In an effort to respond to concerns that the Burlington Police Department is over-policing residents, Mayor Miro Weinberger has proposed the addition of two new social work positions to the force.
He presented the idea during a joint meeting of the Public Safety Committee and the Police Commission Thursday night. The positions would be called community affairs liaisons, he said, and preferably those holding those positions would have master’s degrees in social work. Weinberger said he imagines the staff would take on three essential roles: opioid use mitigation, homelessness response and mental health crisis response.
“If we had the ability to follow up with people from this social work perspective, we think we could get more people who kind of come into contact with police this way into treatment,” Weinberger said, specifically speaking about those who have run-ins with police due to opioid use.
“We know that most people who end up dying of opioid use overdoses have police contact at some point in their run-up to their fatality,” he continued. “So we really think this could be a meaningful strategy.”
Multiple committee members said they were excited about the proposed positions and that they supported them moving forward. The Police Commission is a citizen oversight board and the Public Safety Committee is a board made up of Burlington city councilors.
“I think, off the cuff, I’m excited about this,” said City Councilor Perri Freeman, P-Central. “I think having mental health support and capacity that the city takes on is, at least for a first pass, makes sense to me.”
The proposal comes after conversations about racial and criminal justice have been revived in the Burlington community since George Floyd’s death in May at the hands of a Minneapolis police officer, which ignited protests nationwide. Burlington recently declared racism a public health emergency and the City Council approved a 30% reduction in police staffing levels.
The addition of the social workers would be the city’s latest effort to respond to critics’ calls that the Burlington Police Department has violently over-policed its residents. Advocates say social workers can provide de-escalation services that can keep interactions from becoming violent with police and can help vulnerable community members get the help and services they need.
Weinberger said the positions could be funded by the $250,000 police transformation fund recently allocated in this year’s budget. He said the positions would likely cost the city $100,000-$150,000 their first year, adding that he wants to finalize the proposal and move on it quickly.
“This thinking is very much in keeping with the idea that we need to make investments to transform the police department and see if we can reduce the need for sworn officers,” Weinberger told committee members.
Weinberger also recognized City Council member Frank Paulino for pushing for the presence of social workers on the BPD.
“It’s taken me maybe a little while to understand the full wisdom of it,” Weinberger said. “I really do see a number of pressing issues that having this kind of additional capacity within the department would immediately help us with.”
Burlington Police Chief Jon Murad also attended the meeting and said he supports the creation of these positions. By allocating certain calls to social workers that aren’t necessary for police officers to respond to, Murad said this could help prevent potential future crime from happening.
“We need additional resources to take on other people who are also calling about similar kinds of things in our police matters, but they aren’t necessarily street outreach matters,” Murad said. “And they need a level of interaction and hands-on routine maintenance in order not to metastasize into worse problems.”
Freeman also encouraged the mayor and Murad to do an overall assessment of how much preventative support structures — housing, health care, and other services — the city is investing in to also keep Burlington residents from falling into contact with police.
Burlington would not be the first municipality in Vermont to employ social workers in its police force. The Northeast Kingdom is looking to imbed two social workers in its state police barracks and Franklin and Grand Isle counties have also worked with social workers in its police forces.
Read the story on VTDigger here: Mayor proposes adding two social workers to Burlington Police Department.