Topic: Community Engagement

Police and prosecutors are leaders in public safety and the criminal justice system. The challenges they face are complicated, ranging from responding to violent crime to addressing the unmet need for treatment and services related to mental illness and/or substance use disorder in the communities they serve. This gap in community-based treatment and services, coupled with complex societal changes and challenges—including income inequality and the resulting wealth gap—contributes to the justice system being the de facto response. As such, the responsibilities of traditional public safety stakeholders have broadened to include innovative approaches, including working with community-based public health partners.

The key to navigating these evolving and innovative strategies is through partnerships. Collaboration among justice system stakeholders is a common theme woven into the recommendations of scores of reports, toolkits, and other resources. However, budget and resource limitations, varying community and stakeholder perspectives and priorities, and balancing short-term needs with planning for long-term sustainability can create strains on individual agencies that have committed to these partnerships. These factors, while challenging, are not insurmountable.

The International Association of Chiefs of Police and the Association of Prosecuting Attorneys recently published a report on recommendations made during a roundtable on police-prosecutor collaboration held in August 2018 in Pennington County, South Dakota, with law enforcement and prosecutorial leaders from Harris County, Texas; Pennington County, South Dakota; Orleans Parrish, Louisiana; and Milwaukee County, Wisconsin.

These leaders identified practices that enable their agencies to address violent crime, create diversion programs, and pilot emerging tools, such as risk assessments, with careful consideration. The practices include devoting attention to roles and responsibilities at each justice system decision point, reviewing logistical and administrative processes so they best facilitate information and data sharing, and creating opportunities for feedback between their agencies and the community, as well as between all levels of staff from leadership to front-line officers and deputies.

The details and processes of how jurisdictions implement their programs and partnerships often vary. There is no one-size-fits all approach, so this report instead focuses on high-level values and processes that promote productive relationship building to facilitate collaboration. For all jurisdictions seeking to build new relationships within their justice systems, the report encourages police and prosecutors to engage their communities and other stakeholders, promote shared messaging and accountability between police and prosecutors, and make an effort to use and reinvest agency resources as efficiently as possible. The challenges police and prosecutors face can be daunting, but through partnerships, jurisdictions can create effective solutions that will benefit both their agencies and the communities they serve.

Local organizers have galvanized an entire region in favor of shutting down the Workhouse, a place they see as emblematic of official indifference towards the plight of needy residents. 

The first time Inez Bordeaux told her story in front of a crowd, she was nervous.

It was April 2018 and dozens of people were packed into a small music venue in St. Louis to raise money for a campaign called Close the Workhouse. The fundraiser doubled as a launch party for the campaign, which is focused on building political pressure to shut down the city’s medium-security jail, known as the Workhouse.

“The very existence of the Workhouse shows me that this city is willing to throw people away,” said Bordeaux, a nurse and mother of four who spent 30 days in the Workhouse in 2016.

She took a deep breath as she described the roaches and rats in the group cell she shared with other women. Water leaked from the ceilings, she said, and black mold grew across the walls. City officials have maintained that the facility is clean and well-functioning.

“Being in a place that’s not fit for animals—let alone humans—and being treated like you’re less than nothing changes you in a way that leaves a stain on you,” she told the crowd. “It’s irreversible.”

Months earlier, nonprofit law firm ArchCity Defenders had filed a lawsuit against the city over conditions at the Workhouse, calling them “unspeakably hellish” and “inhumane”—allegations the city disputes.

The lawsuit came after a July 2017 heatwave, during which people locked inside the 53-year-old brick building screamed for help. As temperatures soared, organizers raised money to bail people out of the Workhouse. Then, they started planning a campaign to shut it down.

But the organizing that led to Close the Workhouse actually started years earlier, in 2014, after Ferguson police officer Darren Wilson killed 18-year-old Michael Brown.

Many people around the country know that Brown’s death led to an uprising in the Ferguson suburb of St. Louis in 2014. But the activists who started out protesting in the streets back then have not stopped working. Five years later, they continue to demand accountability as they build political power.

“We started with policing and we went straight to politics,” said Michelle Higgins, the lead organizer for Close the Workhouse. “We decided that people who have power need to be held accountable by the people who put them in power.”

I spoke with Higgins about her work while reporting on Close the Workhouse for 70 Million, an open-source podcast about justice reform efforts across the country, which receives funding from the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation’s Safety and Justice Challenge.

Along with prominent St. Louis organizer Kayla Reed, Higgins co-directs Action St. Louis—a black-led millennial activist collective. Last year, the group helped unseat Bob McCulloch, the St. Louis county prosecutor who declined to bring charges against Officer Wilson. McCulloch held the prosecutor seat for 28 years before his loss to former Ferguson councilman Wesley Bell. Bell campaigned on a criminal justice reform platform—much like St. Louis Circuit Attorney Kim Gardner, who took office in 2017 and has been working with the Vera Institute of Justice to implement data-driven reforms to reduce incarceration and racial disparities.

