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This week I am focusing my newsletter solely on a comprehensive examination of police reform in Newton. Next week, I will be back to more week-to-week updates on gun store regulation, the Riverside affordable housing revisions, Green Line Accessibility, and a development on Walnut St in Newton Highlands.
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I wanted to take some time this week finally to discuss in some depth the recommendations of the Newton Police Reform Task Force released several weeks ago, as well as cover some dissenting viewpoints. (A new nominee for Newton Police Chief has also been named since then, subject to City Council approval, but I will leave that for a future newsletter.)
The Reform Task Force convened after the June 2020 protests nationally and in Newton that prompted a political battle in the City Council over the Newton Police budget. The task force issued their report with recommendations in March 2021. Its members included a former judge, two criminal defense attorneys, a person who helps with social reintegration after court interactions, a recently retired Newton Police sergeant, a specialist in police misconduct, two members of Myrtle Baptist Church (including a 2019 graduate of the Newton schools), a member of the Mayor’s Administration, a former federal prosecutor, and a deputy superintendent of the Cambridge Police, a social worker. They were assisted in their work by the consulting firm Strategy Matters of Dorchester.
Department Summary from the Task Force Report
“The City of Newton established its police department in 1873, operating with seven patrolmen. Today, the department is responsible for a range of city services, including crime prevention and response, animal control, parking and traffic enforcement, pedestrian and cyclist safety, and enforcing local ordinances. These services are provided by a team composed of 149 full-time sworn officers, and 35 full-time and 54 part-time civilian personnel. The department is led by Interim Chief Howard Mintz, who, along with six Captains and 11 Lieutenants, oversees eight bureaus (Dispatch and Information Technology, Patrol, Investigations, Traffic, Community Services, Special Operations and Support Services), and two offices (Executive and Internal Affairs). The department also works in close collaboration with a police prosecutor and a social worker.”
Recommendations of the Task Force
Below I pull out, quote, or summarize the elements that I felt were most notable for my readers...
I. Improve Relationships Between the Newton Community and the Newton Police Department Through the Creation of the Newton Police Committee (NPC). (The NPC should be composed of Newton community members and function both as a vehicle for collaboration, and civilian oversight.)
A diverse, five-member civilian committee with no current law enforcement or law enforcement family members, but one retired NPD officer.
Appointed by the Mayor (subject to Council approval) in staggered three-year terms with the possibility of a second term.
Regular quarterly meetings plus additional meetings as needed.
Jurisdiction and authority:
The NPC should have subpoena power
“Provide for citizen participation in reviewing complaints made by the public (Newton residents and non-Newton residents) about the conduct of Newton Police Officers”
“Provide a mechanism by which internal complaints – those filed by officers and employees of the Newton Police Department itself – relating to misconduct or malfeasance on the part of NPD personnel may receive a neutral and independent review outside the chain of command, with protections against retaliation for reporting misconduct”
“Conduct periodic audits of matters of ongoing community interest, including use of force data and the demographics of persons stopped or arrested by NPD officers”
“Review police procedures and policies and make recommendations to the chief of police on policy modifications or initiatives”
Establish online & telephone reporting of alleged misconduct, including anonymous reporting
Investigation of matters not covered by a recently-created state-level decertification review process
Publication of an annual report of investigations and findings/resolution
Review of use of force incidents, de-escalation of situations, discharge of weapons, vehicle pursuits, racial incidents, racially abusive language or conduct, and more
Making ongoing recommendations in writing for policy changes by the department that must be answered in writing within 45 days by the Chief
II. Ensure Racial, Ethnic, and Gender Diversity Among Police Personnel and Leadership by Leaving the Civil Service System.
III. Ensure that the Police Department Understands and Meets Community Safety Needs
IV. Support a Healthy, Inclusive Culture Within the Police Department Through a Culture Change Initiative Emphasizing a Customer Service Orientation and a Guardian Mindset Among Police Personnel
[I strongly disagree with the recommendation to view the Police Department through a customer service lens or to encourage police to view themselves that way. Citizens are not customers. Not all of life is a customer service interaction.]
V. Refine the Scope of Policing by Developing Alternative Response Strategies for Community Concerns.
Objective 1: Develop non-police response strategies to address emergency behavioral health and social service needs of Newton communities.
“Proposed strategy: Collaborate with other municipalities to create a regional, multidisciplinary, community team able to respond to crisis situations with complex causal factors. The model should include several key features:
advanced training for dispatch to appropriately triage behavioral health and social service calls,
a regional network of mobile clinical staff and medical first responders able to initiate contact,
assess, de-escalate, and provide transport for people who are intoxicated, mentally ill, or require a means of connecting with a range of other social services (e.g, DV shelter, homeless shelter, substance misuse or behavioral health treatment, etc.).”
