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HomeMy WebLinkAbout2016-0718 Documents Submitted at Goals Meeting Policy Ashland Police Department 424 Policy Manual Homeless Persons 424.1 PURPOSE AND SCOPE The purpose of this policy is to ensure that personnel understand the needs and rights of the homeless and to establish procedures to guide officers during all contacts with the homeless, whether consensual or for enforcement purposes. The Ashland Police Department recognizes that members of the homeless community are often in need of special protection and services. The Ashland Police Department will address these needs in balance with the overall missions of this department. Therefore, officers will consider the following policy sections when serving the homeless community. 424.1.1 POLICY It is the policy of the Ashland Police Department to provide law enforcement services to all members of the community while protecting the rights, dignity and private property of the homeless. Homelessness is not a crime and members of this department will not use homelessness solely as a basis for detention or law enforcement action. 424.2 HOMELESS COMMUNITY LIAISON The Chief of Police will designate a member of this department to act as the Homeless Liaison Officer. The responsibilities of the Homeless Liaison Officer include the following: (a) Maintain and make available to all department employees a list of assistance programs and other resources that are available to the homeless. (b) Meet with Social Services and representatives of other organizations that render assistance to the homeless. (c) Maintain a list of those areas within and near this jurisdiction that are used as frequent homeless encampments. (d) Remain abreast of laws dealing with the removal and/or destruction of the personal property of the homeless. This will include the following- 1 . Proper posting of notices of trespass and clean-up operations. 2. Proper retention of property after clean-up, to include procedures for owners to reclaim their property in accordance with Policy Section 804 and other established procedures. (e) Be present during any clean-up operation conducted by this department involving the removal of personal property of the homeless to ensure the rights of the homeless are not violated. (f) Develop training to assist officers in understanding current legal and social issues relating to the homeless. Homeless Persons - 304 Adoption Date: 2016/05/10 © 1995-2016 Lexipol, LLC Ashland Police Department Policy Manual Homeless Persons 424.3 FIELD CONTACTS Officers are encouraged to contact the homeless for purposes of rendering aid, support and for community-oriented policing purposes. Nothing in this policy is meant to dissuade an officer from taking reasonable enforcement action when facts support a reasonable suspicion of criminal activity. While interacting with members of the homeless community for any reason, officers are encouraged to make referrals to social services and long term support networks to assist the person in finding long-term stable support. Officers should provide homeless persons with resource and assistance information whenever it is reasonably apparent such services may be appropriate. 424.3.1 OTHER CONSIDERATIONS Homeless members of the community will receive the same level and quality of service provided to other members of the community. The fact that a victim or witness is homeless can, however, require special considerations for a successful investigation and prosecution. Officers should consider the following when handling investigations involving homeless victims, witnesses or suspects: (a) Document alternate contact information. This may include obtaining addresses and phone numbers of relatives and friends. (b) Document places the homeless person may frequent. (c) Provide homeless victims with victim/witness resources when appropriate. (d) Obtain statements from all available witnesses in the event a homeless victim is unavailable for a court appearance. (e) Consider whether the person may be a dependent adult or elder and if so, proceed in accordance with the Adult Abuse Policy. (f) Arrange for transportation for investigation related matters, such as medical exams and court appearances. (g) Consider whether a crime should be reported and submitted for prosecution even when a homeless victim indicates he/she does not desire prosecution. 424.4 HOMELESS ENCAMPMENTS Officers who encounter encampments, bedding or other personal property in public areas that reasonably appears to belong to a homeless person should not immediately remove or destroy such property and should inform the department Homeless Liaison Officer if such property appears to involve a trespass, blight to the community or is the subject of a complaint. When practicable, requests by the public for clean-up operations of a homeless encampment should be referred to the Homeless Liaison Officer. Homeless Persons - 305 Adoption Date: 2016/05/10 © 1995-2016 Lexipol, LLC Ashland Police Department Policy Manual Homeless Persons s 424.4.1 HOMELESS CAMPS ON PUBLIC PROPERTY Prior to removing homeless individuals from an established campsite on public property, officers shall: (a) If individuals are present, advise violators that they are camping on public property and such encampments are illegal. (b) Post the area with a notice in English and Spanish advising the violators to vacate within 24 hours. This same notice shall list a local agency that delivers social services to homeless individuals. (c) Notify the agency listed on the posting of the campsite's location. (d) Obtain a case number and prepare a police report documenting the incident. The 24-hour warning notice requirement is not necessary if officers reasonably believe that illegal activity unrelated to the camping violation is occurring or in the event of an exceptional emergency such as a possible site contamination by hazardous materials, or when there is immediate danger to human life or safety (ORS 203.079). 