As policymakers started moving toward reform, Action St. Louis teamed up with other grassroots groups and nonprofits to host community discussions on ways to reimagine public safety. And they made it a priority to center the ideas of people directly affected by the system, Higgins said.

“And that’s where we got Close the Workhouse,” she said. “It’s something we’ve all wanted to see. But it’s not something that we came up with because it’s trendy, it looks good and it rolls well off the tongue—impacted people were at the center of launching this campaign because they are the ones who brought this demand.”

What’s more, they want the city to take the jail’s annual $16 million budget and reinvest it in community programs and social services.

Inez Bordeaux has grown into one of the campaign’s main organizers since speaking at the fundraiser last year. She has shared her story countless times—both on the streets and in the halls of power.

Twice a week, she coordinates volunteers and heads out to busy St. Louis intersections to hand out fliers and tell people why she wants to shut down the jail. And last November, she stood in front of a group of aldermen, which are the equivalent of city council members, and told them all about her time inside the Workhouse.

“That 30 days has radicalized me, it has changed me,” she said emphatically, standing behind a podium inside St. Louis City Hall. “And so when I say that I want the Workhouse to be closed—don’t misunderstand me. I’m not asking. It is not a request. I am demanding it.”

Earlier this month, members of the Safety and Justice Challenge Network met in Denver to discuss progress on our shared goals of reducing jail incarceration while creating fairer, more effective justice systems. Stakeholders from 39 jurisdictions gathered to share their experiences and expertise in developing and implementing reform strategies, while also securing buy-in from their local communities.

A common theme that has emerged from the on-the-ground work is that securing buy-in can be a difficult process. To help facilitate that process, the conference hosted several sessions on community engagement and community partnerships.

Storytelling—illustrating the actual lives impacted by our work—is a highly effective way to demonstrate the need for change, and influence the public opinion needed to support data-driven reform. We’ve seen this before—as in the tragic death of Kalief Browder—whose story in The New Yorker helped propel the dialogue around closing Rikers Island jail.

At the Denver meeting, the power of storytelling to drive change was examined by a panel of storytellers—moderated by the MacArthur Foundation’s Patrick Griffin and Lauren Pabst—who came together to share their work with the conference:

• Filmmaker Garrett Bradley directed a short film for the New York Times about her friend Aloné, a young woman in New Orleans who decides to marry her fiancé while he is incarcerated.
• Independent Producer Eve Abrams produced a series for New Orleans Public Radio sharing stories of those incarcerated across Louisiana and their loved ones on the outside.
• StoryCorps Editor-in-Chief Michael Garofalo presented the StoryCorps Justice Project—a new initiative supported by the Challenge that includes audio files, animated gifs, and illustrations to further tell the stories of people affected by jail incarceration.

Each panelist explained his or her unique path to telling the stories of others. It was an important reminder of the power of storytelling to hold people together, and how shared values around equality and justice can connect people across disparate paths.

Panelists stressed the importance of not only telling stories, but listening to them as well. Take, for instance, the story of Jamal Faison and Born Blackwell, animated and audio-recorded by the StoryCorps Justice Project. Jamal, a 20-year-old college student, was arrested for attempting to steal mobile devices from subway riders in New York, but maintains that he wasn’t involved in the robbery. Jamal was incarcerated and awaited trial for eight months on Rikers Island, before he pled guilty and was released from custody. His uncle Born visited him almost weekly while he was incarcerated, and Jamal credits Born with helping him navigate life after incarceration, which was filled with barriers to important needs like housing, employment, and other social services.

Jamal’s story is a perfect illustration of the ease with which an arrest can upend someone’s life, and how the consequences of incarceration can continue long after someone has left jail or prison. I encourage you to watch the animation, listen to the Justice Project prodcast, see other stories from the Justice Project, and explore the work by Garrett and Eve. People like Jamal and Born are hiding in plain sight in the jurisdictions we all work in, and hearing their stories allows us to view our system of incarceration through a different lens while driving home the immediate need for reform.

*Pictured from left: Patrick Griffin, Lauren Pabst, Garrett Bradley, Eve Abrams, and Michael Garofalo at the Safety and Justice Challenge conference in Denver

In the past month, the COVID-19 crisis has collided with another American epidemic: mass incarceration. The results have been nothing short of disastrous. Eight of the top ten largest outbreaks in America are in correctional facilities, according to data on COVID-19 hotspots compiled by the New York Times. Over 14,000 incarcerated people have tested positive in state and federal prisons, and countless more infections have likely gone undetected due to lack of testing. Tragically, COVID-19 continues to spread behind bars, since inadequate healthcare and overcrowded, unsanitary conditions have turned correctional facilities into a “petri dish” for the virus.

