Numbers tell you how an encounter was rated. Comments tell you why - and when two-thirds of surveys arrive with something written in the box, the language itself becomes a dataset. Look across those comments and the same words keep surfacing: respectful, professional, listened, kind. Residents are not grading outcomes; they are describing how officers made them feel during the process. That is procedural justice in the community's own vocabulary.
This infographic maps the theme frequency of written comments so a supervisor can see, at a glance, which behaviors residents notice most. Treat it as recognition material hiding in plain sight: pull a comment for roll call each week, quote the dominant themes in an awards nomination, or show the graphic at a community meeting to demonstrate that the department reads - and acts on - what people write. It also works in reverse: the themes that rarely appear for a given shift or unit point to coaching conversations worth having.
For the playbook on converting this raw language into a sustained recognition program that keeps good officers in uniform, read Officer Recognition and Retention.
