Schenectady Police Reform and Reinvention: the John F
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F I N N Schenectady Police Reform and Reinvention: The John F. Finn Institute for Public Safety, Inc. Current Practice, Empirical Evidence, and Community Input Sarah J. McLean Robert E. Worden February, 2021 Robert E. Worden, Ph.D., Director • Sarah J. McLean, Ph.D., Associate Director The John F. Finn Institute for Public Safety, Inc., is an independent, not-for-profit and non- partisan corporation, 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 Institute conducts social research on matters of public safety and security – crime, public disorder, and the management of criminal justice agencies and partnerships – in collaboration with municipal, county, state, and federal criminal justice agencies, and for their direct benefit. The findings of the Institute’s research are also disseminated through other media to criminal justice professionals, academicians, elected public officials, and other interested parties, so that those findings may contribute to a broader body of knowledge about criminal justice and to the practical application of those findings in other settings. The Finn Institute was established in 2007, building on a set of collaborative projects and relationships with criminal justice agencies dating to 1998. The first of those projects, for which we partnered with the Albany Police Department (APD), was initiated by John Finn, who was at that time the sergeant who commanded the APD’s Juvenile Unit. Later promoted to lieutenant and assigned to the department’s Administrative Services Bureau, he spearheaded efforts to implement problem-oriented policing, and to develop an institutional capability for analysis that would support problem-solving. The APD’s capacity for applying social science methods and results thereupon expanded exponentially, based on Lt. Finn’s appreciation for the value of research, his keen aptitude for analysis, and his vision of policing, which entailed the formulation of proactive, data-driven, and – as needed – unconventional strategies to address problems of public safety. Lt. Finn was fatally shot in the line of duty in 2003. The Institute that bears his name honors his life and career by fostering the more effective use of research and analysis within criminal justice agencies, just as Lt. Finn did in the APD. © The John F. Finn Institute for Public Safety, Inc., 2021 Schenectady Police Reform and Reinvention Acknowledgements We are grateful for the opportunity to collaborate with partners in Schenectady and to contribute to the process of reform and reinvention. We acknowledge the cooperation and assistance of Schenectady’s Mayor, Gary McCarthy, and Assistant to the Mayor Carissa Vazzana, and that of the Schenectady Police Department and its Chief, Eric Clifford, Assistant Chiefs Daryl Mallard and Michael Seber, and Lead Analyst Matt Douglas. We also acknowledge the assistance of Finn Institute Research Analysts Hannah Cochran and Madison Bryant. The John F. Finn Institute for Public Safety, Inc. Page ii Schenectady Police Reform and Reinvention Table of Contents Introduction ............................................................................................................................................................... 1 Building Trust ........................................................................................................................................... 3 Procedural Justice at the Street Level .................................................................................... 4 Community Policing and Problem-Solving ......................................................................... 12 Executive Engagement with the Community ...................................................................... 17 Control of Violence and Other Crime ........................................................................................... 18 Hotspots Policing .......................................................................................................................... 19 Focused Deterrence ..................................................................................................................... 20 Situational Crime Prevention ................................................................................................... 22 Street Outreach ............................................................................................................................. 23 Conserving the Use of Coercive Authority ........................................................................... 25 Internal Structures ................................................................................................................................. 28 Policies Governing Use of Force .............................................................................................. 28 Policies Governing Search and Seizure ................................................................................. 33 Recruitment and Selection ........................................................................................................ 35 First-Line Supervision .................................................................................................................. 36 Training ........................................................................................................................................... 37 External Oversight .................................................................................................................................. 40 Community Input.................................................................................................................................... 43 Formal and Informal Exchange of Knowledge and Perspectives ................................. 43 Collaborative Policing ................................................................................................................. 45 Policing Focus ................................................................................................................................ 52 Transparency and Accountability ........................................................................................... 53 Marketing and Imaging ............................................................................................................ 58 Diversity and Recruitment ......................................................................................................... 58 Innovation in Mental Health and Substance Abuse Responses .................................... 61 Systemic Change .......................................................................................................................... 62 Implications .............................................................................................................................................................. 63 Appendices.................................................................................................................................................................. 67 The John F. Finn Institute for Public Safety, Inc. Page iii Schenectady Police Reform and Reinvention Introduction In June, 2020, New York Governor Andrew Cuomo signed Executive Order (EO) 203. The EO mandated that every local government with a police agency conduct a “comprehensive review” of police “deployments, strategies, policies, procedures, and practices,” and on that basis develop a plan for improvements that would “foster trust, fairness, and legitimacy, and to address any racial bias and disproportionate policing of communities of color.” Pursuant to the EO, Schenectady’s Mayor Gary McCarthy and Chief of Police Eric Clifford formed the Schenectady Police Department Reform and Reinvention Collaborative, which is described in the City’s introduction and overview. They also invited the Finn Institute to serve as the research partner to the Collaborative, as it had served as the research partner to the Schenectady Police Department (SPD) since 2004. The Institute assumed two responsibilities as the research partner to the Collaborative. One responsibility was to gather information about SPD’s “deployments, strategies, policies, procedures, and practices,” and assess them against the base of social scientific evidence. We summarize that assessment in the pages that follow, organized in terms of (1) desired outcomes, to address the strategies that contribute to the outcomes, and (2) institutional infrastructure, to address the internal and external structures that facilitate the achievement of those outcomes. We begin with building trust, and address the role of procedural justice at street-, neighborhood-, and leadership-levels. We then consider violence and crime reduction, and the forms that the evidence- or research-based strategies of hotspots policing, focused deterrence, and street outreach take in Schenectady. We turn thereafter to practices that conserve the use of police authority as a resource, including especially practices that minimize police involvement in reducing the demand for illicit drugs or in resolving situations marked by individuals in mental or emotional distress. We consider internal structures, including policies that govern police use of physical force, and those that govern investigatory and traffic stops, and training on various topics, including procedural justice, implicit bias, and de-escalation.