Thomas Breen photo
Lt. O’Neill at Tuesday night’s meeting.
The city’s new prospective start date for a pilot program that diverts prostitutes and low-level drug offenders from the criminal justice system and towards social services is this coming Wednesday, Nov. 29.
At Tuesday night’s Downtown-Wooster Square Community Management Team (DWSCMT) meeting on the second floor of City Hall, Lt. Mark O’Neill, who is the district commander for the neighborhood, updated residents on the latest schedule for the city’s new Law Enforcement Assisted Diversion (LEAD) program.
The city is preparing to begin a two-year, federally-funded pilot next week in the Hill and Downtown neighborhoods.
Founded in Seattle and adopted in Albany, Baltimore, and Bangor, Maine, LEAD is an experimental law enforcement initiative that treats drug abuse, prostitution, and other non-violent street crimes as more appropriately addressed by case workers and mental health experts than by police officers and prisons.
“We’re going to try and divert people from the criminal justice system to services and programs to get them off of their substance abuse,” O’Neill explained. “If they have a small quantity of drugs, usually personal-use drugs, instead of arresting them, we’re going to bring them over to Cornell Scott Hill Health Center and get them into a program. As long as they successfully complete that program, there will be no arrest on them.”
“Everything else is clinicians, social workers, case managers,” he continued. “They’re doing all the work. We’re just dropping them off to get services or some kind of help with their substance abuse.”
Lt. O’Neill gives a brief demo of the LEAD opt-in form on the Veoci app.
O’Neill said that the city hopes to train 32 police officers in the Hill and Downtown over the next week on how to use the LEAD opt-in forms on the Veoci app, which will allow officers to keep track of who is participating in the program.
He said that the pilot program’s expected capacity is roughly 60 people, but, if LEAD proves successful in the Hill and Downtown, then the various city stakeholders may look to expand it to other neighborhoods in the city.
O’Neill and DWSCMT board member Anstress Farwell also informed those present that the team had selected Jesus Garzon to serve as Downtown’s community liaison for the LEAD pilot. As the community liaison, Garzon will work with the city’s Community Services Administration (CSA), the Cornell Scott Hill Health Center and Lt. O’Neill to help identity potential candidates for LEAD, support families of neighbors going through the program, and offer regular reports to the management team.
Farwell described Garzon as a Gateway Community College student and Elm City Market employee with an interest in criminal justice. She said that the team’s executive board found him as they canvassed the neighborhood, looking for a young person who would be a good fit for the position. Garzon was not at Tuesday night’s meeting.