To protect incarcerated individuals and corrections officers alike, some jurisdictions are taking promising steps to reduce correctional populations, including granting early release to some incarcerated individuals. Jurisdictions must pair these crucial early release efforts with reforms aimed at keeping people from entering jails and prisons in the first place – starting with modifications to policing practices.

Police are the gatekeepers to the criminal justice system, and as first responders, they are vulnerable to the spread of COVID-19. As of late April, nearly 4,900 New York Police Department officers had tested positive for the coronavirus, and 37 officers had tragically lost their lives. And in Detroit, over 1,000 officers – roughly 35 percent of the Detroit Police Department – have spent time in quarantine since the outbreak began. To protect officers and residents alike, jurisdictions must ensure that policing practices are in line with the latest public health guidelines for physical distancing and other health precautions.

Policing for the 21^st Century

By rethinking policing practices, city officials can curtail jail admissions – and critically, can help safeguard law enforcement officers and the communities they serve. Police departments are making critical changes, like minimizing police stops and custodial arrests, in response to the spread of the pandemic. These urgent reforms are also aligned with 21^st century policing principles, according to Ron Davis, the former head of the Office of Community Oriented Policing Services at the U.S. Department of Justice.

“Police must now apply the public health model of “do no harm first” in making decisions, from arrests to uses of force,” said Mr. Davis in an interview with the Center for American Progress.  “Making arrests must transition from being a common tool used by law enforcement to becoming literally a tool of last resort.”

It’s also not true that incorporating physical distancing or making other changes to policing practices will jeopardize public safety, Mr. Davis said.

“The police alone cannot make a community safe. And we have learned over the years that simply adding more police does not equate to more public safety. It takes an entire community working with the police to sustain long-term public safety,” he said. “So, as we decrease the physical footprint of law enforcement in the community, it doesn’t automatically mean that public safety is compromised or that crime is going to go up.”

Instead, cities must also invest in holistic strategies for preventing and reducing crime, from youth engagement to mental health services to diversion programming. “In short,” Mr. Davis explains, “we must reimagine policing so that it relies less on physical interventions and more on community partnerships.”

Recommendations for policing during the COVID-19 pandemic

With these goals in mind, the Center for American Progress released the following recommended policy changes that police departments are adopting to protect officers and prevent the further spread of COVID-19 behind bars and within the community:

1. Drastically reduce the number of police stops and custodial arrests. Law enforcement agencies must decrease enforcement actions for lower-level offenses, focusing instead on the most serious cases. Custodial arrests should be reserved only for the small subset of individuals who pose a clear risk to public safety. Several jurisdictions have taken already steps to limit custodial arrests, including Washington, D.C., where Metropolitan Police Department Chief Peter Newsham has expanded the types of offenses that are eligible for citation and release. Likewise, the Philadelphia Police Department postponed arrests for many categories of non-violent crimes, including all narcotics offenses, burglary, prostitution, vandalism, and others.
2. Limit the amount of calls for service that officers respond to in person. Police departments must limit officers’ exposure to the virus by reducing in-person responses for nonemergency issues. Officers should respond in-person only when there is an imminent threat to public safety or in instances where investigation or evidence collection cannot be delayed. In cities like Syracuse, NY, for example, law enforcement has temporarily shifted protocols for responding to calls for service to emphasize online and over-the-phone incident reporting.
3. Prioritize responding to and preventing domestic violence. Even during the pandemic, not everyone is safer at home – including survivors and those at risk of domestic violence. Law enforcement agencies need to train officers to recognize the warning signs and understand the increased risk of intimate partner violence in the context of the current crisis. Agencies should prominently feature hotline numbers and other resources from local service providers alongside all public guidance related to COVID-19. In Minnesota, the state Department of Public Safety instructed local law enforcement agencies that residents who are not safe in their homes must be allowed to relocate, without risking a violation of the governor’s executive order. Likewise, the city of Chicago has partnered with ride-sharing services provide free rides for those who contact the Illinois Domestic Violence Hotline, helping to ensure that those who need to relocate are able to do so.
4. Obtain and distribute personal protective equipment (PPE) to every officer to use while on duty. Law enforcement agencies must provide officers with personal protective equipment to protect their health and prevent additional spread of the virus. In cities such as Austin, Texas, and Philadelphia, for example, police officers are required to wear face masks while on duty. Agencies must also provide access to COVID-19 testing and trainings on personal safety precautions, such as physical distancing, sanitizing procedures, and recognizing the symptoms of COVID-19. In addition to providing PPE kits to patrol officers, the Los Angeles Police Department provided guidance for officers on using this equipment and maintaining safe interactions with the public.
5. Consider contracting with local hotels to allow officers to isolate. Jurisdictions may need to provide safe lodging for first responders, who are at heightened risk of exposure to COVID-19 and may be required to distance themselves from their household and colleagues. The city of Seattle, for example, contracted an entire hotel to provide accommodations for first responders and other essential city employees, including police, firefighters, emergency medical services (EMS), and transportation workers.

