Purpose

Our vision for the office is for it to be a proactive leader in law enforcement accountability to the Fort Worth Police Department and the population it serves.

Primary Functions

Auditing: Review FWPD practices and activities to ensure alignment with departmental policies, identify patterns and trends, and recommend improvements that promote accountability and transparency.
Community Engagement: Conduct regular community engagement activities with the goal of gathering input, listening to community perspectives and identifying solutions for how to best improve police-community relations.
Data Collection and Analysis: Collect and analyze data related to citizen complaints, uses of force, critical incidents and other types of reviews as well as conduct periodic analysis of data identifying patterns and trends.
Mediation: Facilitate a voluntary and confidential process that brings community members and FWPD officers together to resolve conflicts, address misunderstandings, and strengthen community-police relationships.
Monitor Contacts and Complaint Investigations: Monitor FWPD contact and complaint investigations to ensure that investigations are complete and thorough, identify broad patterns in investigations, and recommend policy and procedure changes.
Oversight and Accountability: Serve as the designated civilian oversight agency empowered to act fairly and impartially, ensuring greater accountability of and public trust in the FWPD.
Periodic Reporting: Provide periodic public reporting on the Office’s activities related to community engagement, auditing and review of policies and procedures. These public reports will also document the Office’s findings, data analysis and recommendations made to the FWPD and City Manager.
Review Policies and Procedures: Review policies and procedures to ensure they meet or exceed policing best practices and address emerging trends as identified in our monitoring and auditing of FWPD practices.