IMPACT: Reform act creates difficulties for communitiesDate: 8/21/2023 Shutesbury Police Chief Kristin Burgess has a passion for community policing, a more personal style of law enforcement that suits residents in her small town of Shutesbury. Unfortunately, the Police Reform Act of 2020, which requires all officers, including part-timers, to be trained to the same level, is squeezing small town budgets for both traditional police work and community policing.
Burgess’ focus on building relationships is a cornerstone of community policing.
“It’s important to think outside the box, to get to know people on a very human level,” Burgess said. She took residents by surprise. “People would say to me, ‘Wow, you’re really a human.’ I thought to myself, ‘Am I perceived as not human?’ Almost. I am perceived as this entity in a uniform.”
Many people find an officer’s uniform, badge and gun intimidating. Past legal troubles may ignite fear of officers, as do media reports of police brutality. Burgess’ answer was a new focus for her department. Rather than punitive interactions, the Springfield resident sees more value in becoming deeply familiar with residents’ daily and weekly habits, their patterns of behavior. A deviation in the pattern may signal a need somewhere for assistance.
One community policing practice Burgess developed is the Monday Club for at risk seniors. The chief or an officer may stop at an elder’s home, check their medications, that no mishaps occurred and the household is safe. She observes the walkers in town, when they’re out and about. Bicyclists often ride by at a favorite time. Burgess keeps track of when they zip past Town Hall. The intimate familiarity with the rhythms of the town gives her a sense of when something is amiss.
Laws are broken, traditional policing is still in the mix, but Burgess also models a more personal approach when taking a resident into custody. She recalls coaching a young man arrested on drug charges on how to dress for court and what to expect during the proceedings. She drove him to court.
Today, the young man is in recovery from addiction. Burgess is pleased to report that he’s working a job and moving in a better life direction. The follow up took extra hours and energy. The payoff is a better outcome for a local family.
“Sometimes I’m very tired,” Burgess said. “Yes, we are social workers. We are sometimes therapists that listen. We are sometimes relatives that come in and assist. Sometimes we’re Meals on Wheels. But … at 3 o’clock in the morning who else is going to show up and hand out flashlights to those that don’t have them. Right? If there’s no one else, it’s okay if it’s me.”
The relationship-based model of community policing also plays a role in city police departments. Amherst, Northampton and Greenfield have instituted community responder initiatives. Responders wear an identifying tee-shirt, but do not carry weapons. They receive training in de-escalation techniques and sensitivity to racial and other discriminations.
The benefits are plain. Homeless people, the mentally impaired and those who fear law officers are less likely to create a disturbance, turn violent or suffer additional trauma. Lethal weapons are kept out of a home setting.
The new responder model in city departments suggests that Burgess’ concept of community policing has utility in many enforcement settings — but the practices seem ideal for small municipalities. Small towns have less violent crime than urban areas, fewer traffic stops and less property damage. The relative rarity of major crimes provides a rationale for officers who listen, deliver meals, do wellness checks and build relationships with members of the community instead.
Burgess acknowledged community policing is labor intensive. Building relationships takes time. Therein lies the difficulty introduced by the police reform bill of 2020: officers cost more now. Under the reform bill part-time officers must be trained as many hours as full-time officers. A Bridge Academy offers part-time officers a chance to train another 200 hours to reach parity with a full-timer.
Burgess has been in dialogue with state Sen. Jo Comerford (D-Northampton) to address the havoc the reform bill wrought in small municipalities and preferred not to comment further. Chiefs in other police departments, dealing with the new difficulties of hiring staff, were happy to detail the fiscal crunch they experience.
Denise Wickland, police chief in Williamsburg, has a department with three full-time officers — one more than in previous years — and a number of part-time officers, who also have full time jobs elsewhere. Two part-timers wouldn’t go through the Bridge Academy and were lost. Wickland advertised for part-time replacements. They had no luck, even though the department would pick up the $10,000 tab for the academy.
“I do not think any reasonable human being would want to go attend a full-time academy just to work one 8-hour shift per week,” Wickland said. “That is an enormous cost to small towns like ours, to send a recruit through the academy.”
Lacking applicants, Wickland combined several part-time positions to create one slot for a full-time officer. She anticipates the Selectboard and residents will acknowledge a fourth full-time officer is necessary after the part-time positions go unfilled for a year or two. The departmental budget will increase significantly.
Cummington hosted a public meeting to explain the staffing challenges and a jump in policing costs. Chief Michael Perkins’ department had a $73,000 budget in 2022. This year, he was made a permanent town employee. Hiring even one other officer, however, would consume the departmental budget.
“For round figures, I used a salary of $60,000” for a full-time officer, Perkins said. “If that’s a full-time employee they are eligible for health insurance and contributory retirement, [which are] the hidden costs associated with it.”
Part-time officers earn few benefits while full-time officers add about $10,000 in perks. That’s a big expense for small departments. Cummington’s police chief also noted that in modern policing the paperwork is time consuming. Part-time officers face a steady challenge in filling out all the forms.
A department may catch a unicorn, hire a part-time officer, but the challenge then is to keep them. Small towns can’t afford to match the wages of larger agencies, such as the Boston Police Department. The BPD notified departments around the state they would be poaching officers wherever they can be found.
“We cannot compete,” Wickland said. “If we take the time and effort and money and invest that in an individual or candidate, to come work for us, they can become certified and then the doors are open … They can easily jump to an agency that can pay them a lot more than we can.”
Burgess, who employs eight part-time officers, also sees the necessary changes to policing in small towns and cities. The warrior mentality needs to be a thing of the past.
“The overall goal is to be a guardian,” Burgess said. “My job is to watch over and protect … to be a guardian of the community as a whole.”
Police chiefs and Western Massachusetts legislators are pushing for solutions to the staffing difficulties incited by the police reform act of 2020. Until further funding arrives, however, small towns will likely see unwelcome increases in public safety costs.
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