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By Chris Dwan

On November 30, the administration presented the long-awaited police staffing and operations study to the full City Council. The consulting team was led by Cassandra Deck-Brown, the former chief of the Raleigh Police, who was a powerful presence in the room. She engaged directly and thoughtfully through an hour-long presentation followed by nearly three additional hours of discussion and questions. Deck-Brown noted more than once that nobody is winning in the current situation — morale on the force is low and the police and the public share a feeling of disconnection and mutual distrust.

I, myself, have been frustrated by the lack of transparency and slow tempo of this process. I am also deeply skeptical any time an organization attempts to reform itself. However, I was impressed by the presentation and enthusiastic about its recommendations. Councilor Ben Ewen-Campen commented that “reading this report felt like the opposite of being gas-lit.”

I agree. This report validates years of public conversation. We should act on it without further delay.

The 16 recommendations from the Police Staffing and Operations report.

A brief summary:

• Adopt a patrol schedule based on patterns in calls for police rather than the “one cruiser per ward” model we use today. According to the report, we could increase the police presence in the low number wards (where most of the calls originate) while also reducing the total number of patrol officers.
• Establish a non-sworn (unarmed) Community Services Officer program who would be trained and equipped to respond to calls that are unlikely to require arrest or place officers in danger. Examples include investigating abandoned or disabled motor vehicles; helping people who are injured, sick, confused, or drunk; responding to traffic complaints and crashes; and performing welfare checks on neighbors and family members.
• Civilianize administrative roles within the department, including the station desk officers, the city hall liaison (who serves as the mayor’s chauffer), and the crossing guard supervisor.
• Improve outreach and community engagement.
• Establish a civilian review board.

This aligns with other reports commissioned by the city since 2001, when MMA Consulting delivered their “Management Study,” which makes many points that remain fresh today. That study is easily accessible thanks to work by Defund SPD, who pushed through an onerous public records request to get it and with other relevant documents attached to another recent city council meeting.

Councilor Charlotte Kelly brought this history to the fore, noting that “literally these exact recommendations have been made multiple times over the past 20 years. How can the public have any trust in this process, or in us?” Deck-Brown responded, “if you’ve had multiple studies and haven’t acted on them over so many years, the responsibility fundamentally rests with you.”

In Somerville, that “you” refers mostly to the mayor and her administration, who held off on releasing this report for nearly a year, ostensibly to allow our Department of Racial and Social Justice time for a deep-dive into public sentiment to find out if it might change any of the assumptions driving the report (it did not). The City Council has extremely limited practical power to implement these recommendations – though it can and should continue the work of creating a Civilian Oversight Committee, without further delay.

I am left optimistic that we have taken a small but meaningful step forward here in the closing days of 2023. I hope that it is the first of several steps along a path to better, safer, more modern, more equitable policing and public safety in our city.

If you agree, please consider reaching out to the mayor (mayor@somervillema.gov) and your city councilors (city council@somervillema.gov). Tell them that we have had enough studies, they all recommend the same things, and it is time for decisive action.