Three separate oversight bodies that scrutinize Cleveland policing are gearing up to quiz residents about their experiences with officers, just as the city is trying to convince a federal judge it is ready to exit court supervision. The catch: they are all doing their own surveys, and that has some city leaders and community advocates worried that a crucial moment for public feedback could turn into a confusing pileup.
As reported by Signal Cleveland, the Mayor’s Police Accountability Team, the Community Police Commission and the federal Cleveland Police Monitoring Team are each planning their own outreach efforts to gauge how residents view the Division of Police. Council member Stephanie Howse-Jones told the City Council’s Safety Committee she is concerned about "survey fatigue" and questioned why the groups are not collaborating on one unified tool. Signal Cleveland also reported that the monitoring team said it is in the process of lining up a partner to conduct its required community survey.
PAT survey and Kent State partnership
According to a City of Cleveland statement, the mayor’s Police Accountability Team developed its survey with Kent State University researchers and plans to match that questionnaire with in-person listening sessions across Cleveland this summer. The release notes that PAT was created by Mayor Justin Bibb in 2022, and that Kent State’s Community Engaged Research Institute funded a pilot version of the project, which city officials say will shape future training and policy decisions.
Monitor mandate and the 2018 survey
The consent decree requires the independent monitoring team to survey residents every two years about their encounters with police and their broader sense of public safety, a duty spelled out in its monitoring documents. The team’s public resources page shows that the most recent posted biennial community survey is from 2018, a gap that underscores how long it has been since a broad, representative check-in with Clevelanders. The Cleveland Police Monitoring Team maintains that archive of reports and monitoring plans.
Commission wary, wants a single survey
The Community Police Commission told Signal Cleveland it was not invited to join the Kent State-backed survey work and said it would prefer to "work with a consulting firm to develop a single, comprehensive survey." The CPC has organized citywide satisfaction surveys in the past, including a mailed sample effort in 2021, according to a CPC news release.
Why it matters
The timing is not incidental. City officials and federal authorities have begun laying out their case that Cleveland is nearing sustained, effective compliance with the consent decree, and community input will be central evidence in any argument that the court’s oversight can wind down. Both the city and the monitor have already signaled that new outreach is on the way, with the mayor’s team planning listening sessions this summer and the monitoring team advertising its intent to hire a partner to manage its own survey. For Cleveland residents, that likely means several similar questionnaires landing at once, and multiple overlapping chances to weigh in on the future of policing in the city.