424.4.2 CAMPING ON PRIVATE PROPERTY Camping on private property without the owner's permission should be handled as a trespass complaint. Owners of private property may allow individuals to camp, provided they do so in a manner consistent with provisions of the Ashland Camping Ordinance. 424.4.3 CAMPING IN CITY PARKS Illegal campers found in City parks during hours the parks are closed may be cited or arrested for violation of park rules. 424.5 PERSONAL PROPERTY The personal property of homeless persons must not be treated differently than the property of other members of the public. Officers should use reasonable care when handling, collecting and retaining the personal property of homeless persons and should not destroy or discard the personal property of a homeless person. When a homeless person is arrested, or otherwise removed from a public place, officers should make reasonable accommodations to permit the person to lawfully secure his/her personal property. Otherwise, the arrestee's personal property should be collected for safekeeping. If the arrestee has more personal property than can reasonably be collected and transported by the officer, a supervisor should be consulted. The property should be photographed and measures should be taken to remove or secure the property. It will be the supervisor's responsibility to coordinate the removal and safekeeping of the property. Items that have no apparent utility or are in an unsanitary condition may be immediately discarded upon removal of the homeless individual(s) from the camp site (ORS 203.079(d)). All property collected for safekeeping shall be stored for a minimum of 30 days. The property and evidence technician shall ensure that reasonable efforts are made to inform the owner of Homeless Persons - 306 Adoption Date: 2016/05/10 © 1995-2016 Lexipol, LLC City of Ashland Police Staffing Report July 18, 2016 Staffing report for APD Submitted by Tighe O'Meara, Chief of Police Current Staffing Overview The Ashland Police Department is made up of 28 sworn officers, as well as several non-sworn staff members. The 28 sworn officers are assigned as follows: 1-Chief 1-Deputy Chief 1-Admin Sergeant 1-Detective Sergeant 4-Detectives 3-General crimes detectives 1-Detective assigned to the YHOP (this position is due to return to the PD in 2017) 1-Traffic Officer, responsible for all of the city's special events, traffic enforcement, major crash investigation 2-CAP officers, working opposite days downtown to allow for seven day a week uniformed presence downtown 4-Patrol Sergeants, each supervising a patrol team made up of: Three patrol officers, giving a minimum staffing of one supervisor on duty at any given time, as well as two officers. This is the day-to-day, uniform presence, available for emergency response at any given time. Given vacations, sickness and training we often, if not usually, end up with a supervisor plus two officers as opposed to the full team, which is the supervisor and three officers. Note: There are a total of 13 patrol officer positions in the department. Three on each of the four teams, plus one extra to help cover the busier times at night. , During the week days there are a few more resources available but this is not reliable given the admin officers' (chief, deputy chief etc.) responsibilities. Any critical or confrontational incident requires at least two officers to cover it safely, if not more. A basic rule of law enforcement is that we need to have any potential suspect out matched by at least a 2:1 ratio, so any confrontational investigation or even moderate incident (as opposed to major incident) will require at least two thirds of the department's on duty uniformed officers. This means APD officers a City of Ashland Police Staffing Report July 18, 2016 can respond safely to exactly one incident at a time given our minimum, and often in-place, staffing levels. If multiple incidents happen at the same time, and even if the on duty team can manage to effectively handle both incidents, it often results in the sergeant being left in the city alone, as the lone police presence able to respond to incidents. (It should also be noted that often the decision must be made to cite someone who would otherwise go to jail, in lieu of arrest, due to staffing levels being insufficient.) In the last four weeks officers or sergeants have been left in the city as the sole police presence on at least nine occasions. That's one uniformed officer/sergeant in the city to answer calls for service. The situation described above, as well as large fights and disturbances, often bring outside agencies into Ashland to assist the APD. It is common for Talent and Phoenix PD to both come down to assist. However, they have their own areas of responsibility, and while APD maintains an excellent partnership with TPD, PPD and other agencies, APD can't assume that they are available to help handle Ashland's police business. JCSO typically has two deputies on patrol in the south county area. Just as Talent and Phoenix have their own responsibilities, the deputies do as