Last May, the Bryan County Sheriff ’s Office reached out to faculty of Georgia Southern University’s Criminal Justice and Criminology Department to “inquire about the possibility of collaborating on many of the initiatives the agency was interested in pursuing.”

One of those initiatives was a community survey, the results of which will be discussed in a public meeting Feb. 16 in Richmond Hill. While the full report will be discussed in detail at the meeting, which gets underway at 6 p.m. at the Bryan County Administration Building in Richmond Hill and also shown on social media, here’s a Cliff Notes version of the Georgia Southern report recently released by BCSO. 

In all, 117 residents completed the survey from July to October 2021, which is part of Sheriff Mark Crowe’s efforts to fulfill a campaign promise to improve community relations between BCSO and the public it is tasked with protecting.

Bryan County Sheriff ’s Deputy Jennifer Fleming, who serves as a public information officer, called the feedback “insightful.”

The majority of those who responded viewed BCSO favorably, but some didn’t – “which suggests there is still room for improving police-community relations in the way of procedural justice,” according to the report.

Further, a majority of those who took the survey hope to see more transparency and community outreach from BCSO in the future.

Interestingly enough to anyone who drives in Bryan County, “traffic emerged frequently when asking citizens about the biggest safety concerns they had in the county,” noting 42 percent of those who took the survey named traffic as a safety problem.