A Process Toward Reconciliation
In late spring of 2012, the Mid-South Peace and Justice Center’s coordinator of the Community-Police Relations (CPR) project conducted over twenty one-on-one sessions with local community leaders, initially asking the question:
“What is your vision for community and police reconciliation in our city?”
Mid-South Peace and Justice Center invited both stakeholders from the community and from law enforcement to a kickoff presentation of the CPR project which began with a dialog about the difficulties between the two groups. First, the participants shared concerns about the using the word ‘reconciliation’, initially the “R” in the title of the project. They expressed their belief that there cannot be reconciliation without first having relationships, and wanted to re-frame the question to read: “What is your vision for community and police relations?” And thus, the name of the project was changed from Community-Police Reconciliation to Community-Police Relations.
Community members and members of law enforcement from the Memphis Police Department (MPD) and the Shelby County Sheriff’s Department met in separate circles for several months until November 16, 2012, when these two groups joined. This CPR “core” group has been meeting monthly ever since, working together to face the challenges and overcome the barriers that have traditionally kept community and law enforcement divided at many levels.
The Core group his now entering a second phase, making plans to roll out similar forums for dialog between community members and law enforcement into different communities across the city.
On Friday, February 22, 2013 the group met to address the structures needed to continue the growth of this work. They determined that in addition to the working groups overseeing facilitation, training, and media/messaging, they would form an outreach working group and a steering committee. The steering committee — comprised of three members from law enforcement, three community leaders, and the CPR staff at MSPJC — will meet in-between the monthly core group meetings to oversee organizational tasks, and most immediately, to create a proposal for the goals and the format of the community forums to be presented to the core group next month for approval.
CPR is also developing a presentation for the command staff and administration of MPD, and representatives of the Sheriff’s Department, tentatively planned for the end of April. The presentation will be previewed by community leaders and followed by a trial run of the community forum, creating an opportunity for stakeholders to learn more about what the core group has experienced, through various means such as Playback Memphis’ improvisational theater, dialog circles, collective testimony, and sessions to brainstorm solutions. It will also provide CPR with a chance to see which elements work best in the community forums, and which ones need tweaking before we take them out into other areas of the city.
If you would like to be involved in CPR in any way, please contact us (information below). As we expand this process, CPR is looking for venues and hosts for the community forums in the coming months – churches, community centers, neighborhood associations and groups, schools, etc.
If you would like more information about bringing CPR to your community or want to host a forum please contact:
Melissa Miller-Monie
CPR Organizing Coordinator
melissa@midsouthpeace.org
901-725-4990
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