The Public Safety for All Task Force, Civilian Oversight Task Force, and Anti-Violence Working Group all released final reports with recommendations on January 28, then held a community meeting on February 4 to go over those final reports and field questions from the community. This work had picked up steam noticeably in the past year to fulfill the City's commitment nearly five years ago to a process of "Reimagining Policing" following the 2020 death of George Floyd at the hands of Minneapolis Police. 

The City's Department of Racial and Social Justice launched a Public Safety for All survey in September 2022, reporting out those results in a presentation to the City Council in November 2023. The task forces and working group were created in early 2023, after after an initial difficulty attracting members the three bodies were able to get started with their work. This led to the release of these final reports earlier this month.

Public Safety for All Task Force
The Public Safety for All's final report makes a number of recommendations. Some seem noncontroversial, like introducing some civilian roles in property crimes investigation and setting a goal of 100% participation in Crisis Intervention Team (CIT) training for police officers. The recommendations to exit the state's Civil Service system and reform the bid process for promotions are interesting ones that will provoke discussion. The recommendation to implement body-worn cameras and have Community Outreach, Help and Recovery (COHR) review footage caught my eye immediately, given the bodycam policy based on the ACLU's best practices proposed by Councilor Ewen-Campen. The most highly-anticipated recommendation was around an Alternative Emergency Response, and the task force recommended that the City create a co-response model of clinicians responding alongside police officers.

I wasn't surprised by the task force's co-response recommendation, as it admittedly does seem to be the path of least resistance when it comes to creation and implementation. I know a number of constituents were disappointed in the report's dismissal of a true AER option whereby clinicians might respond to certain types of calls for service without the police. The report selected the City of Durham's Community Response Team for closer inspection, but then cited distinctions between Somerville and Durham as rationale for not recommending this approach. The report did get into some of the hurdles faced by a true AER option, though some of these logistical challenges would seem to apply to either approach (co-response vs. pure AER option) while others seem to simply make co-response easier to implement.

I want to see Somerville offer flexibility in the options we can offer community members in need of help. If the decision is to go with a co-response model because of relative ease of launch, I'd like to see what a roadmap would look like to offering a true AER option where clinicians would respond to calls without a police officer.

Civilian Oversight Task Force
Civilian oversight has been one of the long-awaited aspects of police reform in Somerville, ever since it was promised five years ago. The recommendations from the task force centered around a support system model with individual recommendations on community input and reporting, Police Department data, mediation services, and interaction with the state's Peace Officer Standards and Training (POST) Commission. There also was a recommendation to focus on big-picture trends and how to improve the commission's policies and processes.

At the meeting, there was a question from the audience to the task force panel about how the commission would be more than performative theater and actually have real powers of oversight. The response focused on rapidly-changing landscapes and specifically cited police union considerations. With both Somerville Police unions currently negotiating new collective bargaining agreements with the City, it's reasonable to wonder whether these new CBAs are being negotiated with future civilian oversight in mind, or whether we're going to have to wait for the next contract to address this.

Anti-Violence Working Group
I was encouraged to see the working group's recommendations focus on three primary types of violence: traffic violence, gun and gang violence, and domestic violence. In all three areas there was a call for increased education, so I'll be interested in seeing what that will look like. The traffic safety recommendations make sense and are in line with the City's current approach to making our streets safer. The call for increased communication with the community around gun and gang violence is in line with what I hear from constituents. Ultimately, the recommendation for addressing the needs of young people is the one that I suspect would bear the most fruit here when it comes to guns and gangs. I do like the recommendation to meet regularly with stakeholders to identify domestic violence trends in their work experience and the data, in order to shine a light on a big problem that all too often goes unreported.

Implementation of Recommendations
After such a long wait, it's a relief to have these final reports and to be able to move forward with implementation. As is so often the case, the devil will be in the details with all of these recommendations in that the manner any new bodies and policies are established will go a long way to determining their success.

One big question I have at the moment is in regard to timing. The original schedule of a December release of these reports would've allowed more time for budgetary considerations to be taken into account when constructing the FY26 budget. This budget process already is underway, and while it's not like this is happening in June, I do question whether there's sufficient time to build this into the upcoming budget or whether we're going to find ourselves waiting a year for real movement on implementing these recommendations.