Source: https://www.aclu.org/other/picking-pieces-recommendations
Timestamp: 2019-04-21 14:45:11+00:00

Document:
Disproportionate policing in communities of color is not unique to the Minneapolis Police Department. On the contrary, racial disparities in police practices exist around the country. As we are in the midst of a national moment of reckoning with these longstanding injustices, attention to these issues on behalf of our police departments and our political institutions is long overdue. We need to ensure that the police protect and serve equally and fairly. Yet just as unwarranted racial disparities in policing are not unique to Minneapolis, these disparities are not unique to policing. As a result, improvements in police practices cannot alone remedy racial disparities in other parts of the criminal justice system like prosecution and sentencing and in other domains like poverty, education, and employment. Still, police are the first point of entry into the criminal justice system and police reform is therefore a necessary but not sufficient part of tearing down systemic forms of racial inequality.
We thank Chief Harteau for her receptiveness to discussing and acknowledging longstanding racial disparities in the Department's low-level arrest practices.3 We also commend the Chief for introducing implicit bias training to the Department, encouraging officers to spend more time out of their cars interacting with the public, expanding diversion for young people, and creating a pilot project for officer-worn body cameras. These are important steps, but they are not enough to remedy the extreme racial disparities documented in this analysis. We encourage the Chief, the Mayor, the City Council, the County Board of Commissioners, and members of the community to work with the ACLU and other civil rights and civil liberties experts in a good faith effort to implement reforms that will continue to move the Department out of its past and into a more equitable future.
It is impossible to eliminate unwarranted racial disparities in policing without addressing culture change. Since officers' behavior is as likely to conform to culture as it is to formal rules, it is essential that the City of Minneapolis ("City") and the Minneapolis Police Department ("MPD" or "Department") take concrete steps to transform the Department's culture and values.
Provide a detailed explanation of the process by which officers may appeal any disciplinary decision, as well as the scope of any such appeal.
Implicit bias training materials, performance evaluation metrics, and the disciplinary matrix should all be publicly available on the Department's website.
In March 2015, Attorney General Holder announced that the Minneapolis Police Department had been chosen to be one of the first six pilot sites for the National Initiative for Building Community Trust and Justice.14 One of the Initiative's goals is to "enhance procedural justice."15 Chief Harteau will begin working with the Initiative's team in June 2015.
An annual report, prepared for the Chief and available to the public, describing and analyzing the year's bias-based policing allegations and the Department's responses to those allegations, in addition to the status of the Department's efforts to prevent bias-based policing.
The Department should prohibit consensual searches and pretextual stops. At a minimum, the Department should adopt a policy that requires officers to have reasonable suspicion before asking a subject for consent to search and requires officers to document a subject's consent on a written form, in a language the subject understands, that explains the right to refuse or revoke consent at any time before the search happens.18 In addition, police should be prohibited from approaching people in the absence of reasonable suspicion or probable cause and asking for their names or identification in order to check whether they have outstanding warrants.
To reduce inequities in policing, data must be kept, regularly analyzed, and constantly made public, because what gets measured can get done.
Officer use of force statements, written before the end of a shift, to include a specific description of acts that led to the officer's use of force, the level of resistance encountered, if any, and a description of every type of force used during the encounter. Boilerplate and conclusory statements like "furtive movement" or "fighting stance" should not be permitted.
Low-level warrants are the third most common reason for low-level arrests in the data set. 84.7% of those warrants were for misdemeanors, 14.7% were for gross misdemeanors, 0.4% were for petty misdemeanors, and 0.2% were for status offenses. The Department was unable to provide any more information about the specific low-level offenses for which these warrants were issued. Since 62% of the people in the data set arrested for a low-level offense pursuant to a warrant were Black—while only 18.6% of the city's population is Black—more information is needed to understand the causes of this extreme racial disparity and to prevent its continuation. The Department therefore needs to improve its data collection as to warrants and any actions taken pursuant to the warrants.
The result of each deployment, including the location; time of day; the number of arrests; the apparent race, ethnicity (including Latino), gender, age, apparent disability, and English proficiency of civilians both arrested and present; the type of evidence or property seized; whether a forcible entry was required; how such entry was gained; whether a weapon was discharged by SWAT; and injuries sustained by both civilians and law enforcement.
