Lawrence’s NAACP chapter is offering an outlet for those who are uncomfortable or afraid to speak their thoughts.

The organization is asking area residents to offer input on their encounters with local law enforcement, good or bad, through anonymous surveys, said chapter president Ursula Minor. Over the past three weeks the organization collected several dozen surveys and it will continue to accept them until mid-March.

The surveys — which are for everyone, not just people of color — are meant as a possible alternative to filing a complaint with local law enforcement, which many are unwilling to do for various reasons, Minor said.

“Say a person gets pulled over by the police and they feel like their rights were violated in some fashion, form or way. Some people aren’t comfortable filing a complaint or filling out a form online with the department,” Minor said. “They ask for witnesses, their names, their addresses and things like that. And some people don’t feel comfortable going in that direction.”

“Our survey is completely confidential; there’s nothing on that form at all that will link to that person in any way,” Minor added.

With widespread civil unrest throughout the country, Minor said the surveys will be used to spark a conversation with police in an effort to avoid a major incident locally.

“Through several meetings, different events we’ve attended and with the issues going on outside Lawrence and other cities, people have concerns,” Minor said. “We don’t want anything like that here, police altercations, things that you see in the news recently and in the past.”

The anonymous survey is unique to Lawrence, though it may spread to other NAACP chapters, Minor said. So far the Lawrence Police Department has welcomed the process and cooperated fully with the organization.

“Whatever data we collect we want to sit down and talk with them about it. It’s really just to open a dialogue up, and if there’s something there we’ll all just sit down and discuss it,” she said. “The Lawrence Police Department was very open when we requested to have meetings with them, that hasn’t even been an issue.”

Minor said the organization didn’t set a specific goal for how many surveys they’d like to collect. Rather, the group simply wants to provide another way for people to speak out if they’re uncomfortable with traditional avenues.

Around 25 collection boxes with surveys are placed around Lawrence should anyone wish to fill out a physical copy, Minor said.

The survey can also be found online at http://goo.gl/forms/IG1jG61hSM.