“The Task Force has offered some general recommendations for the types of structures that might be put in place to modify the current response to behavioral health crises. These recommendations are based on excellent community-response models that have been very successfully implemented in cities across the country. One great example is the CAHOOTS (Crisis Assistance Helping Out on the Streets) model, which was created in Eugene and Springfield, Oregon in 1988. The combined population of these cities is approximately 200,000, and they represent one of the highest homelessness rates in the country. In early years, 5%-8% of calls were successfully diverted away from police; in 2017 CAHOOTS answered 17% of the Eugene police department call volume. The CAHOOTS model costs Eugene and Springfield approximately $800,000 annually. In the early years of implementation, funding was provided through the police department. Now, it is funded entirely by the city through the city budget and supplemental public and private grants. There is also a bill currently before the US Congress, the CAHOOTS Act, which will require that Medicare pays 95% for the first three years of implementation of the CAHOOTS model in cities or towns that choose to implement. While it may be difficult to implement this model within Newton alone, it might be feasible for a collaborative of cities to pool resources, for example, some combination of Newton, Wellesley, Weston, Needham, Waltham, Brookline, and Watertown.”
Objective 2: Develop non-police response strategies for City ordinance violations and “nuisance complaints.”
“Proposed strategy: Create capacity for municipal alternatives to police response to City ordinance violations (e.g., leaf blowers, barking or off-leash dogs, Crystal Lake, mask mandate, etc.), snow removal, sidewalk access, and potentially other “community nuisances.” Potential alternatives include expanding capacity at other City departments, creating neighborhood response teams, or developing new code enforcement functions within City government.”
“Many of the functions police are expected to play in their communities are outside the scope of both their mission and their training. In light of this, it seems reasonable to look for ways to redistribute the responsibility. [...] Another way to support this effort is to shift responsibility for enforcement of at least some city ordinances away from the police department and to other parts of the municipal government. [...] The Task Force recognizes that implementation of this recommendation, among others set forth in this report, could have potentially significant financial implications for the City of Newton. How to balance the goals of police reform against the city’s other pressing needs at this moment of municipal budgetary constraint is a matter committed to the city’s elected representatives.”
Objective 3: Eliminate or reduce ordinance violation and nuisance calls to 911 dispatch (in favor of more 311 reporting)
Objective 4: Proactively support police and community partners in distinguishing behavioral health crises from threats to community safety.
[I am deeply skeptical of the proposed “voluntary registry of vulnerable persons” and very concerned about the implications of such a registry – as well as its potential effectiveness compared to a wholly different approach to police interactions with crisis situations so that people are treated fairly, safely, and appropriately whether or not they are on some kind of registry.]
Official dissenting statement from one task force member
Task Force member Achille Vann Ricca wrote a page and a half dissenting statement included as a counterpoint to the official report, included in an appendix near the end:
“...these recommendations acknowledge the existence and history of systemic racism, and then provide solutions that do not adequately address them. I'm afraid that if Newton does not go beyond these recommendations, future endeavors with similar goals will be undermined. At a time when other cities around the country are adopting more decisive measures against systemic racism and policing, I urge Newton not to fall behind the curve of progress because we believe ourselves to be ‘progressive enough.’”
Counter-report from the Defund NPD organization
The community organization “Defund NPD,” formed last year to oppose the budgetary defunding of other city departments that has occurred to support the almost-continual expansion of the Newton Police budget, issued a counter-report to the task force report, on the basis that the task force did not go far enough in its analysis or recommendations.
If you’re not familiar with why the organization is called “Defund NPD,” they explain that in the opening of their opposition report: Newton is “over-funding policing at the expense of life-affirming services that help us realize our rights and meet our needs. While our society’s erroneous reliance on policing disproportionately impacts people of color, it dehumanizes us all and puts us all at risk.”
They argue that “police reforms aiming to ‘fix’ policing--including by hiring more officers of color, providing more training, or improving police-community relations--simply do not result in improved public safety. We need to think about the problem -- and therefore the solution -- from a wholly different perspective. We believe that by shifting our concept of ‘public safety’ from policing individual instances of state-defined ‘crime’ to focusing on eliminating the broad range of systemic social problems that cause suffering and vulnerability, our community will be safer for everybody.”
As is typically the case from the organization, Defund NPD does not make a case for a slash-and-burn approach to the funding question, but rather makes a thoughtful, detailed case for reducing funding to the police in stages, while shifting that funding into other departments to realign the city government with a more well-rounded approach to governing and securing our community.