The Department should develop protocols for making its raw data, including but not limited to low-level arrest data like that analyzed in this project, publicly available on a quarterly basis.30 Indeed, Mayor Hodges has written that quarterly reporting "is a good idea," and has "commit[ted] to regular reporting" of data on issues like low-level arrests.31 In addition, the Department, in partnership with the City Council, should ensure that raw data is analyzed by an independent party on a regular basis to identify unwarranted disparate impacts on certain protected classes, including but not limited to apparent race, ethnicity (including Latino), gender, age, apparent disability, and English proficiency. These analyses should be made publicly available annually if not every quarter.
The Department should commit to eliminating policies and practices that have an unwarranted disparate impact on certain protected classes such as those mentioned above.32 The long-term impacts of historical inequality and institutional bias can result in disproportionate enforcement, even in the absence of intentional bias. Therefore, the Department should be constantly reviewing its data internally so that it can identify disparities as soon as possible and craft ways to protect public safety and public order without engaging in racial profiling or other kinds of bias-based policing. When disparate impacts are identified, the Department should consult as appropriate with neighborhood, business, and community groups to explore effective alternative practices that would result in less disproportionate impact. Alternative enforcement practices may include addressing the targeted behavior in a different way, de‐emphasizing and/or de-criminalizing the practice in question, or other measures. These efforts should be documented and made public.
Transparency, including quarterly reporting to the public of basic data on complaints and dispositions, without personally identifiable information.
Body-worn and dashboard cameras make everyone—the public and police officers—accountable for their actions. The Department has begun a pilot project, which is an important first step. During the pilot project, the Department should establish a formal working group that includes the ACLU and other civil rights, civil liberties, and community groups to develop the Department's body camera policy. The policy should require civilian notification and rigorous standards regarding the retention, use, access, and disclosure of data captured by such systems.34 The ACLU is working around the country to establish body camera policies that appropriately balance privacy concerns and the need for increased police accountability.
The City should improve its Results Minneapolis community surveys. The surveys should be reliable, comprehensive, and representative of all aspects of the community, and should measure community experiences with and perceptions of the Department and public safety.35 The most recent community survey about MPD was published in April 2014,36 and does not include breakdowns by race, ethnicity, and age for the measurements of "Resident Satisfaction with Police Professionalism" and "Resident Contact with the Police Department."37 Given that low-level arrests are so racially disproportionate and have such a large impact on young people, it is critically important that measurements of public trust in the police are broken down by race, ethnicity, and age. These surveys should examine the experience of all communities, including those that are a numerical minority in the city.
The Department should create pre-arrest diversion programs to keep people out of the criminal justice system for low-level and nonviolent offenses. Pre-arrest diversion is especially appropriate for young people and people experiencing homelessness. These vulnerable populations are far more likely to succeed and contribute positively to public safety if they stay out of the criminal justice system.
"[R]esearch demonstrates clearly that involvement in the juvenile justice system, holding all other factors constant, is associated with an increased likelihood of offending behavior,"38 even when controlling for criminal history and other variables. Accordingly, the City and the Department should create a pre-arrest diversion program39 based on the principle that outcomes for young people are better when they have less interaction with law enforcement. In addition, diversion programs should not be so onerous that they are significantly harder for youth of limited means to participate in.
The Department has recently taken positive steps in the direction of diversion. On May 4, 2015, MPD issued an Administrative Announcement titled "Home First Curfew Process." This Announcement encourages officers in most cases to bring a young person home and leave them with a responsible adult who is willing to take custody and not issue a curfew citation to the young person. In addition, on September 26, 2014, MPD issued an Administrative Announcement titled "MPD Juvenile Diversion." This Announcement directs officers not to issue citations or electronic citations for many misdemeanors and directs the cases to the Juvenile Diversion Sergeant to determine whether the young person is eligible for diversion. Again, these are positive steps. However, the diversion is too limited in scope insofar as only first time youth arrestees are eligible, and it does not apply to status offenses, petty misdemeanor offenses, or traffic, parking, or pedestrian violations. Thus, the ACLU encourages the Department to explore broader diversion options.
