Three Things To Read This Week
This edition of Safer Cities focuses on new research and technical assistance opportunities that civil society groups are producing for cities implementing innovative public safety solutions. In addition to the value of the content itself, the involvement of major social profit organizations and universities signals that the ideas behind a modern public safety infrastructure are taking root.
1. When Launching A Community Responder Program, Don’t Forget About How The Calls Are Dispatched | Law Enforcement Action Partnership, the Center for American Progress, and the Policing Project at the New York University School of Law.
When a person calls 911, whether about “a person shouting at a bus stop or a child who refuses to go to school”, there now are community responder teams in dozens of cities across the country who are supposed to be handling those calls. Yet, how frequently those teams are actually dispatched swings wildly across jurisdictions.
A major driver of these fluctuations comes down to how the call centers that dispatch first responders are structured and operate, according to a new joint report from the Law Enforcement Action Partnership, the Center for American Progress, and the Policing Project at the New York University School of Law.
The upshot for policymakers is that a corollary for creating a mobile crisis response team—or any community responder unit—is to tackle at a granular level how the team will be dispatched: Without careful planning, it is likely that call centers will “default to dispatching a police response” for calls intended for unarmed responders, which “undermines public safety by diverting resources away from serious and violent crime while neglecting the underlying needs that drive people to call 911 to begin with.”
To provide a jumpstart for policymakers, the report inventories the three most common dispatch structures—911 call center-led dispatch, embedded professional-led dispatch, and external hotline-led dispatch—and outlines the “benefits and challenges” for each approach. For example:
The 911 call center-led dispatch. Simply providing 911 dispatchers with screening questions to determine whether a community responder team is the right fit could be the system that most “efficiently handle[s] high numbers of calls,” but 911 dispatchers are used to sending out police officers to every call and therefore “must overcome hesitancy to send out unarmed responders, which requires thoughtful training, clear protocols, and support for an already overtaxed workforce.”
Embedded professional-led dispatch. Adding “skilled professionals in 911 call centers to engage with callers directly or assist call takers with the decision of deploying community responders,” infuses more expertise into the decision of whether to send a community responder team and “[s]ometimes, the embedded professional can avert an in-person response entirely by counseling the caller over the phone.” On the other hand, “transferring calls to an embedded professional also adds an extra step, which can slow down the process” and, while “embedded professionals generally specialize in speaking with a person in a mental health crisis or their family member.”
External hotline-led dispatch. “911 call centers identify eligible calls and forward them to an external hotline, which handles call-taking and responder dispatch … This model enables the public to avoid calling 911 and instead reach a center better tailored to their specific situation.” However, people need to know the hotline exists in order to call it, and it can be extremely difficult and expensive for localities to raise awareness. Moreover, while “the external hotline operators also often possess the expertise to provide phone-only responses for certain issues,” these “hotline-based service providers tend to be more specialized and are therefore hesitant to handle a wide set of call types” and “are unlikely to operate 24/7”.
The report also explores ways to mitigate the challenges that each of the three dispatch models present. Consider, for example, the problem that under the 911 call center-led model dispatchers almost reflexively send police officers instead of community responders to calls that could be handled by the latter team:
“Call takers have spent their careers sending non-fire and nonmedical calls to the police. They know that most calls are relatively innocuous, but they have learned to be risk averse …Cities can help change call takers’ habits by creating opportunities for call takers to get to know responders so that they can become comfortable trusting responders and understanding their skill sets. [For example,] In Dayton, 911 call center staff became significantly more comfortable with the [city’s] Mediation Response Unit program after joining them for ride-alongs. Program staff can share information with the call center staff about successful outcomes when community responders provide meaningful support and connections to care.”
2. “Building and Sustaining Offices of Violence Prevention and Neighborhood Safety” | Vera Institute For Justice + The National Office of Violence Prevention Network.
Across the country, there now are 48 Offices of Violence Prevention, over half of which “were established after 2020, and at least 10 more are in the works,” according to a new report from the Vera Institute For Justice and The National Office of Violence Prevention Network that draws on “20 focus groups and interviews with 44 OVP/ONS stakeholders.”
Offices of Violence Prevention, which alternatively are named the “Office of Neighborhood Safety” in some cities, take a “public health approach to violence prevention and intervention” and deploy “evidence-informed strategies through community-specific initiatives—[such as ] violence interruption.”
While “most offices focus specifically on gun violence, with a smaller number also focusing on other forms of interpersonal violence,” several“offices are broadly scoped to oversee public safety functions outside of violence intervention, including civilian-staffed crisis response programs and victim services.”
There are three major benefits to housing these programs within an umbrella office of violence prevention. These offices:
Promote the “sustainability and continuity of interventions and investments in communities that strengthen public safety”;
“Build and lead a local ecosystem of violence reduction” composed of “civilian government and community-based services.”