well, covering approximately 1,400 square miles (the south half of the county). There can't be any assumption that they can assist us. Additional Cadets For the last several years the department has employed cadets to perform low level enforcement duties downtown. This has been a very successful program and has recently been expanded. One of the peripheral results of this is that the officers see an increased workload due to increased cadet-initiated contacts. For example, more cadets stopping more people results in more warrants being discovered which results in more demands on the officers' time. Historical Staffing Levels In the last twenty years Ashland has seen an increase in population of approximately 22% to our current level of approximately 21,000. Similarly, the tourist population has increased from approximately 235,000 in 1994 to 318,000 in 2015. Also, the SOU student population has increased by 13%, from 5,430 in 1990 to approximately 6,243 today. However, since 1997 APD staffing levels for sworn police have remained essentially the same, vacillating between a low of 26 in 1998 to a high of 31 in 2002. Even at the high point of 31 in 2002 the department was understaffed per Bureau of Justice Statistics (BJS) averages, which indicate that the full time sown strength should have been 34 officers (see below for further on this). ✓ City of Ashland Police Staffing Report July 18, 2016 Sworn 31 30 29 28 27 26 25 24 1°97:19981999 200020012002 2003 2004 2005 2006 2007 2008 2009 2010 20112012 2013 2014 2015 - Sworn Visitors Each Year Tourists By Year 350000 300000 250000 200000 150000 _ 100000 50000 0~0 01 o~`b O 00 0~ 0~' O~ Off` O~ O)O OA 04' 'y0 ,y'y ti0 ti0 ti0 ti0 ti0 ti~ ~O ti0 .LO ,LO f) .y0 .10 ,LO 'LO -0, ,LO ~O ,LO ,LO ~O ,LO ---Tourists By Year City of Ashland Police Staffing Report July 18, 2016 SOU Students by Year SOU Student Population by Year 8000 7000 6000 5000 4000 3000 2000 1000 0 °A .16 00 O'y O'L O~ Off ` 5: OHO OA OQ' 00 ,LO -0 ,LO ,LO ,y0 ,LO ,LO ,LO ,LO -6) ,LO ,LO -SOU Current Case Load Levels How many cases the department pulls is one of the greatest indicators of how much work the officers are being asked to do. Not every call for service (CFS) results in a case being pulled. The fact that caseloads are going up shows us that more CFS (which have remained somewhat flat at about 20,000 CFS per year over the last few years) are resulting in enforcement, crimes being reported, property being turned over to us, or some other situation presenting itself that triggers the case being generated. Cases Pulled 2012-2015 and YTD by year 4000 3500 3000 2500 2000 1500 1000 500 a 2012 2013 2014 2015 2016 Cases -YTD City of Ashland Police Staffing Report July 18, 2016 Case load increasing Case load YTD (July 7th) compared to previous 2015 3684 1947 2014 3259 1773 2013 3375 1640 2012 3398 1677 2011 3441 1744 Response times One measurement police departments have consistently used is response time to emergency situations. The APD has made it a stated goal in each budget for the last several years to have a response time less than 4 minutes 24 seconds. This is the department's measure of how quickly officers can get to community members who are reporting emergency situations such as crimes of violence, serious motor vehicle crashes, and burglaries in progress, etc. This is an important metric that the department wants very much to keep flat, or better yet to send in a downward direction. APD response times for the last few years having been trending up: Response Times in seconds-Goal as stated in budget < 264 seconds 290 280 270 260 _ 250 240 230 2012 2013 2014 2015 2016 Series 1Goal City of Ashland Police Staffing Report July 18, 2016 Detectives Case Load Detectives in APD handle longer-term investigations, as well as the acute, but more serious investigations. Another metric that has been spelled out in several years' worth of budgets is the amount of time it takes to close out these cases. In the past the detective unit has attempted to take every case referred by patrol. However, due to work load the detectives have had to refer some cases back to patrol. Detective Case Load-2016 Projected 250 200 150 100 50 0 2010 2011 2012 2013 2014 2015 2016 ---Series 1 How new policing strategies effect our staffing APD has always wanted, and expected, its officers to act professionally and compassionately with all members of the public. The department has always strived for engagement and education before enforcement. While these approaches have long been a part of community policing, they are very specifically integral parts of procedural justice. Procedural justice is a philosophy that is being embraced and encouraged nationally as a better way to engage the community. The fundamentals of procedural justice are that everyone needs to be given respect, needs to be treated with dignity, needs to be given voice, and needs neutrality in decision making. This is specifically important to staffing because the department is encouraging its officers to spend more time with investigating each incident, and to spend more time listening and allowing all to be heard. As has been shown in this report, the officers are seeing an increased case load and an increased response time to emergencies. Furthermore, the population the department is servicing (resident, tourist and student) is increasing. Combine all of this with a mandate to engage all community levels on a deeper level, and the need for additional resources is clear. f r City of Ashland Police Staffing Report July 18, 2016 Regional/City