In early 2022, OPO conducted a community engagement campaign to gather feedback on APD’s current policies and OPO’s recommendations related to body-worn and dashboard cameras.
The campaign, which included outreach through events and surveys, collected two types of data:
Quantitative data: Data is data that describes a quantity, amount, or range. An example of quantitative data would be age, age groups, or salary.
Qualitative data: Qualitative data or text data that cannot be formatted or classified into different groups. Unstructured data is generally analyzed through manual synthesis or using natural language processing tools.
In Phase III, OPO compiled and analyzed the data collected in Phase II.
The following pages discuss the insights and analyses of quantitative data collected from Austin community members through a citywide survey provided from February to April 2022. OPO received 525 survey submissions, including 443 digital submissions and 82 paper submissions.
Takeaways
- The majority of respondents supported OPO’s recommendations across the board.
OPO analyzed data from over 500 surveys submitted by community members. Interestingly, while the medium through which individuals responded impacted the level of support (with paper surveys being more supportive), OPO’s recommendations were supported across the board.
2. Paper surveys captured more individuals who identified as low-income and had a higher percentage of individuals who identified as Black or African American. In addition, the analysis revealed interesting variations in participation for respondents who identified as male or non-binary/genderqueer/genderfluid.
These variations were among several identified when OPO compared digital and paper survey responses. Taken together, these variations suggest a need to potentially modify future outreach methods and reconsider the role of digital surveys in collecting community input.