2021 Police Reform & Reinvention Collaborative
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2021 Police Reform & Reinvention Collaborative City of Binghamton, New York March 2021 1 Table of Contents Introduction………………………………………………………………………………………………3 Message from Mayor Richard C. David……………………………………………………………..6 Binghamton Police Department Overview………………………………………………………….8 Binghamton Police Reform and Reinvention: Current Practice, Community Input, and Empirical Evidence by The John F. Finn Institute for Public Safety, Inc……………….45 Goals — 2021 Police Reform & Reinvention Collaborative…………………………………..159 Goal #1 — Improve Transparency & Accountability…………………………….…….160 Goal #2 — Diversify Binghamton Police Ranks………………………………………..161 Goal #3 — Invest In Mental Health, Substance Abuse & Crime Victim Services…………………………………………………………………....162 Goal #4 — Enhance Training / Policies In Use of Force, Cultural Competency, 21st Century Policing Issues………………………………….163 Goal #5 — Expand Community Policing Strategies…………………………………..164 Goal #6 — Improve Police-Youth Relationships……………………………………….165 Goal #7 — Citizen Engagement……..…………………………………………………....166 Attachments…………………………………………………………………………………………...167 Introduction In June 2020, Governor Cuomo issued Executive Order No. 203, titled New York State Police Reform and Reinvention Collaborative, “...following the police-involved death of George Floyd in Minnesota, protests have taken place daily throughout the nation and in communities across New York State in response to police-involved deaths and racially-biased law enforcement to demand change, action, and accountability.” The Executive Order police agencies to “perform a comprehensive review of current police force deployments, strategies, policies, procedures, and practices, and develop a plan to improve such deployments, strategies, policies, procedures, and practices, for the purposes of addressing the particular needs of the communities served by such police agency and promote community engagement to foster trust, fairness, and legitimacy, and to address any racial bias and disproportionate policing of communities of color.” The Executive Order mandated “Each chief executive of such local government shall convene the head of the local police agency, and stakeholders in the community to develop such plan, which shall consider evidence-based policing strategies, including but not limited to, use of force policies, procedural justice; any studies addressing systemic racial bias or racial justice in policing; implicit bias awareness training; de-escalation training and practices; law enforcement assisted diversion programs; restorative justice practices; community-based outreach and conflict resolution; problem-oriented policing; hot spots policing; focused deterrence; crime prevention through environmental design; violence prevention and reduction interventions; model policies and guidelines promulgated by the New York State Municipal Police Training Council; and standards promulgated by the New York State Law Enforcement Accreditation Program.” Further, “The political subdivision, in coordination with its police agency, must consult with stakeholders, including but not limited to membership and leadership of the local police force; members of the community, with emphasis in areas with high numbers of police and community interactions; interested non-profit and faith-based community groups; the local office of the district attorney; the local public defender; and local elected officials, and create a plan to adopt and implement the recommendations resulting from its review and consultation, including any modifications, modernizations, and innovations to its policing deployments, strategies, policies, procedures, and practices, tailored to the specific needs of the community and general promotion of improved police agency and community relationships based on trust, fairness, accountability, and transparency, and which seek to reduce any racial disparities in policing.” 3 And, finally, “such plan shall be offered for public comment to all citizens in the locality, and after consideration of such comments, shall be presented to the local legislative body in such political subdivision, which shall ratify or adopt such plan by local law or resolution, as appropriate, no later than April 1, 2021.” The City of Binghamton took several steps to advance these goals and meet the Governor’s Executive Order. The City partnered with the John F. Finn Institute for Public Safety, a not-for-profit and nonpartisan criminal justice research institute, whose work is dedicated to the development of criminal justice strategies, programs, and practices that are effective, lawful, and procedurally fair, through the application of social science findings and methods. The Finn Institute served