Tell the cops what you think

The Warwick Police Department needs your help – but this time it’s not to help catch a hit and run suspect or identify someone who took a hundred dollar bill that fell out of someone’s pocket in front of them at Big Lots. No, this time the police are just in need of your honest opinion.

For the first time the Warwick Police Department will conduct annual satisfaction surveys to assess how they are performing their duties, and participants can take the inaugural survey by visiting the Warwick Police website (it is the lead banner item at the top of the page).

The deadline for responding is March 31.

The survey is part of the department’s first strategic plan, which was crafted via an 18-member committee over the course of six months. The three-year plan, among an in-depth analysis of internal and external challenges faced by the department, places an emphasis on community-first policing tactics – and the survey is the implementation tool to assess how well they are doing and what they need to improve.

“I don’t want people to sit there and tell us how wonderful we are, I want people to tell us what we need to do,” said Captain Joseph Hopkins, who was put in charge, with help from Major Brad Connor, of developing the strategic plan and organizing the satisfaction survey.

Hopkins said that the department used to do surveys tri-annually (once every three years), and the most engagement they ever got was a little over 100 responses. He said through the new survey they’ve already received about double that previous high.

“Certainly we'd like more people to take it,” Hopkins said.

The survey is a simple online click survey set up through the SurveyMonkey online survey platform. There are three survey types – for businesses, private citizens and those who have been a witness or a victim of a crime. Questions range from opinions on the behavior of officers to the perception of safety or crime in the city.

Hopkins said he has already gathered some insights from the results that have come in thus far.

“Two big things I'm seeing already, some common themes are wait times in lobby and courteous call takers,” he said. “So in other words we're not being as courteous as we can be on the phone…It's customer service. I personally go out into the lobby and deal with people. Half the time it's just a question.”

Hopkins is hopeful more people will take the survey, and that it will be a useful tool moving forward to make the city’s law enforcement more responsive to the community – regardless of what the community feels is the most important issue.

“I think it's a great step forward for the police department,” he said. “If wait time in the lobby is the biggest issue, then goddang-it we're going to fix it, and we’ll publish the results.”

A direct link to the surveys is www.warwickpd.org/index.php/satisfaction-survey.