City Of Long Beach:City Of Long Beach Releases One Year Update Of The Racial Equity And Reconciliation Initiative

Press release from the City of Long Beach:

2/22/2022

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASEPress Release # 22222 Subject: City of Long Beach Releases One Year Update of the Racial Equity and Reconciliation Initiative Contact:

Long Beach, CA –At the Feb. 1, 2022, Long Beach City Council Meeting, the City of Long Beach Office of Equity presented its Racial Equity and Reconciliation Initiative: One Year Update to the City Council, highlighting key milestones and progressions reached by the City throughout 2021. The presentation from the Racial Equity Implementation Team included updates to the Initial Report, adopted by the City Council in 2020, including successes, challenges, promising practices, emerging priorities, and next steps for implementation.

"I am proud of the work our city has achieved this year to advance racial equity, and I’m looking forward to the work ahead,” said Mayor Robert Garcia. “This work is critical to ensure all those who live and work in Long Beach have the support they need to succeed.”

Over the last year, the City’s Racial Equity Implementation Team and various corresponding City Departments began implementing 93 immediate and short-term potential actions of the over 120 listed in the Racial Equity and Reconciliation Initiative: Initial Report (Initial Report). Twelve actions have already been completed, in large part due to the City’s focused efforts in aligning existing resources, programs and staff and establishing an internal infrastructure that allows strong collaboration across City Departments.

“The Racial Equity and Reconciliation Initiative is more than just a plan, it’s preparing us to change the way we do business as a City,” said Deputy City Manager Teresa Chandler. “Serving this great City with Equity at the forefront and woven into our policies and practices is absolutely essential to ensure the best quality of life for everyone across our community.”

The One Year Update provides comprehensive progress reports on the immediate and short-term potential actions, which are estimated to require less than six months and between six months to a year respectively, including:

• Organizational capacity building
• Recruiting Departmental Racial Equity Champions
• Facilitating Racial Equity 101 Trainings
• Increasing the use and public availability of data
• Re-evaluating the role and function of the Human Relations Commission
• Investing in upstream measures for community safety, such as violence prevention and interruption
• Investing in youth development
• Developing the roles and responsibilities of unarmed civilian response to non-violent crimes
• Evaluation of the Citizens' Police Complaint Commission
• Creating a non-police civilian response team for mental health-related crises
• Structural investments in health equity
• Recovery investments in housing, food security, child and youth development, digital inclusion, and economic equity

In addition to the above-mentioned, the City established Equity Champions in all City Departments, who work as liaisons with the Office of Equity to implement racial equity trainings and design department-specific racial equity plans to advance racial equity for Department programs, policies and procedures. The City has also created the Equitable Data Collection Toolkit, an internal reference guide for City Departments which guides City employees as they design and distribute surveys and ensures the City is transparent in sharing the findings. The City is also in the process of an extensive evaluation of the Citizen Police Complaint Commission (CPCC) to redesign the police approach to community safety in Long Beach, including police oversight and accountability, which the CPCC conducts.

Regarding advancement effort for local law enforcement, the Long Beach Police Department (LBPD) is collaborating with the Center for Policing Equity's National Justice Database to integrate crime data, demographic data, and police behavioral data to garner a deeper understanding of what may produce racial inequality in policing, which allows the LBPD to proactively manage risk factors and strengthen community relationships to build trust and safety for all. The LBPD has also modified its Academy training around the history of policing in a way that takes a reflective look at the role of policing in past and present injustice and how it is a hurdle to the promotion of community trust.

Additionally, last year, the Police Department received support from the City Council to participate in the University of Southern California Price Safe Communities Institute’s Law Enforcement Work Inquiry System (LEWIS) Registry, a unified national database that documents all officers who were terminated or resigned due to misconduct. Furthermore, the LBPD is currently identifying staff to participate in a train-the-trainer program from Georgetown University’s Active Bystandership for Law Enforcement (ABLE), a training program for first responders to be able to recognize and intervene when faced with a situation where their colleagues might cause harm or make a costly mistake in the course of performing their duties, and works to reduce biased policing and misconduct which disproportionately impacts Black, Hispanic/Latinx, people of color, and low-income communities, by applying practical strategies and tactics that are effective at preventing unnecessary harm to these community groups.