as an independent research partner, collecting and analyzing community input through community conversations, as well as a community survey. It also studied Binghamton Police Department data on stops, arrests and use of force regarding racial or ethnic disparities, and assessed current strategies and policies in fostering public trust and effective policing. The City created a stakeholder coalition — or Steering Committee — reflecting Binghamton’s racial, political, gender and neighborhood diversity to help identify ways for the police department to better serve the community, improve public safety, implement 21st Century policing strategies, build confidence, strengthen trust and legitimacy and address disparities that affect communities of color. Steering Committee membership included: ● Richard C. David, Mayor (per Executive Order) ● Michael A. Korchak, Broome County District Attorney (per Executive Order) ● Michael T. Baker, Broome County Public Defender (per Executive Order) ● Joseph T. Ziksuki, Chief of Police (per Executive Order) ● Art Williams, Binghamton Police Department ● Mike Williams, Binghamton Police Department ● Becky Sutliff, Binghamton Police Department ● Armando Marroquin, Binghamton Police Department ● David Bidwell, Binghamton Police Benevolent Association, President ● Tom Scanlon, Binghamton City Council, District 7 ● Joe Burns, Binghamton City Council, District 5 ● Hon. Mary Anne Lehmann, Binghamton City Court Judge (Ret.) ● Tonia Thompson, Binghamton City School District, Superintendent 4 ● Rev. Mario Williams, River of Life Ministries ● Rev. Henry Ausby, Hands of Hope Ministries ● Nicole Johnson, Broome-Tioga NAACP, President ● Marybeth Smith, Boys and Girls Clubs of Binghamton, Executive Director ● Megan J. Brockett, Assistant to the Mayor for Youth & Neighborhoods ● Debra Hogan, Downtown Resident, National Night Out ● David Hawley, South Side Neighborhood Assembly ● Maryanne Callahan, First Ward Neighborhood Watch, Coordinator ● Brian Whalen, Binghamton City School District Board, President ● Dr. Sharon Bryant, West Side Resident, Binghamton University Decker College, Director of Diversity, Equity and Inclusion ● Christopher Perez, North Side Resident, Children’s Home, Social Worker ● Karan Drum, East Side Resident, SUNY Broome Human Resources (Ret.) The Steering Committee hosted six public community listening sessions focused on: faith organizations, neighborhood groups, community advocacy groups, business organizations, education and youth organizations, and open public comment. The City created a dedicated website for information about the collaborative, a dedicated email address for written comment, and posted video of public meetings to the City’s YouTube channel. This report in the culmination of those efforts and a working document on actionable programs, projects and initiatives to achieve Binghamton’s public safety goals and, as the Executive Order states, “eliminate racial inequities in policing, to modify and modernize policing strategies, policies, procedures, and practices, and to develop practices to better address the particular needs of communities of color to promote public safety, improve community engagement, and foster trust.” 5 Message from Mayor Richard C. David Every City of Binghamton resident deserves to feel safe. Going door-to-door campaigning for public office, and hearing from residents in more than seven years as mayor, I firmly believe public safety is and should be the top concern among the constituents I serve. People deserve to feel safe in the neighborhoods where they live and work, where their children go to school, and during interactions with the police. Public safety is a covenant between citizens and their government, and local government’s most sacred responsibility. Whenever that covenant is broken — like it was with George Floyd in Minneapolis on May 25, 2020 — it erodes public trust in the police. Like communities across America, Binghamton saw unprecedented participation in social justice marches, protests and calls for police reform in the summer of 2020. Concurrent with the nationwide movement, an Executive Order from Governor Cuomo mandated municipalities to engage the community on reinventing their police departments to better serve residents. Binghamton took the time to assemble a diverse group of stakeholders from across the community to serve as the 2021 Binghamton Police Reform & Reinvention Collaborative’s Steering Committee. Among the Collaborative’s work were broad efforts to gather community input, including six community listening sessions, the creation of a dedicated email address for written comment, an online survey and the launch of a new webpage to share information about the Collaborative, Police Department policies and links to videos of the Collaborative’s public meetings.