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Chief Jacobson: "We see what happens if our officers aren't well."
Sometimes police respond over and over again to the same address for mental health calls that would best be served by an agency like Clifford Beers or COMPASS or the Veterans Affairs medical center.
So the city’s police department wants to add a new lieutenant position focused on making sure those connections take place — for the betterment of community and officer “health and wellness” alike.
Police Chief Karl Jacobson pitched that position during his department’s budget workshop before the Board of Alders Finance Committee on Thursday night at City Hall.
The workshop marked the latest step in local legislators’ review of Mayor Justin Elicker’s proposed $680 million general fund budget for Fiscal Year 2024 – 25 (FY25), which begins on July 1.
During the meeting, Jacobson described how the New Haven Police Department is looking to add four new full-time positions next year: one lieutenant, two sergeants, and one detective. Those positions would add a total of $360,045 in new salary costs to the budget. (The city budget does not break out line by line how much these new positions would add in healthcare and pension costs.)
The lieutenant position, Jacobson said, would have a “twofold” mandate: “one for officer health and wellness,” the other for “community health and wellness.”
For the former, “we deal with officers dealing with things a normal person doesn’t deal with,” he said.
“We’re shorthanded. We’ve had a tough few years in policing. We see what happens if our officers aren’t well.”
This new lieutenant position “would be responsible for having debriefs [with officers] every time we have a serious incident in the city,” Jacobson said. While such check-ins already take place, “we need oversight to make sure officers are dealing” with such incidents in a healthy way.
The mayor’s proposed budget elaborates that this new lieutenant would “work hand in hand with Peer Support, Comfort Dogs and outside agencies to ensure good mental health for Officers. Good mental and psychological health is just as essential as good physical health for law enforcement officers to be effective in keeping our country and our communities safe from crime and violence.” This lieutenant would also ensure that officers undertake the annual wellness checks required by the state’s police accountability act from 2020.
On the community health side, Jacobson said, “if we go to a certain address numerous times for mental health issues, and it’s flagged in our system, this person [the new lieutenant] would then bring those concerns to COMPASS, to the other agencies we work with, [to] Clifford Beers, so that we get help for people. … So we’re not constantly going to these houses.”
Have you noticed a big difference in officers proactively seeking mental healthcare, particularly in the wake of the state police accountability act’s wellness check requirements? asked Board of Alders President and West River Alder Tyisha Walker-Myers.
Yes, Jacobson replied, “I’ve seen it firsthand. I’ve seen that it works. I see how important it is.”
Jacobson noted the department has 17 supervisor vacancies and dozens of vacancies in the patrol division.
He said the department is about to hold a sergeant’s test on March 27, and a lieutenant’s test soon thereafter. He said the department could fill 17 to 20 supervisor positions “within the next six months.”
More than half of the patrol division, or 123 officers in total, have under five years experience as police officers, Jacobson noted. “We need that supervision to help these younger kids. Yes, we do have a lot of positions to fill, but we will get those positions filled on the supervisor end.”