-to-reach and under-represented populations. Research interviews usually target a relatively small sample of participants (a minimum of 12) who offer insight about a homogenous population. Too many interviews result in saturation or an overabundance of similar data (Babbie, 2016 and Emmel, 2014; Lynn, 2019). However, because we were tasked with collecting data from a diverse heterogeneous population, we chose to significantly expand our sample size. We included participants from each of the nine police districts, as well as those representative of the diverse demographics and geographic locations of Baltimore, and have collected both quantitative and qualitative data (see Appendices). In-Person Interviews Community interviewers (“the research team”) interviewed participants in person. Interviewers included undergraduate and graduate college students and members of the community – Morgan State University and University of Maryland Eastern Shore students, retired members of the law enforcement community, a civil rights attorney, a school administrator, and others. Training and preparation for the community interviews was a core part of the process. As a prerequisite, interviewers had to attend or were required to view three recorded pre-trainings and become Collaborative Institutional Training Initiative (CITI)-certified in order to conduct human subject research. This hands-on training (including shadowing in the field) equipped interviewers with data collection and statistical analysis skills, and research techniques/methods dealing with vulnerable study populations. Soft data collection began after Morgan State University’s Institutional Review Board (IRB) approved the project on September 25, 2018 (Sunday to Saturday 10am to 8pm), and continued as the survey instrument was modified through December 2018. Responses from the soft data collection effort are included in the full sample. Data collection began in earnest in January 2019, once the instrument was finalized, concluding on June 30, 2019. 4 The Survey Instrument The survey instrument (attached) consisted of both closed-ended and open-ended questions. Closed- ended questions included questions about the extent to which participants agreed or disagreed with a series of statements, or otherwise selected an option to a given question. Open-ended questions allowed participants to offer responses in their own words. The survey interviews took between 20 to 90 minutes to complete. Interviewers logged interviewee responses in real time into an electronic instrument on a cell phone, tablet, or laptop. Who Was Interviewed A mixed method sampling approach was used to identify participants. The names and locations of neighborhoods/streets are kept confidential to adhere to the IRB protocol, which requires maintenance of participant anonymity. The final 400 participants of the 645 participants