SHAKER HEIGHTS, Ohio — A key takeaway from Shaker Heights’ months-long listening project on policing practices in the city came with a bit of a catch.
The project found that teens and young adults were much less likely to feel safe in their neighborhoods and that police treated them with respect.
“All of the young people we talked to had more negative answers than adults,” project consultant Liz O’Connor said at a Tuesday city council meeting. “They’re feeling at risk in a variety of ways.”
The catch? Out of nearly 1,000 people contacted as part of the project through online surveys and in-person discussions, only a few dozen were under the age of 30.
City officials left the meeting feeling concerned about the results of the survey, and searching for ways to better engage the city’s young population.
Colleen Jackson, the city‘s chief diversity, equity and inclusion officer, said that she has been making inroads with schools, nonprofits and other groups that serve the city’s youth.
“We are establishing those relationships so we can call upon them to answer our questions,” Jackson said. “But, yes, there’s lots of work to be done.”
The city will hold a town hall discussion on Nov. 13 to review the report with the broader public.
Despite the negative experiences from younger residents, the survey showed that a sizable majority of Shaker Heights residents are generally pleased with the police department and safety in their neighborhoods.
“Most people feel safe here most of the time,” O’Connor said. “It’s not everyone, and it’s not all the time. But I think we’re starting in a pretty good place.”
The report acknowledged that the survey’s more than 900 respondents were disproportionately older, white and more affluent, when compared to the 2020 U.S. Census, despite multiple engagement sessions targeting youth residents and people of color.
Black and minority residents make up about 34% of Shaker Heights’ population, but only 18% of those who completed the online survey.
The city‘s median age is 41. The average age of those who took the survey was over 50.
In addition to the online survey, consultants from Strategy Matters worked with the city’s DEI office to reach underrepresented areas by holding neighborhood town halls and focus groups.
The final report summarized data collected largely from the survey results.
Those results showed that Black and minority residents were nearly twice as likely as their white counterparts to report that crime had gotten worse in the last year.
About 21% of Black residents said crime was worse, compared to 11% of white residents.
When it came to policing, nearly 79% of white residents said they felt Shaker Heights police treat people in their neighborhood fairly, and 8% answered somewhat fairly.
That’s compared to 60% of Black and minority residents said police treated their neighbors fairly, and 23% said somewhat fairly.
Broken down by age, nearly 81% of residents over 60 said police were fair to those in their neighborhood.
Only 49% of people in their 20s, and 66% of those under 20, said police were fair.
However, while 253 people who answered that question in the survey were over 60, only 32 people younger than 29 years old answered the question.
O’Connor said they did not have enough young respondents to break out every category by age.
The survey also broke down results by neighborhood.
The biggest safety concern across all neighborhoods was traffic, such as speeding, according to the survey.
Residents of most neighborhoods blamed crime and safety concerns on “outsiders” coming into Shaker Heights, mostly from Cleveland, the report said.
But many residents in the city’s Moreland neighborhood, which is bordered to the west and south by Cleveland and is predominantly Black, said they often felt like they were the outsiders, O’Connor said. They felt as though more affluent neighborhoods saw them as an extension of Cleveland, rather than part of the Shaker Heights community.
One out of three Moreland residents reported that they believe crime in their neighborhood had gotten worse in the past 12 months. No other neighborhood had more than 20% of residents say crime worsened.
Moreland also had the lowest percentage of respondents say that the police treated their neighbors with respect and made them feel safe.
The survey showed 58% of Moreland residents said police in their neighborhood were respectful, and 56% said the presence of officers made them feel safe.
