Topic: Community Engagement

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.

Charleston County sustainably reduced our jail population by 20 percent between 2014 and 2019, as part of our work on the Safety & Justice Challenge.  The efforts over the last several years underscore the importance of intentional, data-guided policies and practices that engage the community in improving the local criminal justice system. Our work has been done under the auspices of the Charleston County Criminal Justice Coordinating Council, where I serve as project director. It’s a collaborative council of elected and senior officials and community representatives that formed in 2015.

In 2019 we launched an initiative to better inform and involve the community. Currently, we have four collaborative working groups, including community representatives and system leaders, working on our next strategic plan.

The workgroups are focusing on: community engagement and disparity; diversion and deflection from the criminal justice system; bond and reentry; and the processing of cases in our court system. Each group is using identified community priorities, system trends and more recent lessons learned—from the pandemic and the growing movement for racial justice—to set goals that will guide reforms to better serve the community in the years to come.

To get here, we’ve traveled a journey. In 2018 we published a report that explored a variety of racial and ethnic inequities locally and nationally, dissected system decision points, and reviewed national examples of reform. We learned by 2017, Black individuals were brought to jail on five single, low-level charges 2.61 times as often as white individuals, a rate that was almost 30 percent lower than it was in 2014 before we started reducing bookings. Still, in 2017 we incarcerated Black individuals more than seven times the rate of white individuals.

In 2019, the council launched our Dialogue to Change project to expand community engagement while better informing and involving the community in creating our next strategic plan.

We worked closely with community representatives and Everyday Democracy, technical assistance providers to the Safety and Justice Challenge, to form a community coalition that helped to: Build an infrastructure for outreach and meaningful engagement; hold dialogues in constructive spaces to share perspectives on key criminal justice system challenges, foster relationships, and explore ideas for moving forward; and conclude with an Action Forum to determine community priorities for the next strategic plan.

The group identified parts of the community not yet engaged in the discussion, figured out how to include them, and made it happen. We engaged more than 1,000 people in the Dialogue To Change process: more than 450 people came to large community discussions; 101 people came to 11 recurring small group roundtable dialogs; and more than 650 people took part in a community survey.

Here’s a video that gives an overview of the process.

Participants reacted positively throughout, and in the end five broad themes emerged:

• Racial bias and socioeconomic factors, such as poverty and low educational attainment, exacerbate disparity in the justice system.
• The everyday conduct and behaviors of system agents, such as police officers, defense attorneys, prosecutors, and judges, impacts perceptions of trustworthiness, accountability, and transparency of the criminal justice system.
• There are major challenges for individuals returning to the community from incarceration, such as system-related financial obligations, housing, different kinds of treatment, transportation, employment, and regaining community trust.
• Outcomes produced by the local criminal justice system need to be improved.
• Engagement strategies such as transparent reporting, public forums, and community conversations are helpful in improving the local justice system.

The community survey also showed common perceptions of the local criminal justice system: People agree that improvements are needed, have concerns over safety, and want to know more. People want more to be done to improve fairness and address disparities, bonding practices, the time it takes to bring cases to justice, and recidivism.

At the action forum, we identified these priorities:

• Increase education, training, and awareness for justice system stakeholders
  • Special trained units for special populations (mental health)
  • Training (sensitivity), substance abuse, language/human
• Create more opportunities for community members to become actively involved and engaged
  • Community buy-ins
  • More involvement between the council and the community
• Build on efforts and activities that the council is doing
  • Provide adequate funding for council based on qualitative results
  • Focus on the challenges of re-entry from prison and jail
• Establish partnerships and collaborations that will support local justice reform
  • Prevention before intervention
  • Find community leaders to be the face and voice of this advocacy

Our strategic plan will be finalized this summer and is shaping up to keep community engagement at the forefront. We anticipate it will include a combination of low or no-cost objectives that can be enacted with minimal financial or policy hurdles, as well as more ambitious goals for collaborative reform through community engagement.

—Kristy Danford is the Project Director at Charleston County Criminal Justice Coordinating Council.

As recently as 2017, the city o­­f Dayton, Ohio was considered the epicenter of the nation’s opioid epidemic. That year, Dayton logged the highest overdose death rate in the state and one of the highest rates in the country.

