Mesa residents surveyed on police, community safety

Building trust and legitimacy and working with our community is a core value of the Mesa Police Department and the city of Mesa and late last year we wanted to see how we’re doing.”

Mesa Police Chief Ken Cost

By Richard Dyer
Twitter: @RHDyer

A majority of 811 Mesa residents randomly selected for a phone survey are satisfied with the performance of the city’s police department, with 68.6% giving a 4 or 5 on a scale of 1 to 5.

The results were:

• 40% gave the answer a 5, for very satisfied;
• 28.6% a 4;
• 18.4% a 3;
• 5.5% a 2;
• 3.8% a 1, for not satisfied at all; and
• 3.7% replied “not sure/don’t know.”

Mesa Police Department officials asked Arizona State University’s Morrison Institute for Public Policy, a research unit of the Watts College of Public Service and Community Solutions, to conduct the survey.

“Building trust and legitimacy and working with our community is a core value of the Mesa Police Department and the city of Mesa and late last year we wanted to see how we’re doing,” Mesa Police Chief Ken Cost said during the June 3 Mesa City Council study session. “We wanted to measure from our community how we’re doing in that regard in a lot of categories, so we asked Morrison Institute of Public Policy to conduct that survey for us — independent and bipartisan.”

The results were very positive for the police and all departments within the city of Mesa, he said.

“Just on the quality of life and the city of Mesa as a whole and it really gives us things that we’re hearing from our community to work on and get better and to continuously improve what we know we have to do in a lot of these categories, so it was really good feedback,” he said.

Researchers worked with Mesa Police command staff to design a survey that would capture public attitudes, perceptions and priorities on a range of topics, said Andrea Whitsett, director of the Morrison Institute for Public Policy.

“So including quality of life, we looked at mental health response, homelessness, police technology, contact professionalism, the use of force and overall satisfaction. And, most importantly, we wanted this survey to provide useful information that would touch on issues and policy choices that the city and Mesa PD are presently considering,” she said.

They worked with a polling company to administer a phone survey to 811 Mesa residents, said Alison Cook-Davis associate director for research at Morrison Institute for Public Policy.

Data was collected between Feb. 22 and March 8. The margin of error for the full sample is 3.4 percentage points at the 95% confidence level.

To closely mirror U.S. Census data for Mesa, the sample was mildly weighted on age; gender; Hispanic, Latino or Spanish origin; and education level, according to the presentation.

Survey results shown to the City Council — and that are at mesaaz.gov/home/showdocument?id=43343 — were in categories such as:

• Quality of life and crime in Mesa;
• Community policing;
• Mental health response and homelessness;
• Policing technology and traffic enforcement;
• Police contact and professionalism;
• Use of force;
• Overall satisfaction and priorities.

When asked what the city should prioritize in the coming year — body cameras, hiring more mental health professionals, training police officers in deescalation, hiring more officers or providing more support for people experiencing homelessness — there was support for three items, Steve Kilar, communications director of Morrison Institute for Public Policy, said to the council.

“There is essentially equal support for on-body cameras, hiring mental health professionals and deescalation training. There’s not high support for hiring — for making it a priority, a No. 1 priority to hire more officers — or support for the homeless,” he said.

The survey results on the priorities, according to the study, are:

• Equip all police officers with on-body cameras, 23.5%;
• Hire more mental health professionals to respond to crisis calls, 23.4%;
• Train police officers in deescalation strategies, 22.9%;
• Hire more police officers, 16%;
• Provide more support for people experiencing homelessness, 10.1%; and
• Not sure/don’t know, 4.1%,

Richard Dyer
Managing Editor | East Valley
@RHDyer

rdyer@iniusa.org

Meet Richard
Richard Dyer has worked at Independent Newsmedia Inc. USA since 1987, starting his career in Apache Junction as a copy editor and being promoted over the years to work as the editor of the Mesa Independent, news services editor for the East Valley office in Apache Junction, managing editor for the East Valley office, news services editor for the East Valley office and eventually also for the newspapers at INI’s then-Chandler office, managing editor again and as a news editor covering Apache Junction/Gold Canyon and Queen Creek. He helped start the Florence Independent while the news editor covering Apache Junction and Mesa news. In January 2023, he became associate managing editor for the East Valley newspapers and in August 2023 became managing editor for the East Valley newspapers of Chandler/Tempe, Gilbert, Queen Creek, Florence, Mesa and Apache Junction/Gold Canyon, while also reporting on Mesa and Apache Junction/Gold Canyon.  

Community: Since 2009, he has worked as a volunteer to design The Blue Guitar Magazine, Blue Guitar Jr. magazine and Unstrung magazine, which are projects of The Arizona Consortium for the Arts; and since 2014, has been overseeing the art submissions. 

Education: University of Arizona with a master of arts in journalism and a bachelor of science in agricultural communication. Also continuing education at Mesa Community College in welding in a metal art sculpture class.

Random fact: Saw his first tornado on May 31, 2010, which was classified as an EF-2, as part of a stormchasing tour group.

Hobbies: He is an artist of welded-steel sculptures, selling his artwork at juried and non-juried art shows.