What We Have Done

 UJPLI is a coalition of community organizations and advocates working to build justice in policing for all. Below is a list of some of the activities that members of our coalition have engaged in over the years.

• Convened a coalition of activists working to ensure the safety of local immigrants who were targets of racial profiling by law enforcement.

  • Activities included trilingual know your rights community outreach and education, monitoring local ICE enforcement, court accompaniment, advocating with local officials for policy change, participation in public hearings, researching best practices and mobilizing protests to call attention to these injustices. 

• Advocated for policy change with the Suffolk County Sheriff’s department and the SCPD to end the practice of honoring ICE administrative warrants.

• Ongoing monitoring of the SCPD-DOJ agreement, including:

  • Quarterly meetings with the SPCD Police Commissioner and departmental designees;      

  • Biannual meetings with the DOJ, advocates and impacted community members;    

  • Attendance at monthly Precinct meetings.;  

  • Participation in Commissioners community forums. 

  • Community training on how the Suffolk government works, and how to do legislative advocacy around SCPD and sheriff landscape.

• Members provided information about immigration and law enforcement to communities, organizing networks of support, upstander training and supporting sanctuary by churches and synagogues.

• Informed vulnerable communities on their rights regarding ICE.

• Coalition members were able to support Latinos who were being taken into custody by ICE

• Worked with many community organizations and challenged the County to end its partnership with ICE and its School Resource Officer Program

• Formed an Education Equity committee to inform residents of diverse communities about students’ rights in school, regarding discipline, special education, police in schools and more.

  • UJPLI Counselor NOT Cops/Police Free Schools Campaign

  • Meeting with School Superintendents and other school administrators

• Presented films such as the Gang Crackdown and Beyond the Badge to communities to educate and explore police actions with Latino youth and the actions of SRO in a school. (NYCLU)

• Conducted in-depth research on bias in traffic stops, the effect of policing on the health of Black, indigenous, People of Color and the cost of misconduct.

  • Researched the state regulations, laws and policies regarding hate crimes, missing children, racial disparities, police misconduct.

• Regularly addressed the Suffolk County Legislature Public Safety Committee about issues of law enforcement about SCPD, ICE and SRO’s in schools and met with individual or groups of members of the PSC to discuss their role, to inform them of police actions, and DOJ mandates and lack of compliance.

• Engaged County Legislators, the Suffolk County Executive and staff, Police Commissioners, and the Suffolk County Sheriff sharing documents to verify data driven findings about bias in policing.

• Provided Guidance for the Governor’s Task Force in Suffolk County.

  • Spoke at Task Force 8 Listening Sessions and other legislative sessions.

  • Provided recommendation to the sheriff for his plan for reform.

  • Brought together 2 other community organizations working on policing, co-creating the Tri-Coalition to transform poling and community safety on Long Island.

  • Helped write and edit the People’s Plan working with members of the other coalitions.

  • Made presentations with the Tri-Coalition on the People’s Plan, on various aspects of policing.

• Spoke at rallies and press conferences on policing issues, such as an independent office of Inspector General (IG), an independent Civilian Complaint Review Board (CCRB), Hate Crimes, and Traffic Stops

• UJP’s members’ have worked to:

a.     End local law enforcement cooperation with ICE (including at county jails); 

b.     Call attention to racial disparities in law enforcement by gathering community stories and analyzing publicly available data;

c.     Improve the collection of traffic stop data to better reflect demographics;

d.     Strengthen language Access policies/procedures (in collaboration with the Long Island Language Advocates Coalition);

e.     Improve hate crimes classification and response;

f.      Improve police accountability and processing of civilian complaints;

g.     Ensure that policies, reports and data are made publicly available;

h.     Increase community awareness, knowledge and commitment to transformation in policing and community safety.