Since then, however, the city has cut its overdose deaths in half. Led by Mayor Nan Whaley, Dayton has pioneered a new model for addressing substance misuse that is reshaping the way that communities think about addiction.

When the opioid epidemic hit the Dayton region, there was no roadmap for effectively addressing substance misuse crises. Previous epidemics were tragically mishandled, with policymakers relying on “tough on crime” approaches that criminalized addiction and targeted communities of color. With a commitment to avoiding the mistakes of the past, Dayton leaders forged a new path that focused on treating addiction like a disease—not a crime. The community came together to mount a coordinated response, taking risks along the way that ultimately established Dayton as a national model for saving lives.

Through the Mayors for Smart on Crime initiative, the Center for American Progress teamed up with Mayor Whaley to tell Dayton’s story. The resulting report, authored by Erin Welch, serves as a guide for other leaders to develop a compassionate, comprehensive response to substance use epidemics. Welch joined Mayor Whaley’s team last summer, as part of her Master of Public Policy and Management program at Carnegie Mellon University. She wrote the report in memory of her brother, who died of an overdose in January 2018.

For policymakers looking to stem the tide of opioid misuse, Dayton’s experience offers a number of key lessons:

• Follow the data. Data is at the heart of all of Dayton’s interventions. In fact, the epidemic went largely undetected until the Dayton Police Department launched a collaborative effort in 2012 to identify the root causes of high property crime rates. An analysis of interagency data found that many of the individuals involved in property crimes were struggling with opioid addiction, revealing for the first time the scope of substance misuse in the city. Data helped catalyze the city’s response to the emerging crisis and has continued to guide decision-making ever since. Partners across the public and nonprofit sectors have established a data sharing structure that allows for regular analysis of overdose patterns, providing a fuller picture of trends across geographic and demographic groups. Armed with timely and comprehensive data, service providers are able to more effectively target outreach and interventions to meet the needs of the community.
• Fight the stigma. Too often, the stigma attached to addiction prevents people from seeking help. Stigma can also shape the way that medical professionals and justice system practitioners respond to people with substance use disorders, creating additional barriers to accessing effective treatment. To combat the stigma around substance misuse, Dayton has built a community of support and recovery. Each week, a local nonprofit hosts a meeting for individuals impacted by addiction, where the group celebrates the milestones of individuals in recovery and offers support for those who are in active addiction. Unlike traditional 12-step programs, which emphasize the anonymity of participants, Dayton’s program invites loved ones to join meetings to learn about the nature of the disease and raise awareness about the number of people affected by addiction. Partners also sponsor community-wide events, from rallies to business roundtables, focused on educating the public on substance use disorders and offering a message of hope for those impacted by addiction. Through collective effort, Dayton is establishing a shared understanding that addiction is a chronic illness, not a personal failing.
• Prioritize saving lives. Dayton’s first priority is saving lives. Whereas traditional approaches to addressing substance misuse tend to be singularly focused on promoting abstinence, Dayton’s model is rooted in the understanding that individuals can only successfully enter recovery when they’re ready to take that step. The community has taken bold action to support the wellbeing of those in active addiction until they are ready to seek treatment, focusing on reducing the risk of disease and fatal overdose. This philosophy is known as “harm reduction.” Dayton was one of the first jurisdictions in the state to declare a state of emergency in response to the opioid epidemic, a move that freed up resources to devote to harm reduction services. All first responders are now equipped with naloxone, the lifesaving overdose reversal drug, and many members of the community are trained to use and carry the medication as well. With widespread access to naloxone, the community has seen a significant decline in the fatality rate of overdoses. Dayton also launched a syringe exchange program, called CarePoint, where residents can swap used syringes for sterile injection equipment. In addition to limiting the spread of disease, CarePoint serves as an entry-point for treatment. CarePoint staff members build trusting relationships with clients, building a support system for individuals struggling with substance use disorders. Once clients are ready to enter recovery, CarePoint staff can quickly help them get the treatment they need.

Though there’s still much work left to do, the city has made significant strides towards combatting the opioid crisis. As communities grapple with this national epidemic, policymakers should look toward the compassionate, collective model developed in Dayton, Ohio.