Denver’s auditor, Timothy O’Brien, and independent monitor, Nick Mitchell, on Tuesday applauded the police department’s decision to collect racial and other demographic data on people its officers stops.
“We all want the same thing: fair and unbiased police enforcement,” O’Brien said in a statement. “As auditors, we believe that data plays a crucial role. You can’t improve what you can’t measure.”
In January, that the police department collect the data as part of an audit of the department’s community policing program. The audit said the data collection was recommended by the U.S. Department of Justice and it would be the only way of proving whether officer-initiated stops were being conducted in compliance with the department’s bias-policing policy.
Mitchell, who also was quoted in the auditor’s statement, said the data collection will build trust in the community. He also said the department’s decision illustrated the value of collaboration between the city’s safety department and other departments that serve as watchdogs.
In January, Stephanie O’Malley, executive director of the city’s Department of Safety, responded to , saying she disagreed with the recommendation.
Collecting the data would be too time-consuming for officers, and it could turn otherwise peaceful interactions into confrontations because of the intrusive nature of asking a person about race and ethnicity, she wrote in response to the audit.
O’Malley estimated that data collection would take an officer 10 minutes to complete because it would need to be reported on paper documents rather than electronically. That time would cost somewhere between $700,000 and $2 million annually, O’Malley’s letter said.
“The mission of the DPD is to focus efforts on preventing crime in a respectful manner, demonstrating that everyone matters,” O’Malley wrote. “As part of this mission, we make hundreds of thousands of proactive contacts that may or may not result in enforcement action.”
O’Malley has since changed her mind about the importance of collecting the data. Police Chief Robert White also , saying the current climate between police officers and people of color has made it a priority for his department.
Plans for how the data will be collected and analyzed are evolving. Community in the plan’s development.
