CINCINNATI — In an effort to close a reported racial disparity gap within the Cincinnati Police Department, nonprofit Campaign Zero, which wrote a report finding CPD officers stop Black people at a much higher rate than white people, has released a list of nine reform recommendations.
The 67-page report released earlier this month analyzed Cincinnati police contact card data between 2009 and 2025. It shows that while the overall number of police stops has "fallen dramatically" since 2009, there remains a racial disparity in traffic and pedestrian stops within city limits.
The recommendations center on a variety of aspects of policing, including when misdemeanor stops should be initiated, what use of force policies should be in place and how Cincinnati should utilize contact card data.
WATCH: Police reform nonprofit makes recommendations, looks to address reported racial disparities within Cincinnati police
Campaign Zero suggested the city bring back its traffic stop analysis and early warning system, which it ended in 2012. The system is a data-based police management tool used to review traffic stops and identify patterns of potential racial bias or profiling.
"I'm hopeful that the system, if it comes back online, will help flag disparities before they become as great as they are," DeRay Mckesson, Campaign Zero executive director, said.
Another recommendation calls for the city to reconvene the Manager's Advisory Group, which Campaign Zero says last met in 2021 and monitored key performance metrics related to Collaborative Agreement goals.
"These recommendations we hope can set the city up for better police accountability, and also to begin to address the disparities that there's no way to make sense of just on their face," Mckesson said.
Police initiating misdemeanor stops for things like jaywalking, loitering and spitting in public, Campaign Zero said, has little impact on public safety and is disproportionately used to stop Black people at higher rates than white people. The nonprofit proposed doing away with those stops.
"One of the hallmarks of policing in the 80s and 90s was the idea that (police) should just stop people for minor things, with the idea that they will find major things," Mckesson said. "What we find across the country is (that it) disproportionately impacts people of color."
Cincinnati Fraternal Order of Police President Ken Kober said in a statement on Friday that ending enforcement of low-level crimes contradicts residents' priorities.
"Campaign Zero’s recommendation to stop enforcing low-level, quality of life crimes is the exact opposite of what businesses and the community as a whole have asked the police department to address," Kober said.
We asked Mckesson to respond to Kober's statement.
"We should poll people. I would be shocked that people think that stopping people for spitting is making the city of Cincinnati safer," he said. "I just can't imagine that you think that stopping somebody for jaywalking is making the city safer."
One recommendation deals with implementing a strict disciplinary policy for officers found to be making racially disparate stops, while another suggests the city clarify its policy on anonymous complaints made against police officers.
The nonprofit's report found the highest stop disparities came from Cincinnati police task forces, with some task forces showing disparities of 20 times or more. The recommendations call for a deeper review of those task force policing practices.
Kober addressed how task forces like the violent crime squad and crime gun intelligence center conduct stops, when the report first came out, saying, "They don't know if they're white, they don't know if they're Black, they don't know if they're male or female. They go to where this data says, 'Hey, go here, because this is where gun violence is.'"
The nonprofit also recommended removing what it deems to be problematic provisions from the Cincinnati police union contract.
"The first is that there's no record of discipline for an officer that will be permanently kept in their file," Mckesson said. "The second is that there's a three-year statute of limitations in the city of Cincinnati for discipline ever happening."
"As far as the collective bargaining agreement recommendations, the current agreement was mutually agreed upon by the current city leadership and the FOP. Any attempt to undermine that agreement is reckless and downright foolish," Kober said.
Campaign Zero has also proposed a slew of reforms be made to how the city handles its contact card data, including improving how officers file traffic stop information and display the data for the public and having officials consistently review the numbers. The nonprofit proposed that the police department regularly conduct audits to ensure officers are fully completing the contact cards and hire an independent agency to review the data annually.
The last recommendation would have the city implement all eight of Campaign Zero's use-of-force policy recommendations, known as "8 Can't Wait." Cincinnati already has three of the eight policies in place:
- Ban neck restraints in all cases
- Require a warning before deadly force is used in all situations
- Require officers to exhaust all alternatives before using deadly force
- Implement a robust use-of-force continuum
- Require comprehensive reporting
In a statement regarding the recommendations, a city spokesperson said, "The city is committed to the next steps it publicly outlined and is moving forward with those with urgency. The responses to the (request for proposals) are currently under review."
Campaign Zero has criticized the RFP process underway by the city on a page found on its website.
The NAACP will host community forums on the report on June 30 and July 14. Mckesson said Campaign Zero will provide materials and support for those forums, though the organization may not attend in person.
