Fulfilling the Promise of Berkeley’s Reimagining Public Safety Initiative
As Mayor, one of the top responsibilities I have is to support the safety of our residents, which I take very seriously.
Two years ago, in the wake of the murder of George Floyd and rallies throughout the country for public safety reform, including in Berkeley, we embarked on a process to reimagine public safety. We need an adequately trained and appropriately staffed police department to serve our community while addressing historic racial inequities.
Over the decades, our police department has increasingly been called to do more than they are trained to do - responding to a mental health crisis or other non-criminal issues that are not a threat to public safety. By reimagining public safety, we can set up new programs to address mental health, education, housing, and other social safety nets while giving officers the resources, time, and staffing they need to focus on community policing and preventing and responding to serious crime.
We do not need a gun and badge to ask someone to turn down their music. Nor do we need a gun and badge to deal with a car that is double parked or blocking a driveway. When someone is having a mental health crisis, a trained medical professional would be a more effective way of resolving it than a gun and badge. When a serious crime takes place in Berkeley, we need to make sure we have officers that are able to respond instead of wasting their time to answer a noise complaint. Yet increasingly, our police are responsible for dealing with non-criminal calls that are not a threat to public safety. One of the goals of reimagining public safety is to provide police the time and ability to respond to serious crime while creating the systems needed to address social needs.
Historically, Berkeley has been at the forefront of innovation when it comes to public safety. Berkeley is often cited as being the birthplace of modern day policing, under the leadership of the city’s first Chief August Vollmer who introduced reforms such as requiring officers to have a college education and introducing the first motorized force. A century later, we have a new opportunity to reimagine public safety and to refocus the work of our talented police department to address serious crime and effectively do the job they are trained to do.
This is a complex undertaking and will take time. I want to commend the Reimagining Public Safety Task Force, the National Institute for Criminal Justice Reform, and the City Manager for all of their incredible efforts and recommendations as we move forward.
The Future of Public Safety
Over the past two years, there have been dozens of public meetings on the topic of reimagining public safety, including 19 meetings of the Reimagining Public Safety Task Force. Established in December 2020, the Task Force worked with the National Institute for Criminal Justice Reform (NICJR) to develop a set of recommended programs, structures and initiatives to outline a new, community-centered safety paradigm. In March 2022, both the Task Force and NICJR provided recommendations in their reports in a Council worksession. Moving recommendations forward will be thoughtful and measured - ensuring that as we develop alternative responses, like the SCU, our police continue to receive necessary resources. Tomorrow, May 5th, the City Council will hold a special meeting to discuss a framework of recommendations I am submitting that consolidates and builds upon the work of the community over the last two years. This framework balances the community’s immediate safety needs while still following through on a practical path to a transformed approach to public safety in Berkeley.
This set of recommendations will prioritize investments that will result in material improvements in services and safety for our community:
Establishing a Specialized Care Unit (SCU) consisting of trained crisis-response workers who would respond to 911 calls that an operator evaluates as non-criminal mental health calls and poses no imminent threat to the safety of first responders.
Reforming and expanding the dispatch center to improve response rates to violent crimes while redirecting non-criminal calls to non-sworn or civilian responders who are experts in that field (i.e. mental health).
Investing $1 million in upstream community safety investments in critical services like violence prevention, youth services, community mental health, respite from gender violence and language equity.
Establishing an Office of Racial Equity to that will support the City’s strategic goal to champion and demonstrate social and racial equity throughout all City departments.
The police will continue to be supported and receive the necessary resources as we develop alternative responses.
The department is being supported to continue to improve its practices in the following ways:
Using data analysis to inform effective deployment and to reduce racial disparities.
Expanding investigative capacities to resolve violent crimes.
Increasing transparency through a new data portal.
Supporting task force recommendations to improve relationships with community providers that support survivors of gender violence and support our LGBTQIA community.
Meanwhile, we are continuing to pursue a broader vision for community safety by making the following investments:
Evaluating the appropriate size and structure of our police department to ensure future public safety investments are sustainable, reflect the evolving needs of the community and enable greater flexibility for the deployment of bike, pedestrian and problem-oriented policing teams.
Initiating the design of a department of community safety that will organize our public safety services to ensure that public safety issues are addressed holistically and equitably.
Pursuing the establishment of a crisis stabilization center and/or expanding access to existing centers so that people in crisis have a safe and supportive alternative to jail or emergency rooms where they can stabilize and get connected to the resources they need.
Continuing to pursue the creation of a Berkeley Department of Transportation (BerkDOT) to ensure a racial justice lens in traffic enforcement and the development of transportation and pedestrian safety policy, programs, and infrastructure.
Pursuing state and philanthropic resources to establish a Universal Basic Income pilot in Berkeley.
Through these proposals, we can transform our police department to make them more effective at addressing serious crime while investing in the community to improve safety in the long run. Increasingly, our police have been asked to respond to calls that may not be the best use of their time. In fact, the National Institute for Criminal Justice Reform found that 81% of calls to Berkeley police are for non-criminal incidents, and the police spend 53% of their time responding to these calls. By having non-emergency calls rerouted to civilian response, such as a car blocking a driveway, responding to a noise complaint, or other code enforcement violations, officers will have more time to focus on more important public safety priorities.
Creating new opportunities for disadvantaged youth will place them on a path to success and help bring an end to the school-to-prison pipeline. Investing in expanded crisis response and stabilization centers will ensure that people who are experiencing a mental health crisis have both an appropriate response and a safe and supportive alternative to jail or emergency rooms. These recommendations are the product of significant community input and expert feedback, and critically are designed to support our community’s health and safety through preventative measures and will allow our police to focus on what they do best: responding to and investigating serious crimes.
The special City Council meeting on May 5th is not the end of this discussion. it is another step in a multi-year process that will improve public safety and create real change to support those in need.
I look forward to continuing working with the community in discussing how we can invest in programs to make sure that we are doing all that we can to support safety in our community. As we have done in the past, Berkeley again can be a catalyst for change and be at the forefront of improving public safety. This moment is our opportunity to have a vision for public safety that is effective and a reflection of our values. Many people throughout the country are looking at what Berkeley is doing right now. We will maintain our focus on the immediate public safety needs of our community, but we also have an opportunity and responsibility to think big, to be innovative and create a new paradigm for public safety that meets the needs of everyone in our city.
If you agree that reimagining public safety and supporting our police department are not mutually exclusive, please email council@cityofberkeley.info to express your support of these proposals and/or attend tomorrow night’s meeting. Your input is valuable in developing a vision of public safety that we can all be proud of.