In 2020, Americans across the country joined in protest to demand an end to racial injustice and police violence. As more and more Americans begin to reconsider the role of law enforcement in our society, city leaders have a unique opportunity to re-envision their approach to strengthening community safety and wellbeing.

Sparked by a series of high-profile incidences of police violence against the Black community, the protests drew national attention to the outsize role of policing in many American cities. The number of police officers nationwide has ballooned over the past several decades, yielding only modest impacts on crime rates, at best. From resolving noise complaints to reversing overdoses, our society has come to rely on police officers to respond to a broad swath of issues beyond simply responding to crime. The expansion of policing has created disproportionate harm for Black Americans, who are unjustly subjected to higher rates of arrest, incarceration, and aggressive enforcement tactics. All too often, contact with the police can turn fatal. Police violence is now among the leading cause of death for Black men, one in 100 of whom will be killed by law enforcement in their lifetimes.

Now, building on years of work from grassroots campaigns and local advocates, the movement to shrink the footprint of the police is gaining momentum in communities nationwide. As the calls for change grow louder, local governments are increasingly looking to rethink their approach to public safety to better meet the needs of residents. A new Center for American Progress report—“Beyond Policing: Investing in Offices of Neighborhood Safety”—offers a roadmap for cities to sustainably shift toward a community-driven approach to public safety, starting by establishing a civilian Office of Neighborhood Safety (ONS).

An ONS serves as a hub for nonpunitive public safety solutions, which might include violence interruption, job readiness programs, civilian first responders, transformative mentoring, and others. Crucially, such offices are situated outside the justice system and staffed entirely by civilians, setting them apart from traditional public safety agencies. By establishing an ONS, local governments officials have a unique opportunity to ensure that data-driven community safety strategies receive the sustained financial and political support necessary to create meaningful impact. And by embedding nonpunitive approaches into the fabric of government, city leaders send a powerful message about the importance of these strategies – an important step towards changing the narrative around public safety.

The ONS model was pioneered in Richmond, California, where community-driven strategies like the Peacemaker Fellowship have contributed to significant reductions in citywide homicide rates. When Richmond established its ONS in 2007, the city had the highest homicide rate in the state of California. That year, the city recorded 45.9 homicides per 100,000 people—eight times the national average. Ten years later, in 2017, the city’s homicide rate had fallen by 80 percent, to nine per 100,000.

As cities consider launching such offices, local leaders should think about the following:

• Creating a community-driven agenda: Cities should consider creating a permanent pathway for residents to engage with the ONS and shape the development and implementation of public safety policies. The city of New York, for example, is institutionalizing the community’s role in policymaking through NeighborhoodStat, an initiative operated by the Mayor’s Office of Neighborhood Safety. NeighborhoodStat is a joint problem-solving process that empowers residents of high-crime public housing developments to work directly with city agencies to craft a public safety agenda that is grounded in the community’s needs.
• Budgeting: Cities should make a sustained investment in their ONS, ideally through the municipal budgeting process. Some jurisdictions have established new taxes to create dedicated revenues streams for community-based interventions. Jurisdictions in which marijuana sales are legal may also consider earmarking a portion of tax revenue to support community safety initiatives. Other options for funding community-based safety interventions include limiting the growth of the police department’s budget, or shrinking it, and redirecting funds toward community safety priorities.
• Promoting accountability: ONSs should be held accountable for achieving meaningful improvements in public safety. City leadership must set clear and realistic outcomes and goals and then hold ONS leadership accountable for meeting these milestones over the specified period of time. City leaders should work with ONSs to set realistic public safety goals, using the evidence base from other jurisdictions as a guide.
• Creating flexibility: City officials should recognize that community-based interventions differ from traditional government programming, and the structure and function of the ONS should reflect this. Cities must consider creating flexibility for ONSs to operate outside the regulations that were developed to fit traditional government agencies. For example, an ONS must be permitted to recruit job candidates from outside the civil service sector, and to hire employees with justice system involvement.
• Engaging credible messengers: When preparing to launch an ONS, local leaders should consider how they want to engage credible messengers—community members who are able to connect with high-risk individuals based on their shared backgrounds and life experiences. Some cities have hired credible messengers directly into full-time employment with the municipal government, whereas others contract with nonprofit organizations to provide services in neighborhoods across the city. Regardless of model, cities should support the professionalization of credible messengers. Their work is difficult and potentially dangerous, and cities should invest in the professional development and support they need to succeed.

The ONS model represents a powerful tool for institutionalizing community-based interventions. By establishing an ONS, local leaders can take the first step toward shrinking the footprint of policing and making a meaningful investment in public safety beyond policing.