Partnerships Due to the acute staffing crisis of the last year, along with increased demand in the city in general, and specifically downtown, the department has had to temporarily step back from city and regional partnerships. Specifically, the department no longer participates in MADGE, the Southern Oregon High Tech Crimes Task Force and the school resource officer program. Also the APD problem solving unit (PSU) has been put on hold due to staffing and military deployment needs. Additional Officers Needed-Current Staffing is Below National Averages Currently Ashland has 1.3 officers for every 1,000 residents, (not including tourists and SOU students). This is significantly lower than the averages presented by the Bureau of Justice Statistics (BJS). The BJS statistics have the lowest average officer: resident ratio as 1.8:1,000 residents (for towns between 25,000 and 100,000). Following this lowest average formula APD would employee 38 officers. The average ratio as presented by the BJS for towns between 10,000 and 24,999 residents is 2:1,000, which would have us employing 42 officers. Again, this is not taking into account that Ashland is so much more than a town of 21,000 residents. When the tourist and the student population is also factored in it makes the need for more officers even more pronounced, based purely on the numbers. The International Association of Chiefs of Police (IACP) does not recommend relying solely on factors such as population, but rather on more qualitative factors. The IACP suggests that communities decide what the department's and community's priorities are and what the department wants to accomplish. If the quantitative analysis presented by the BJS serves as a foundation it is clear that the department should have several more officers than it currently does, based purely on the city population. Add on top of that the IACP recommendation (the qualitative approach) that the community provide police staffing consistent with how the community wants its police officers to engage the community members (e.g. implementing procedural justice practices) the need for additional officers is even more clear. Hiring Time As has been pointed out before, it can take up to a year to get a new officer hired and deployed for solo patrol. The department can have interviews and an eligibility list established, but can't do a background until we can make a conditional job offer. Day 21- Day 49- background officer Day 309- o finished officer is schedule ¢ o. starts, look for acad. released for ' med & start date solo patrol psych Day 0-make conditional job offer, start background low- City of Ashland Police Staffing Report July 18, 2016 Day 21-background finished, schedule medical and psych (medical can be done anywhere, psych is done in Portland) Day 35-medical and psych finished, make offer and set start date, allow 2 week notice at least for exit from current job Day 49-officer starts, but is employed as a non-sworn CSO; look for first academy the officer can get into. Using today as an example, if the department hired someone on July 18th, the next academy is on August 15th, so the officer would start on day 77 of the process. The academy lasts for 4 months, so the officer would graduate and return on day 197 of the process. Day 197-new officer returns and enters the Patrol Training Officer (PTO) in-house program, which lasts for 16 weeks (112 days) If all goes according to plan, a new officer can be released for solo patrol after 309 days. This is given minimal time frames for background checks, academy start dates, and assuming successful completion of the academy and the PTO process without any setbacks or remediation. If the department were given the go ahead today to hire more officers on July 18, 2016 the first of them could be in place by next May of 2017. This is, of course, assuming that qualified candidates can be identified. Funding An entry level officer costs the city $77,272 (wage and benefits). A new officer costs the department approximately $5,000 to equip. The police department cannot absorb the cost of additional officers into its budget. There is a funding shift possibility coming up in that could absorb the cost of five new officers. Currently the police department pays Emergency Communications of Southern Oregon $421,160 a year in direct funding to cover costs of participating in a regional dispatch operation. There is a potential for a push toward ECSO becoming a special district under Oregon law, which would allow it to draw its funding directly from the property owners instead of it flowing through the city's general fund. If this were to happen but the city retained this funding level to the department the department could pay for five additional officers and the needed equipment. However, this would not be recommended, unless the city were committed to funding the new officers regardless of whether or not the special district initiative were approved. If the Council were to authorize five new officers one would be assigned to each of the four patrol teams. This would allow the department to increase minimum staffing to a supervisor and three officers. The remaining person, along with the position that will be returning from the YHOP assignment in 2017, would be used to re-engage our regional partnerships (likely SRO and MADGE). Furthermore, if authorized, the logical course would seem to be to bring officers on in stages, otherwise the APD's in-house training resources would be strained, and arguably unable to handle the training load.