When young people are suspected of committing victimless low-level offenses like truancy, curfew, or disorderly conduct, a pre-arrest diversion program should carry the presumption that less interaction with law enforcement is most likely to result in better outcomes; they should be warned in lieu of arrest and offered information about services such as after school programs and counseling that may be helpful. When young people are suspected of committing low-level offenses that involve a victim like theft, attempt to cause bodily harm, or assault, a pre-arrest diversion program should carry the presumption that the young person should participate in restorative justice resolution in lieu of arrest. The tenets of restorative justice require participants to attend to the victims' needs and concerns, repair harm to the degree possible to the victims and the community, engage broad-based stakeholder and community involvement, and employ participatory dialogue and decision making. The City and the Department should work together to increase funding for and expand existing restorative justice projects like Seward Neighborhood Group and Restorative Justice Community Action.
An expanded diversion program for young people in Minneapolis could also take inspiration from the Civil Citation Initiative in Florida.40 First time youth offenders who commit "common," "nonviolent" misdemeanors are eligible for civil citation in place of arrest and formal charges. Upon citation, caseworkers at a "Juvenile Assessment Center" administer an assessment in order to recommend sanctions such as community service, counseling, substance abuse services, or restitution. If an offender fails to complete the prescribed sanctions, he or she is referred to the formal juvenile justice system.
The most common low-level charges against people experiencing homelessness are nonviolent41 and the homeless are at increased risk of being arrested repeatedly for these types of offenses. The underlying problems that have left these members of the community without a stable home cannot be solved by repeated contacts with the criminal justice system. Indeed, Hennepin County Sheriff Rich Stanek recently wrote in the Star Tribune that "[a]ll too often, police resources are spent responding to and arresting folks whose 'offenses' are just symptoms of more fundamental issues: homelessness, mental illness, alcohol or chemical dependency, unemployment, or low levels of education. Calling on law enforcement to solve these societal problems, with only one solution (arrest and booking), often has a negative impact on police-community relations—especially when the arrests have a disparate impact on minority or immigrant communities."42 To address these limitations, the Department should partner with other governmental agencies and service providers to create a pre-arrest diversion program for low-level homeless offenders. Instead of cycling in and out of the criminal justice system for low-level offenses that are largely symptomatic of homelessness—not dangerousness—these individuals, and public safety at large, would be better served by increasing access to needed services including housing, drug treatment, mental health treatment, job training, and health care.
Currently, the Department works with St. Stephen's Street Outreach, which provides services and, at times, intervenes when livability crimes would be better addressed by a social services response than an arrest. This is good and important work, but the data analyzed in this report shows that during the study period just under 40 percent of the low-level charges against people experiencing homelessness were for consuming in public, open bottle, begging/panhandling, and public urination. Accordingly, efforts to divert people experiencing homelessness from the criminal justice system need to be expanded and increased.
As noted above, many of the Department's low-level arrests are made pursuant to warrants. Of those arrested on a warrant for a low-level offense, 94.6% were booked. In addition, 62% of the people in the data set arrested on a low-level warrant were Black. Warrants often are issued because people have failed in some way to follow up on a previous citation or arrest for a low-level offense. For example, they may have missed a court appearance or a deadline to either challenge the citation or pay the fine. Given that warrants are such a common reason for low-level arrests, and that those arrests are so likely to result in booking, which costs time, money, and jail space, the City and the Department should investigate why so many low-level warrants are issued in the first instance. With more information, the City and the Department should be able to craft creative solutions and reduce the perceived need to issue so many low-level warrants. For example, it may be that most people for whom a low-level warrant is issued were unable to show up in court at the designated time because they could not get time off work or they could not find childcare help. Some people might be failing to pay fines because they are unable to afford them. Or perhaps people are simply not keeping track of their deadlines effectively, or do not understand the forms they are given and what they are supposed to do. In short, the high number of arrests for low-level warrants, the racial disparities in those arrests, and the high societal costs of booking people in jail for low-level offenses merit investigation and creative problem solving efforts.
