The San Diego Police Department has partnered with a national nonprofit to put together a survey seeking input from residents on topics ranging from officer performance to the use of police technology.

The survey comes several weeks after a study commissioned by the American Civil Liberties Union of San Diego & Imperial Counties found San Diego officers and county sheriff’s deputies searched, arrested and used force against black people at higher rates than white people.

Some community members said the findings support what they have long contended — that racial bias fuels disparities in policing. But the study didn’t convince law enforcement leaders that discrimination was leading to differences in treatment.

Department officials said the survey has been in the works for about a year. It was expected to be released in the spring, but the addition of several language options and questions dedicated to police use of technology delayed publication until mid-December.


“This is an opportunity for the department to hear directly from the community on a wide variety of issues that impact them on a daily basis,” San Diego police Capt. Jeffrey Jordon said.

The survey, made up of 45 questions, touches on topics including police effectiveness and professionalism. Questions range from how well residents feel officers fight crime and treat people fairly to how often officers pull people over without good reason or use excessive force. Others attempt to gauge how likely residents would be to work with officers to identify the suspect in a crime or attend a meeting with other residents.

Researchers who work for the National Police Foundation — a non-profit that aims to improve policing — put together the survey, which was funded by the National Institute of Justice, an arm of the Department of Justice. It’s unclear how much each survey costs to administer. In 2019, the institute awarded the police foundation two grants collectively worth about $1.4 million.

The survey takes between five and 10 minutes to complete and is anonymous. It’s available in ten different languages, including Tagalog, Vietnamese, Arabic and Spanish.


Capt. Jordon said the department was one of the first in the nation to request the survey be offered in so many languages and specifically touch on technology. Some recent uses of police technology — like ShotSpotter, the gunshot detection system that was installed in some southeastern San Diego neighborhoods and the city’s ‘smart street lights’ program that resulted in cameras being planted on a few thousand street lights — have been criticized by some community members as unnecessary invasions of privacy.

Residents have also argued that the department did a poor job involving community members in decisions that involve these sorts of technologies.

“I would have liked to have asked (these questions) earlier, and in a perfect world we would have,” Jordon said. “But it doesn’t discount that we’re asking for that feedback now.”

Over the years, there have been several surveys designed to gauge how well residents feel the department is doing its job. In 2014, some residents who had contact with San Diego police officers were sent letters asking them to confidentially rate police service as part of an independent nationwide study.


Spearheaded by the National Police Research Platform, the Police Community Interaction Survey intended to provide agencies throughout the country with feedback about police performance, with the goal of identifying areas for improvement.

The results, which were published in 2017, found that while most police officers in the 58 American cities that participated received high ratings for the way they interacted with community members, departments with 500 or more officers received lower grades. It’s unclear if San Diego-specific results were ever released.

Also in 2017, San Diego officials published the results of a citywide survey that found a majority of residents — 58 percent — were satisfied or very satisfied with the overall quality of police services.

This year’s survey, which was shared through all of the department’s social media platforms, is available to take until Jan. 18. Jordon said the department plans to release the results to the public.