The People's Plan
Created by the People, for the People
The People’s Plan is a set of public safety recommendations developed by three community-led coalitions (LI United to Transform Policing and Community Safety, LI Advocates for Police Accountability, and United for Justice in Policing LI) with the input of hundreds of Long Islanders. This comprehensive plan presents 12 proposals for structural reform to Reimagine Policing and Public Safety to ensure that LI is safe for ALL Long Islanders.
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Section 1:
Transforming Crisis Response
Create A New Crisis Response Model for Long Island that reforms 911 responses to ensure that call-takers can adequately and holistically assess callers in crisis, creates behavioral health co-responder teams composed of clinical professionals, trained peer specialists, and unarmed crisis responders, establishes a tiered response system to match the level and type of risk posed, and includes collection and reporting of comprehensive data on these calls and responses.
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Section 2:
Transforming Traffic Enforcement
Eliminate disparity in traffic stops on Long Island by transforming the policies regarding police traffic enforcement, exploring options for alternative unarmed traffic officers, and collecting, publishing, and analyzing comprehensive data on traffic enforcement in alignment with the STAT Act. End pretextual stops and warrantless searches during traffic stops.
Section 4:
Transforming the Enforcement of Hate Crimes, Non-Designated Crimes, and Incidents
Codify existing and/or non-existing policies mentioned in the plan into legislation, and LI police departments should fully implement. This includes: police must properly identify and report hate crimes and incidents; map and track hate crimes, non-designated offense, and incidents to see trends, prevent future events, and to provide an accurate picture of hate offenses in the county; communicate with the public to protect and warn communities, support the victim, their family, and the entire community; and develop rehabilitation and prevention programs with government, nonprofits and faith communities.
Section 5:
Transforming the Treatment and Safety of Transgender, Non-Binary, and Intersex People
Develop a policy that provides safe and respectful treatment for transgender, gender non-binary, and intersex people in a manner appropriate to the person’s gender identity and/or expression. In short, develop and implement policies that ensure gender-expansive community members receive the same treatment as cisgender people. Explicit detail is mentioned in the plan.
Section 6:
Ending The Use of School Resource Officers: The Case For Police-Free Schools
Eliminate the SRO program and other programs that place police officers in schools, and redeploy funds spent on School Resource Officers to build Transformative Justice programs that avoid the criminal legal system, and increase social-emotional learning programs in schools and other supports that improve student behavior by meeting students’ needs.
Section 7:
Language Access
Develop and implement a comprehensive Language Access Plan that ensures accessibility to non-english speaking community members and provide transparent data regarding the usage of bilingual resources.
Section 8:
Building Authentic Trust & Legitimacy Within Communities
Build authentic trust and legitimacy within communities by transforming the policies and practices of LI police departments.
Section 3:
Transforming Police Accountability
Build an infrastructure of accountability that includes:
Create a Civilian Complaint Review Board to fairly and transparently resolve allegations of police misconduct in a manner in which both the public and the police department have confidence. The CCRB must be well-funded and independent, have strong investigative authority, collect and publish data in a fully transparent manner, and have the power to direct the police commissioner to impose discipline.
Develop an Office of Police Inspector General that is well-funded, independent, and has the authority to audit, inspect, evaluate and investigate the activities, records, policies and data collected by the Police Department, receive copies of all complaints and communications with complainants, and to track and monitor systems of complaints and investigation.
Police departments must collect comprehensive data on all facets of police/civilian interaction, publish the raw comprehensive data on their websites, and hire independent vendors from local institutions of higher education to analyze the data, prepare written reports, and inform the public and county legislatures. This includes data on traffic, pedestrian and bicycle stops, on 911 calls, on use of force, complaints, police in schools, hate crimes, and language access.
Charge the Public Safety Committee with more active and engaged oversight of police departments. Best practices include: requiring data collection, reporting of raw data to the public, and engaging in independent analysis of the data. In addition, the Public Safety Committee, hold public hearings whereby the Police Commissioner is required to sit, provide data publicly, and answer questions from members of the PSC and the public about policing practices and policies.
Remove complaints and investigations from the police department and create a CCRB and an inspector general’s office. Until these are in place ensure that all complaints are handled by internal affairs units and not precincts, share all complaints with the Public Safety Committee, and publish comprehensive data about complaints, investigations, and outcomes on the police department websites.
Pass The Right to Know Act (ID Law and Consent to Search Law) in both counties. Officers must provide their name, rank, command, date, and reason for the stop at the beginning of all encounters with civilians. They must ask if interpretation is needed and then provide it, and document all stops that do not end in arrest. In addition, warrantless searches should not happen without signed informed consent.
Mandate personal liability insurance for all officers and make it a contingency of employment. Departments should cover the average premium cost, provide reimbursement to officers whose premiums are below the average costs, and collect reimbursement from officers whose records lead to higher premiums.
Prioritize community surveys ensuring that all relevant communities are surveyed on a regular basis and that an impartial local institution of higher education is hired to develop, administer, and analyze the survey. These community surveys must measure how satisfied people are with how they are treated by police and how police handled their issue; civilian judgments about procedural justice; and people’s experience with language assistance.
Adopt best practices, language, and training to bring Use of Force policies in line with nationally proven standards. Require officers to exhaust all alternatives before resorting to use of firearms. Require comprehensive Use of Force data reporting. Create and require a Use of Force continuum that restricts the most severe types of force to the most extreme situations and creates clear policy restrictions for each weapon and tactic, as well as require warnings prior to the use of firearms.
Section 9: Technology and Social Media
Implement best and most up-to-date practices in leveraging technology and social media platforms to promote transparency.
Section 10: Hiring, Training, and Education
Implement a set of policies and practices that ensure diversity and accountability within hiring, and promote comprehensive training that focuses on the needs of communities in the 21st century.
Section 11: Officer Wellness & Safety
Implement policies and practices that ensure the mental well-being of police officers.
Section 12:
Continued Reinvention:
An Equity & Safety Task Force
Develop a permanent, County-based Equity and Safety Task Force should be created through codification. It must use an equity-informed, “continuous reinvention” framework to assess the impact of safety reforms and recommend. This means the reform and reinvention mandated by Governor Cuomo’s Executive Order is always ongoing. This task force would be research-based and would:
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i. Review data on key safety indicators.
ii. Solicit community feedback and dialogue
iii. Identify best practices to ensure holistic public safety
iv. Recommend new initiatives and assess impact