In 33 months, the MPD made 906 low-level arrests that it categorized under an offense called "doesnt fit any crim." Seventy two percent of the people arrested under this category were Black. According to the Department, this categorization is the result of limitations in its computer system and not an indication that these 906 arrests were made without legal justification. Given the information made available to the ACLU, the ACLU has no way to verify the Department's explanation. The ACLU therefore remains concerned about the legality of these arrests, particularly in light of their racially disparate impact. The Department should immediately open an investigation into these arrests.
"Police represent the 'face' of the criminal justice system to the public. Yet police are obviously not responsible for laws or incarceration policies that many citizens find unfair."47 Overcriminalization has spread rampantly throughout the country and it is time to reevaluate whether it really serves society's best interests to criminalize so much non-dangerous behavior that often lacks what we collectively understand as "criminal intent." We therefore call on city, county, and state policymakers to create task forces to review their criminal codes and seek decriminalization of appropriate offenses.
By way of example, we strongly encourage Hennepin County to repeal its Juvenile Curfew Ordinance 16, and the State to repeal its enabling curfew statute, Minnesota Statute 145A.05(7a). The stated purpose of the County's Ordinance is to "reduce juvenile victimization and crime and  advance public safety, health, and general welfare."48 In contrast to this well-meaning purpose, the data analyzed in this project shows that at least one of the actual effects of the ordinance is to criminalize young people. Bringing young people into the criminal justice system does not protect them from victimization; instead, it makes them more likely to stay in the criminal justice system throughout their childhood and into adulthood. In the data analyzed, curfew was by far the most common charge against young people—4,901 curfew charges accounted for 40% of all low-level charges against young people. The second most common charge accounted for only 6.3% of all low-level youth charges. In addition, Black youth were 4.6 and Native American youth were 8.7 times more likely to be arrested for a juvenile curfew violation than white youth. This ordinance is exacerbating racial disparities among young people within the criminal justice system. Juvenile Curfew Ordinance 16 should be repealed immediately and young people previously convicted of this offense should have their convictions vacated.
Also by way of example, the ACLU categorized 70 percent of the low-level charges as "administrative/non-active driving," "quality of life," "drug," and "status" offenses. These include offenses like expired boat registration, no proof of car insurance, selling liquor without a license, littering, disorderly conduct, consuming in public, interfering with pedestrian traffic, loitering with intent to commit a narcotics offense, possession of drug paraphernalia, truancy, and curfew violation.49 The public and policymakers should consider whether all of these offenses actually merit the stigmatization, collateral consequences, and public resources that go into their enforcement when they are criminalized.
The ACLU appreciates the attention paid thus far to unwarranted racial disparities in low-level policing by the Minneapolis Police Department, the Mayor's Office, and the City Council. But more work lies ahead. In addition, the ACLU reiterates that improvements in police practices are just one aspect of building trust between law enforcement and the communities they serve. The lack of trust that currently exists is a complex and multifaceted problem that can only be fully addressed through complementary systemic improvements for people of color in other parts of the criminal justice system, like prosecution and sentencing, and in their access to quality education, employment, public health, housing, and social services. In order to build a truly civil and equal society all segments of the community and all government bodies must work together towards this shared goal.
1 Mayor Betsey Hodges, An open letter from Mayor Betsey Hodges to the communities of Minneapolis, mayorhodges.com (Oct. 8, 2014), http://mayorhodges.com/2014/10/08/an-open-letter-from-mayor-betsy-hodges-to-the-communities-of-minneapolis/.
2 Peter Callaghan, 'The mayor and I are in lockstep': a Q&A with Minneapolis Police Chief JaneéHarteau, MinnPost (Nov. 21 2014), https://www.minnpost.com/politics-policy/2014/11/mayor-and-i-are-lockstep-qa-minneapolis-police-chief-jane-harteau.
3 Minneapolis Police Chief Janee Harteau, Chief Harteau's Statement on ACLU Study, Youtube (October 29, 2014), https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L1LIa--43-Q.