The Initial Report additionally outlines 21 strategies that support the Initiative’s vision that race does not determine social and economic outcomes for those who live and work in Long Beach, and also includes four goals to advance racial equity:

1. End systemic racism in Long Beach, in all local government and partner agencies, through internal transformation;
2. Design and invest in community safety and violence prevention;
3. Redesign police approach to community safety; and
4. Improve health and wellness in the City by eliminating social and economic disparities in the communities most impacted by racism.

The Racial Equity Implementation Team will continue prioritizing these efforts throughout the year and will provide updates to the City Council and community on an annual basis.

Long Beach, CA –At the Feb. 1, 2022, Long Beach City Council Meeting, the City of Long Beach Office of Equity presented its Racial Equity and Reconciliation Initiative: One Year Update to the City Council, highlighting key milestones and progressions reached by the City throughout 2021. The presentation from the Racial Equity Implementation Team included updates to the Initial Report, adopted by the City Council in 2020, including successes, challenges, promising practices, emerging priorities, and next steps for implementation.

"I am proud of the work our city has achieved this year to advance racial equity, and I’m looking forward to the work ahead,” said Mayor Robert Garcia. “This work is critical to ensure all those who live and work in Long Beach have the support they need to succeed.”

Over the last year, the City’s Racial Equity Implementation Team and various corresponding City Departments began implementing 93 immediate and short-term potential actions of the over 120 listed in the Racial Equity and Reconciliation Initiative: Initial Report (Initial Report). Twelve actions have already been completed, in large part due to the City’s focused efforts in aligning existing resources, programs and staff and establishing an internal infrastructure that allows strong collaboration across City Departments.

“The Racial Equity and Reconciliation Initiative is more than just a plan, it’s preparing us to change the way we do business as a City,” said Deputy City Manager Teresa Chandler. “Serving this great City with Equity at the forefront and woven into our policies and practices is absolutely essential to ensure the best quality of life for everyone across our community.”

The One Year Update provides comprehensive progress reports on the immediate and short-term potential actions, which are estimated to require less than six months and between six months to a year respectively, including:

In addition to the above-mentioned, the City established Equity Champions in all City Departments, who work as liaisons with the Office of Equity to implement racial equity trainings and design department-specific racial equity plans to advance racial equity for Department programs, policies and procedures. The City has also created the Equitable Data Collection Toolkit, an internal reference guide for City Departments which guides City employees as they design and distribute surveys and ensures the City is transparent in sharing the findings. The City is also in the process of an extensive evaluation of the Citizen Police Complaint Commission (CPCC) to redesign the police approach to community safety in Long Beach, including police oversight and accountability, which the CPCC conducts.

Regarding advancement effort for local law enforcement, the Long Beach Police Department (LBPD) is collaborating with the Center for Policing Equity's National Justice Database to integrate crime data, demographic data, and police behavioral data to garner a deeper understanding of what may produce racial inequality in policing, which allows the LBPD to proactively manage risk factors and strengthen community relationships to build trust and safety for all. The LBPD has also modified its Academy training around the history of policing in a way that takes a reflective look at the role of policing in past and present injustice and how it is a hurdle to the promotion of community trust.

Additionally, last year, the Police Department received support from the City Council to participate in the University of Southern California Price Safe Communities Institute’s Law Enforcement Work Inquiry System (LEWIS) Registry, a unified national database that documents all officers who were terminated or resigned due to misconduct. Furthermore, the LBPD is currently identifying staff to participate in a train-the-trainer program from Georgetown University’s Active Bystandership for Law Enforcement (ABLE), a training program for first responders to be able to recognize and intervene when faced with a situation where their colleagues might cause harm or make a costly mistake in the course of performing their duties, and works to reduce biased policing and misconduct which disproportionately impacts Black, Hispanic/Latinx, people of color, and low-income communities, by applying practical strategies and tactics that are effective at preventing unnecessary harm to these community groups.

The Initial Report additionally outlines 21 strategies that support the Initiative’s vision that race does not determine social and economic outcomes for those who live and work in Long Beach, and also includes four goals to advance racial equity:

The Racial Equity Implementation Team will continue prioritizing these efforts throughout the year and will provide updates to the City Council and community on an annual basis.

This press release was produced by the City of Long Beach. The views expressed here are the author’s own.