Community Task Force on Policing

SCOPE OF WORK

Third party, neutral facilitators retained by the City will help the task force evaluate and make recommendations to the city council regarding the following matters with respect to the Elgin Police Department: 

A. Assessing the effectiveness of the methods the Elgin Police Department (EPD) employs to engage with the community, including identifying opportunities for improving police culture, ensuring accountability and restoring community trust, particularly within communities of color. The assessment will include a peer city comparison, data/statistical analyses, the participation of peer city police agency representatives, community input, and recommendations for training and process improvement. The assessment will also examine how the EPD is being used in the community, identifying which services being provided are working well and which services may be better accomplished by other agencies or civilians. Interviewing members of the community, elected officials, city administrators and EPD members to determine the need for, structure of, and best practices model for a formal civilian review of police matters. The facilitators and task force may also elect to conduct field observations of police operations.

B. Reviewing the adequacy of existing processes for citizen reporting and filing of complaints, including an evaluation of community desires for alternative and redundant processes not maintained by EPD for filing complaints.

C. Reviewing EPD’s progress in achieving best practices and innovative approaches, including but not limited to practices contained within the “Report of the President’s Task Force on 21st Century Policing” and consistency of EPD’s use of force policies with best practices.

D. Reviewing EPD’s personnel management practices, including hiring, promotion, and provide recommendations on how those processes support recruitment and retention of a diverse workforce.

E. Evaluating current EPD training practices, emphasizing the applicability of these practices to the interaction with the diverse members of the community and the human rights values of Elgin, and making recommendations for changes to the training curricula, methods of delivery, and frequency of training.

F. Reviewing police data to determine, insofar as possible, if disparities exist in interactions with discernable subsets of the community, including race, ethnicity, gender and the LGBT population, mental health, alcohol and/or substance abuse and age/educational status). Determining whether there are procedural, practical or other barriers serving to suppress or discourage the reporting of complaints.

G. Assessing the adequacy of the current staffing status and equipment requirements and making recommendations based on best practices and peer city models. 

H. Reviewing demographics and comparing of incident data from “peer” cities to understand how Elgin compares and possibly identify causes, influencing factors, or communities that may offer learning opportunities.

I. Creating a proposed plan for implementing task force recommendations along with mechanisms for the recurring assessment of performance and review and integration of best practices. The facilitators, in conjunction with the task force, will identify the tasks required and associated level of effort, proposed costs, schedule for completion, and the deliverables to be provided.

EXPECTATIONS OF COMMITMENT OF TASK FORCE MEMBERS

It is anticipated that task force members will need to attend a 1-2 hour meeting every other week for the first phase of the task force’s work. That frequency of meetings may become less or more frequent over the course of the task force’s time of service. It is also anticipated that task force members will be asked to review information in between meetings to prepare most effectively for their deliberations.

Task force members will be expected to attend scheduled meetings consistently except in cases of emergency or when the task force member provides advance notice of a conflicting obligation.

Meetings may be conducted in-person, virtually or in a hybrid format where participation can occur either in-person or virtually. The task force will determine the best ways for the meetings to occur after its first meeting, and the public will be able to watch the meetings either in-person or virtually, live or on demand.