Thursday, August 12, 2021

Dear PSA Director,

The Leadership Conference on Civil and Human Rights and its sister organization, The Leadership Conference Education Fund, published data on police use of force from nine new cities on Accountable Now, a national repository that collects use of force statistics from law enforcement agencies across the United States. Accountable Now makes it easier than ever for communities to uncover racial and other demographic disparities in how their cities are policed.

Originally launched in February 2021, the Accountable Now platform has expanded its functionality for using existing data on the site and added in-depth analysis of police departments in the following cities: Stockton, California.; Orlando, Florida; Minneapolis, Minnesota.; Lincoln and Omaha, Nebraska; Cincinnati, Ohio; Tulsa, Oklahoma.; Portland, Oregon; and Seattle, Washington.

Accountable Now users can request data from their local officials, file public records request letters, and input relevant datasets themselves. This crowdsourcing campaign will complement The Leadership Conference and The Education Fund’s direct advocacy efforts at the local and national levels for transparency and accountability in law enforcement. To that end, the organizations have set a goal of collecting data from 1,000 police departments in 2021.

For more information on police use of force data and Accountable Now’s mission, visit www.accountablenow.com. Please let your listeners know of this new resource by placing this PSA in heavy rotation between Monday, August 2 and Tuesday, October 5, 2021.

Thank you in advance for your support.

Leadership Conference on Civil & Human Rights

:30 PSA SCRIPT                                                                                                               

EVERY DAY, POLICE OFFICERS ARE VIOLENT IN THEIR INTERACTIONS WITH BLACK AND BROWN PEOPLE, AND DEPARTMENTS AREN’T EVEN REQUIRED TO REPORT TO THE PUBLIC HOW OFTEN IT HAPPENS. HOW CAN WE HOLD LAW ENFORCEMENT AGENCIES ACCOUNTABLE FOR MISCONDUCT WHEN WE DON’T KNOW THE FULL PICTURE OF POLICE VIOLENCE? THAT’S WHY WE CREATED ACCOUNTABLE NOW, A PUBLIC DATABASE THAT TRACKS POLICE USE OF FORCE IN CITIES ACROSS THE U.S. VISIT ACCOUNTABLENOW.COM TODAY TO VIEW YOUR POLICE DEPARTMENT’S DATA AND DEMAND TRANSPARENCY AND ACCOUNTABILITY