Nominee Looks Beyond Community Policing

Leading criminal justice change expert Tracey Meares moved one step closer to becoming a city police commissioner — sketching a vision for how the commission could be reimagined as an accountability system for law enforcement.

Meares testified Monday night before the Board of Alders Aldermanic Affairs Committee. After questioning her, alders unanimously advanced her appointment to the full board for a final vote.

The hearing took place against a national and local backdrop of looking beyond the ​“community policing” philosophy New Haven (and Meares) helped pioneer toward a new model of public safety.

During the Zoom-conducted hearing, Meares fielded questions on her background and vision for reform against the backdrop of a national groundswell of ideas on how police systems should be improved, reimagined, or abolished in response to brutality against Black people.

In early June, Mayor Justin Elicker had promised to appoint Meares to the commission as part of an action plan in response to anti-police brutality protests.

Meares is a professor at Yale Law School, where she founded the Justice Collaborative, a research hub for criminal justice reform, and where she was the first Black woman to make tenure.

She served on President Barack Obama’s Task Force on 21st Century Policing, which called in 2015 for police departments to train in de-escalation tactics, embrace community policing, and end collaboration with immigration enforcement agencies, among other policies.

Meares has also guided police reform initiatives across the country, including in New Haven. Here, she helped build Project Longevity, an initiative to identify young people involved in violence and offer them the choice between long prison stints and help finding housing, education, and jobs in exchange for a stop to violence. She also helped create the city’s Prison Reentry Department.

Yale/Downtown Alder Eli Sabin asked Meares about the specific changes she would like to see within the New Haven Police Department.

Meares said that her ideal approach to reform would begin with more data collection on officers’ day-to-day behavior as well as dispatchers’ decision-making process in order to determine where new policies should be focused.

She advocated a use-of-force policy that would not only ban certain behaviors, such as chokeholds, but also encourage cops to slow down their decision-making processes in order to avoid confrontational situations altogether.

She also called for an overhaul of police training to focus less on punitive responses and more on constructive help for community members.

“If you’re oriented so that your job should be when and how to carry out forcible arrest in the context of a violation — which is how police are often trained — you will naturally be focused on how to use methods [of force],” she said, ​“rather than focusing on how to help people with their goals.”

She said she would like to see more specialization in the police department, which might allow for some officers to patrol without weapons. The city should ​“think about whether it’s necessary for sworn officers to carry guns all the time,” she said.

At the same time, Meares predicted that Covid-era budget concerns will make it difficult to enact these reforms for the time being. ​“Reforms take resources,” she said. Even policy changes require officers to be retrained — ​“and that’s not free.”

Hill Alder Evelyn Rodriguez asked Meares about her thoughts on critics’ calls to defund and abolish the police. Such proposals, which have gathered momentum in recent weeks, typically ask for municipalities to divert resources that currently fund law enforcement toward social services.

“‘Public safety’ for many has been defined in a very cramped way,” Meares replied. She argued that basic resources such as housing, education, and clean water should be considered elements of ​“public safety.”

The police commission, she noted, would not oversee those services. But, Meares said, the commission can ​“create an accountability structure for the policing agency that exists.”

She said that the police commission’s power is broadly defined in New Haven, allowing for the board to serve as a stronger system to hold police responsible for misconduct.

In the past, Meares has said that she does not support police abolition, citing concerns that private organizations could irresponsibly fill part of the role that police currently play.

Much of her research has focused on the concept of ​“procedural justice,” or how police departments can build trust with community members through just practices shaped by public input.

(Read more about Meares’ vision for policing here.)

“Guardian,” Not ​“Warrior”

Fair Haven Heights Alder Rosa Ferraro Santana asked Meares about her take on community policing. Ferraro Santana said she supports walking beats and other opportunities for cops to forge ties with city residents. 

“One of the issues that I find most disheartening is that most [cops] don’t live in the city and they really don’t know the community in which they’re working,” she said.

Her question hit on a key difference between advocates of reform and advocates of abolition. Many activists calling for abolition advocate against community policing, arguing that having more officers walking beats in predominantly Black neighborhoods leads to more opportunities for police brutality.

Meares questioned the term ​“community policing” itself.

“I would describe what you said as ​‘good policing,’” she said. More important than residing in the city, Meares said, officers need to build stakes in the neighborhoods they police.

“You could imagine an officer walking the beat and thinking of themselves as a warrior against crime,” Meares said. ​“They can think they are doing community policing” — but what matters are the officers’ values.

She said she believes that officers should go about their jobs with ​“a guardian mentality and not a warrior mentality.”

“Core Nitty-Gritty Issues”

When it came to Hill Alder Ron Hurt’s turn to ask questions, he pivoted from Meares’ academic research to her life experience.

Hurt spoke about the homelessness, hunger, and unemployment he has seen in his own ward.

“There’s a lot of hopelessness in my community,” he said. ​“The Black and Brown people are suffering. They’re on the street hustling to make ends meet, not because they want to but because that’s the only way they see.”

Hurt also brought up his own family. ​“I’ve watched my older brothers get brutalized by the police,” he said. ​“It became the norm for us.”

Meares is a Yale professor, Hurt noted, and Yale has a history of being uninvested in the city, of prioritizing its own interests over New Haven’s.

“Where are we when it comes to core, real, nitty gritty issues?” Hurt said. He seemed to be asking: are the topics of police violence and crime personal for Meares?

In response, Meares spoke about her own experiences growing up in the South and West sides of Chicago, where she marched every Friday night with her church against the city’s approach to addressing violence. She spoke of her mother and grandmother’s civil rights activism.

“Our family like many African American families were touched by the issues that you described,” she said. ​“I’ve had cousins who have been in prison. One of my cousins actually died in police custody.”

Meares’ career has been rooted in these experiences, she said. ​“I’ve tried to integrate my academic work with my work as a daughter and a mother and a cousin and a sister.”

She assured Hurt that she is under no obligation to serve Yale’s interests, and that she’s been a vocal critic of the university’s relationship with New Haven. ​“I have tenure. They have to pay me no matter what,” she said.

Social justice activist Kica Matos attested to this last point. In her testimony supporting Meares’ appointment, Matos recalled her activism in support of Corey Menafee, a Yale Dining staff member who was fired for shattering a stained-glass panel depicting enslaved people.

Matos said that the Vera Institute of Justice, a national organization focused on criminal justice reform where she serves as the director of immigrant rights and racial justice, considers Meares to be ​“one of the foremost experts on policing.”

Rafael Ramos, a deputy director of the city’s Livable City Initiative, also testified in support of Meares. ​“I know her as a parent, a neighbor, and I was proud that she was asked to join the Obama Administration Task Force. It was great to say to people, ​‘Hey, we know her, she’s in our neighborhood, she’s in our community,’” he said.

One other community member, whose first name was Claudia, attempted to testify but was unable to connect via audio. Alders asked her to submit written testimony for the record.

All committee alders expressed their support for Meares during a brief discussion. They voted to discharge Meares’ appointment from the committee, accelerating it so that it would next appear before the full Board of Alders.