“Coordinate across multiple government agencies and sectors to create a ‘whole-of-government’ approach to safety.”
Why These Offices Matter. In an introduction to the report, the director of Vera’s redefining public safety initiative, Daniela Gilbert, underscores the promise of these offices: “If adequately resourced and empowered, OVP/ONS can transform our public safety systems, serving as the hub for an ecosystem of civilian government and community-based strategies.” Indeed:
“Richmond, California, has made a sustained investment in its Office of Neighborhood Safety and seen a 62 percent decline in homicides and 79 percent decrease in firearm assaults over the last 15 years.”
“And after just two years of service, Albuquerque Community Safety has dispatched trained professionals with backgrounds in mental health and social services to more than 45,000 911 and 311 calls for service—60 percent of those having been diverted from the police.”
The Role These Offices Play: An Office of Violence Prevention serve two functions: violence intervention and violence prevention.
Violence Intervention. The report defines violence intervention as focusing resources “on the people who are most likely to be involved in violence” in an effort to “intervene and prevent the imminent act of violence” or “immediately disrupt and reduce recurring interpersonal violence.” For example:
The “Minneapolis Neighborhood Safety Department has a team of violence interrupters who leverage their knowledge and credibility within their local communities to anticipate and de-escalate conflicts that could result in serious violence.”
Violence Prevention. The report uses violence prevention to mean “the elimination or reduction of the underlying causes and risk factors that lead to violence,” which includes efforts to “invest in public services, community development, and youth-specific programming and resources.” For example:
The “Baltimore Mayor’s Office of Neighborhood Safety and Engagement … connect[s] survivors of violence to therapy and services—such as emergency relocation assistance, housing, mental health treatment, and employment services—that promote well-being and address trauma that can lead to re-victimization.”
Recommendations for Successful Implementation. This report also provides tips for making OVP / ONS offices successful, including on how offices are funded, how budgets are structured, and how to successfully integrate community stakeholders. Here are two examples that focus on the importance of structuring the office within a city’s larger public safety ecosystem:
The power to coordinate and convene. “It is important for offices to have adequate authority within government to effectively coordinate and convene other government agencies, implement strategies and programs, and hold other city agencies and programs accountable for meeting their commitments.”
A Seat At The Table. Leadership from OVP / ONS offices must “sit at planning tables at [the] same level as police chiefs, directors of public health, school systems, whoever is responsible for contact with young people.” For example, St. Louis Office of Violence Prevention Director Wilford Pinkney Jr. told the report’s authors: “I am in every important seminal meeting about public safety in the city. . . . [M]y opinion is sought often and what recommendations I make are most often implemented.”
Related: The National Offices of Violence Prevention Network, which co-authored the report with Vera, “serves as a learning community with the goal of significantly increasing the expertise and effectiveness of city agencies [engaged in violence intervention and prevention].” Here’s what cities gain from participating:
“The Network hosts convenings, provides trainings and presentations on effective violence reduction practices, coordinates cross OVP learning exchanges and site visits, offers leadership and management development, and supports OVPs in growing capacity in data collection and reporting, fund development, and communications/media relations. The network also supports the creation of new OVPs in cities interested in developing such agencies.”
3. How To Get Technical Assistance From The Government Performance Lab @ Harvard’s Kennedy School of Government.
The Government Performance Lab “works closely with governments to develop and test service reforms” to “sustain the impact of these innovative changes to emergency response.” The Lab has “conducted applied research and provided intensive technical assistance to 17 jurisdictions on their alternative 911 emergency response programs.” So far:
“Four participating jurisdictions have launched new teams to dispatch directly from their 911 call centers.”
“Three – Chicago, IL, Phoenix, AZ, and Washington, DC – have already expanded their alternative 911 response programs.”
“Three additional participants are set to expand their programs (Harris County, TX, Durham, NC, and San Gabriel Valley Council of Governments, CA), and one is on track to launch (Allegheny County, PA).”
How to partner with the Government Performance Lab:
“Community of Practice is a monthly learning series on emerging practices in alternative emergency response implementation. It is free and open to any and all government staff undertaking project management and implementation of emergency response teams … [and] is intended to be a collaborative learning space for government staff to connect with and learn from peers and gain access to resources from the Government Performance Lab and jurisdictions across the country.”
“The Alternative 911 Emergency Response Implementation Cohort, helps participating jurisdictions test and demonstrate methods of developing, improving, and expanding the use of unarmed emergency response teams that can be directly dispatched to 911 calls. Through participation in the Cohort, jurisdictions receive customized support which can include short-term active 1:1 coaching for local government staff, access to adaptable implementation template materials and peer government examples, and real-time support from GPL staff and monthly jurisdiction-to-jurisdiction troubleshooting.”
