A new report surveyed communities across the state about how to improve relationships between the public and police departments.
The report was created at the directive of Governor Snyder in 2016 and compiled research, surveys, and comment from communities across the state.
Hermina Kramp is with the Michigan Commission on Law Enforcement Standards, which conducted the study. She said communities across the state wanted officers to spend more time getting to know residents.
“Community members would like to have more non-enforcement face-to-face contact with law enforcement officers. Just getting out of the car and talking to people and coming to community events where community members can get to know officers more as people.”
Kramp said one of the recommendations in the report is to increase in-service training for officers.
“Things like for providing for training as it relates to de escalation, implicit bias, being able to work with individuals who have mental illness. All those types of things.”
Kramp said particularly in communities of color the study showed a call for more officers to be recruited directly from the neighborhood.
“That would be something that moving forward we would try to work with hopefully be able to increase the amount of funding that we have available to reimburse agencies for the purpose of being able to hire somebody from the community and put them through training rather than having to wait until someone has person funding to be able to put themselves through the academy and then hire them from the academy.”
Kramp said the recommendations they heard from communities were not new, and follow national trends.