Funding our Community, Transforming our Policing

To the Honorable, the City Council:

Policing as we know it evolved from slave patrols and is a fundamentally racist institution. The tragic murder of George Floyd and the resulting protests across the country serve as another reminder that we need to fundamentally rethink the role of policing in our society. As Chair of the Public Safety Committee, it is my intent to hold hearings that center Black voices and chart a course to transformative change. This Communication lays out some of the steps and approaches that could be taken at the municipal level.

Re-allocation of Funding

The FY21 proposed Police Department budget totals $62 million, including a $4.1 million increase from FY20. This means the Police Department makes up almost 9% of our operating budget, the largest department outside of Education. While the proposed budget does include several initiatives aimed at reducing gun violence and preventing criminal behavior among young people, it also contains many millions of dollars for traditional violent policing and equipment including a $1 million cost center for a tactical operations ​unit​, which is generally the

CITY HALL, CAMBRIDGE, MASSACHUSETTS 02139

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most militarized component of a police force.

Traditionally, we have responded to criminal activity among young men by increasing the policing of them. Often, these young men are left behind in our traditional education, artistic, and athletic pathways to economic opportunity, creating immense pressure for them to fall into a potentially violent and deadly criminal lifestyle.

While the Department has implemented some programs in an attempt to disrupt this cycle, including even some that have been moderately successful, not enough is being done and we continue to lose too many of our youth to violent crime and incarceration. Police-centric programs also come with their own inherent limits, since once down a criminal path a certain distance, the individual becomes potentially unreachable this way.

The response of adding more and more violent policing into the mix through reflexive annual police budget increases, without sufficiently addressing the underlying socio-economic risk factors, has allowed generations of young men (often Black) to fall into a life of crime that becomes difficult to rescue them and society from.

Meanwhile, our very successful youth programs like the King Open Extended Day program remain shockingly underfunded and limited in scope, despite their demonstrated success and potential for assisting in the education and wellness of our youth. Many opportunities remain in our budget to better support young people, especially Black youth.

With the final budget vote coming up on June 15, it is not too late for the council to call on the City Manager to better fund these programs and to reduce the police budget correspondingly.

Specific areas to consider for increased funding include the many initiatives in the Human Services Department, our summer youth programs, the ​RSTA​ program at CRLS, Project Elevate and other efforts to recruit more teachers of color, providing better mental health services for young people, and many other ideas that can and should be sourced from the community and those who have been historically most impacted by our racist and anti-Black approach to education and economic opportunity.

Body Cameras

The Cambridge Police Department does not currently use body cameras, although they have done other things to reduce incidents of excessive force. Body cameras can increase accountability by creating an objective video record of an incident from the perspective of the officer. While cell phone recordings of incidents have become prolific, body cameras can provide consistent footage that is more credible in a courtroom. They do come with significant privacy concerns, however, which must be addressed as part of any policy and implementation.

I support the effort of my colleagues to move forward with a body camera program in the Cambridge Police Department. However, we should be cognizant of the fact that such a program 2

will ultimately have a limited impact, and to the extent that body cameras give us comfort in continuing to fund and expand traditional policing methods, they will be counterproductive to efforts of deeper and more transformative solutions.

The ACLU and the ACLU of Massachusetts ​have provided​ extensive guidance on how to craft an effective body camera policy. Key considerations from this guidance include: The need to avoid continuous recording while at the same time blocking officers from selectively determining which encounters are filmed. Body cameras should not be used as general surveillance tools, but allowing for officer discretion undermines any benefit that the cameras might bring.

Special consideration should also be given to encounters involving domestic violence and rape in order to protect the identity of the survivor.

The need to create consequences for noncompliance with body camera recording, including direct disciplinary action against the officer and the disallowment of verbal evidence in favor of the officer that otherwise could have been verified if the camera had been turned on, except in situations where the officer couldn’t reasonably have turned on the camera or where other verifiable forms of evidence exist. The need to implement privacy considerations at the point of recording.

The ACLU recommends limiting cameras to uniformed police officers and marked vehicles only, and requiring that officers notify people that they are being recorded. Additional consideration should be given to instances in which police officers enter someone’s home, particularly in non-exigent circumstances. The need to incorporate policies related to retention and use. The ACLU recommends that retention periods should be measured in weeks not years, and policies should be clearly posted online.

Careful thought should be given to who can flag a recording for further retention, and when they can do so. The need to ensure that anyone recorded by a body camera can access and make copies of said recording for as long as it is retained by the department. The need to regulate public disclosure, including redacting information to protect identities when possible. The need to implement protocols and technological controls that prevent tampering or destruction of evidence by the department.

The need for explicit forbiddance of body camera use by government officials who do not have the authority to conduct searches and make arrests.

Use of body cameras would fall under the Surveillance Ordinance, which ​was used​ by the Council to rubber stamp massive amounts of police surveillance the first time we had an opportunity to review these technologies earlier this term.

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Use of Force Policy