ACResolution Magazine - September 2017

tension helped the parties reach a resolution, but it also fostered an adversarial mistrust between them that remained in the wake of the formal resolution.

Evaluation

Program organizers need to have considered how they will measure the program and its impact from the beginning of the planning process. User opinions, observational reports, and personal interviews comprise the main set of evaluation tools that have supported the claim that dialogue programs make a positive impact. But these tools do not assess our human capacity for inner transformation. We have yet to develop instruments that measure critical reflection of one’s own ideas, or the extent to which new possibilities are recognized, or whether shared meaning is developed, even though these inner transformations may have the greatest potential for generating positive social change.

Programs need sufficient time and adequate resources, which are more likely to be awarded to those that can produce objective data to justify the investment. Although facilitated dialogue between police and communities has important ramifications for public safety, law enforcement legitimacy, and democracy, evaluators and conveners will have to uncover what measurably works, or funders may move on to something else.

Conclusion

After all is said and done, dialogue programs may fall out of favor if they fail to lead to meaningful changes in policies and future interactions between police and citizens. Cincinnati’s agreement is credited with keeping protests peaceful after police killed an unarmed black man in 2015. It is noteworthy to witness a community respond with peaceful protest after the use of deadly force by law enforcement against an unarmed black man, whether or not the outcome can be traced to a particular process for evaluation purposes.

Given the national, historical, and cultural scale of tensions between police and ethnic minorities, perhaps facilitated dialogue is best supported by a number of additional interventions. For example, in addition to police-youth dialogue, Community Mediation Maryland offers citizen complaint mediation and collaborative policy change programs in Baltimore City and throughout Maryland. Dialogue that facilitates the safe exchange of fear, vulnerability, and other emotions, must occur before looking toward the future. Groups that have historically opposed each other can improve relations, but they need to experience cooperative interaction, agree on shared goals, learn about the “other” person, have a sense of equality between themselves, and receive support from political leaders. With sustained effort, positive relationships between police and minority communities have a much stronger chance of being developed.