4See Final Report of The President's Task Force on 21st Century Policing ("Final Report of the President's Task Force") at 4, 45, 56-58, §§ 4.4, 5.7, 5.9, May 2015, available at http://www.cops.usdoj.gov/pdf/taskforce/TaskForce_FinalReport.pdf; see also James B. Comey, Director, Federal Bureau of Investigation, Remarks at Georgetown University (Feb. 12, 2015), available at http://www.fbi.gov/news/speeches/hard-truths-law-enforcement-and-race.
5 Final Report of the President's Task Force at 58, §§ 5.9.1 – 5.9.2.
6See Portland Police Bureau, Plan to Address Racial Profiling 20, 27 (January 2009), available at http://www.portlandoregon.gov/police/article/230887; see also Final Report of the President's Task Force at 52, 56, § 5.7.
7See Consent Decree Regarding the New Orleans Police Department ("New Orleans Consent Decree") at 75-76, United States v. City of New Orleans, No. 12-1924 (E.D. La. July 24, 2012), available at http://www.nola.gov/getattachment/NOPD/About-Us/NOPD-Consent-Decree/NOPD-Consent-Decree-7-24-12.pdf/; see also Final Report of the President's Task Force at 44, § 4.2.1.
8 Sheila Regan & Bill Sorem, Inventing "Minneapolis Police 2.0:" Chief Wants More Diverse, More Community-friendly Cops, The UpTake (Sept. 20, 2013), http://theuptake.org/2013/09/20/inventing-minneapolis-police-2-0-chief-wants-more-more-diverse-more-connected-cops/.
9 As used here, "community" is intended to include but not be limited to communities of color, young people, immigrants, women, homeless individuals, people who are LGBTQ, people with mental and physical disabilities, and people with mental illness.
10See New Orleans Consent Decree at 104.
11See Final Report of the President's Task Force at 11, § 1.1.
12 City of Minneapolis, MPD 2.0 brings increased focus on professional standards, accountability and service (Feb. 13, 2013), available at http://www.minneapolismn.gov/news/employees/WCMS1P-104280.
13See Final Report of the President's Task Force at 10.
14 Attorney General Holder Announces the First Six Pilot Sites for the National Initiative for Building Community Trust and Justice, Department of Justice Office of Public Affairs (March 12, 2015) available at http://www.justice.gov/opa/pr/attorney-general-holder-announces-first-six-pilot-sites-national-initiative-building-0.
16 5-104 Impartial Policing, Minneapolis Police Department Policy & Procedure Manual (June 27, 2001) available at http://www.ci.minneapolis.mn.us/police/policy/mpdpolicy_5-100_5-100.
17 Seattle Police Department Manual § 5.140, Bias-Free Policing, available at http://www.seattle.gov/police-manual/title-5---employee-conduct/5140---bias-free-policing; see also Final Report of the President's Task Force at 28, § 2.13.
18See New Orleans Consent Decree at 38-39; see also Final Report of the President's Task Force at 27, § 2.10.
19 Final Report of the President's Task Force at 20-21, § 2.2.1.
20Id. at 45, § 4.4.
21See New Orleans Consent Decree at 14-15.
22 Final Report of the President's Task Force at 20-21, § 2.2.1.
23See Seattle Police Department Manual, § 8.200, Neck and Carotid Restraints, available at http://www.seattle.gov/police-manual/title-8---use-of-force/8200---use-of-force-tools#POL10.
24 Final Report of the President's Task Force at 15-16, § 1.5.4.
25Id. at 56, § 5.6.
26 In April 2015, the Minneapolis Police Conduct Oversight Commission recommended that "MPD create a policy that officers shall record basic information during investigatory detention stops. This shall include simple recitations of the reasonable suspicion for the stop and a brief description of the outcome." Minneapolis Police Conduct Oversight Commission, Investigatory Stop Documentation Review 29 (April 2015), available at http://www.ci.minneapolis.mn.us/www/groups/public/@civilrights/documents/webcontent/wcms1p-139763.pdf.
27 The Department's current policy merely suggests that officers document these encounters. See Minneapolis Police Department Policy & Procedure Manual § 9-200(III)(A)(6), Search and Seizure, available at http://www.ci.minneapolis.mn.us/police/policy/mpdpolicy_9-200_9-200. In response to a request for data on these types of encounters, the Department informed the ACLU that it does not systematically collect such data.