The group calls this approach a “decrease [in] the footprint of policing” in favor of “a fully-funded community care infrastructure.” They also call in their counter-report for greater police accountability to the community, stronger civil governance over the police, and a demilitarization of police.
Their philosophy is articulated as follows: “Ultimately, we would like to make Newton so safe that policing and police become obsolete. Until then, everything that can be done by civilian city and community-based organizations should be moved out of the police department.”
As an interim stage of transforming policing in Newton, they argue for a leaner, more focused department geared only toward violent crime, while all other matters are shifted into other departments (to “civilian first responders” or to civil administrators for non-emergencies). They seek for police-civilian interactions in the field to be reduced to a minimum to avoid dangerous escalations of situations.
Here are some specific recommendations from the Defund NPD counter-report that many residents of Newton might find interesting or compelling, whether or not they feel they share the views of the organization:
“We recommend reassigning administrative and disturbance-related complaints to other city departments. These non-criminal, non-violent calls for help do not require police and police don’t want to do these jobs.” [I believe this point is basically consistent with the task force report, in fact.]
“We recommend removing police from schools. Police in schools have no positive impact on school safety overall and undermine safety, especially for students of color, students with disabilities, and LGBTQ+ youth. Funding for police in schools takes resources away from much-needed guidance and restorative justice services.”
“We recommend building a community responder system outside the Police Department that would mobilize 24/7 community response teams to address the wide range of community needs that police cannot effectively address, including mental health crises, needs of the unhoused, substance abuse issues and domestic violence problems.” [This is also similar to one of the task force recommendations and both cite CAHOOTS as a possible model.]
“We recommend transitioning to a civilian flagger system and away from a police monopoly on construction details.” [Similarly, the group calls for minimizing police involvement in traffic enforcement by improving physical road design for safety and utilizing technological solutions.]
“We recommend that public money saved by decreasing the footprint of policing be allocated to services that help us realize our rights and meet our needs.”
“We recommend that the City of Newton build up public and community services to address the United States’ historic under-funding of human rights including the right to safety, housing, food, healthcare and education as well as to address social problems.”
“We recommend that Newton establish a Department of Human Rights and Wellbeing to ensure that Newtonians realize our human rights to affordable housing, fair pay for work, quality healthcare, equitable education, etc.”
“We recommend that the City of Newton fund no-cost community education programs in restorative/transformative justice and crisis response (including overdose prevention training), among other subjects, in order to empower community members to support neighbors, understand social issues, and create an environment in which community members seek and have access to help before harm is caused.”
Some other observations from the counter-report:
“Defund NPD’s budget analysis showed that Newton has the 6th highest police budget per capita and the highest overall police budget compared to 23 representative cities based on criteria of proximity to Boston, total population, and crime rates, and is the 5th highest per capita spender. By defunding the police to the median per capita police spending, we would free up $4,069,136 to spend on life-affirming public safety initiatives. This represents almost double the 10% cut to police spending that Defund NPD called for in the FY2021 budget cycle.”
“Currently, nearly every complaint, disturbance or need for help is delegated to the police. As a result, police officers are given too many tasks, many of which should not be under their purview or that could lead to better public safety outcomes if guns were not introduced to the situation (and often at a lower cost to the city).”
“Newton’s Interim Police Chief Howard Mintz recently said that ‘quite a bit less’ than 10% of what Newton police do is crime fighting. This is borne out by data released by the Newton Police Department showing that only 14.8% of 2019 incidents were “potential criminal matters,” and [in fact] the largest group of those are [in reality, non-criminal ordinance] violations including leaf-blower complaints. Other non-violent incidents include neighbor complaints, keeping the peace and drunkenness.” [Which is to say, that after excluding all those matters that are not actually criminal, less than 10% remains.]
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I hope that readers of this newsletter find the recommendations of these two reports to be useful information and that you will share with the City Council and the Mayor which elements you find persuasive and worth pursuing. I look forward to hearing your feedback.
And I would close with this observation, especially in light of recent property crimes that have many residents on edge: There has only ever been one meaningful solution to petty property crime and that is to establish a society and economy with enough opportunity, equality, justice, and above-survival resource distribution to everyone that theft is unnecessary to anyone.
It is never policing that secures the safety of our communities, but rather the broader condition of the economy and the level of safety nets we build to catch people who are struggling. Those safety nets have grown thinner with every passing decade as their funding has been stripped away, while police budgets have consistently ballooned. The lack of funding invested in every other aspect of American communities is directly related to the plentiful funding granted to police instead.