Berkeley’s City Council discussed suggestions from the National Institute of Criminal Justice Reform, or NICJR, for “reimagining” the city’s public safety.
City auditor’s office finds racial disparities in Berkeley police stops
Karin Goh/File
The city auditor’s office presented an audit of Berkeley Police Department that found racial disparities in stops and response times. The audit used computer-aided dispatch to analyze more than 360,000 events involving police between 2015-2019.
The Berkeley city auditor’s office released an audit of the city’s police department focusing on racial disparities in stops and response times to incidents involving mentally ill or unhoused individuals Thursday.
In response to the national conversation on race and policing sparked by the killing of George Floyd, Berkeley City Councilmember Ben Bartlett proposed collecting data about police activities as part of a process to discuss police reform. The proposal was later incorporated into Berkeley Mayor Jesse Arreguín’s Safety for All: George Floyd Community Safety Act, which was passed by the city in July 2020.