Helping Police and Communities to Collaborate

In response to this summer’s activities surrounding police and community relations, Governor Cuomo issued Executive Order 203. (EO203)

Under the terms of the order, “Each local government entity which has a police agency must convene the head of the police department and stakeholders in the community to (1) perform a comprehensive review of current police force deployments, strategies, policies, procedures, and practices, and (2) develop a plan to improve such deployments, strategies, policies, procedures, and practices, for the purposes of addressing the particular needs of the communities served by such police agency and promote community engagement to foster trust, fairness, and legitimacy, and to address any racial bias and disproportionate policing of communities of color. Such plans must be adopted by the governing board by April 1, 2021.”

Cities and villages throughout New York State are taking action to improve justice and equity in their communities and comply with Executive Order 203 on police policies and practices. The New York Conference of Mayors has developed the Police Reform and Reinvention webpage to provide additional tools and information on this subject.

For this process to work and for our system of policing to become more just, it is imperative that these local committees get populated with the right people, people with a personal stake in the issues and with real life experience in this area. These people would have the most impact when they testify at the public hearings. The our goal is to identify people in each and every community in the Hudson Valley to serve on these boards.

We can do this by:

a) becoming activists/advocates and help recruit stakeholders in our community. These stakeholders are identified as people who are most affected by poor police policy. (minorities, LGBTQ, immigrants, etc.).

b) by keeping the public informed, educated, and encouraged to participate. The public may not be aware that this is happening now.

If this is an issue that interests you and if you’d like to be more actively involved, contact ocdwpres@gmail.com. We will put you in touch with people who will train and work with activists on this issue.