28 New Orleans Consent Decree at 42-44; Final Report of the President's Task Force at 24, § 2.6.
29 New Orleans Consent Decree at 23; ACLU, War Comes Home: The Excessive Militarization of American Policing 27 (2014), available at https://www.aclu.org/sites/default/files/assets/jus14-warcomeshome-report-web-rel1.pdf.
30 Final Report of the President's Task Force at 13, § 1.3.1.
31 An open letter from Mayor Betsey Hodges to the communities of Minneapolis (Oct. 8, 2014), available at http://mayorhodges.com/2014/10/08/an-open-letter-from-mayor-betsy-hodges-to-the-communities-of-minneapolis/.
32See Seattle Police Department Manual § 5.140, Bias-Free Policing.
33 Final Report of the President's Task Force at 26, § 2.8.
34 Jay Stanley, Police Body-Mounted Cameras: With Right Policies in Place, a Win For All (Oct. 9, 2013), available at https://www.aclu.org/technology-and-liberty/police-body-mounted-cameras-right-policies-place-win-all; see also Final Report of the President's Task Force at 34-35, §§ 3.1.2, 3.2.1.
35 New Orleans Consent Decree at 62-63; Final Report of the President's Task Force at 16, § 1.7.
36 Minneapolis Police Department, Results Minneapolis (Apr. 23, 2014) available at http://www.ci.minneapolis.mn.us/www/groups/public/@citycoordinator/documents/webcontent/wcms1p-123512.pdf.
38 Holly A. Wilson & Robert D. Hoge, The Effect of Youth Diversion Programs on Recidivism, 40 Crim. Just. and Behav. 5, 499 (2012), available at http://www.soc.umn.edu/~uggen/Wilson_CJB_13.pdf.
39 Final Report of the President's Task Force at 48, § 4.6.3.
40 For the most detailed official description of the program, see Florida Dept. of Juvenile Justice, Civil Citation Model Plan (Jan. 2015), available at http://www.djj.state.fl.us/docs/probation-policy-memos/civil-citation-model-plan.pdf?Status=Master&sfvrsn=4.
41 The ACLU does not have complete information on one of the ten most common low-level charges for the homeless population because, as previously explained, the Department was unable to provide information about what specific offense led to each low-level warrant arrest.
42 Rich Stanek, Our criminal-justice system fails as one-size-fits-all, Star Tribune, Mar. 27, 2015, http://www.startribune.com/opinion/commentaries/297852491.html?page=all&prepage=2&c=y#continue.
43 Katherine Beckett, Seattle's Law Enforcement Assisted Diversion Program: Lessons Learned from the First Two Years (Mar. 21, 2014), available at http://leadkingcounty.org/storage/2014-Lead-Process-Evaluation.pdf; Saki Knafo, Change of Habit: How Seattle Cops Fought an Addiction to Locking Up Drug Users, Huffington Post (Aug. 28, 2014), http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2014/08/28/seattle-lead-program_n_5697660.html.
44 Susan E. Collins, Seema L. Clifasefi & Heather S. Lonczak, Summary of "LEAD Program Evaluation: Recidivism Report" (Apr. 7, 2015), available at http://leadkingcounty.org/lead-evaluation/.
45LA County Agencies Create MOU to Launch Third District Intervention Program, Los Angeles County Website, http://file.lacounty.gov/dmh/cms1_218877.pdf (last visited Mar. 2, 2015).
46 Press Release, Office of the Mayor of New York, Mayor de Blasio and Chief Judge Lippman Announce Justice Reboot, an Initiative to Modernize the Criminal Justice System (Apr. 14, 2015), available at http://www1.nyc.gov/office-of-the-mayor/news/235-15/mayor-de-blasio-chief-judge-lippman-justice-reboot-initiative-modernize-the.
47 Final Report of the President's Task Force at 7.
48 Hennepin County Ordinance 16(1)(D).
49 For a list of the offenses the ACLU grouped into these categories, consult the footnotes document on the Picking Up the Pieces project website.

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