Proposal outlines justice reforms

KINGSTON, N.Y. » The Ulster County Justice & Reform Commission has laid out a five-year plan for revamping the county’s criminal justice system that members say will help end mass incarceration in the county, improve police oversight and accountability, address systemic racial bias and heal relationships between the county Sheriff’s Office and residents.

In a final plan that will be presented to the public during a town hall-style meeting from 6-8 p.m. Thursday on Zoom, the commission set forth goals in each of the four categories as well as a series of immediate and long-term steps to be taken to achieve the goals. The commission will take feedback from those participating in the Thursday meeting.

To register for the meeting, go to bit.ly/2XCNn2a.

“The goal of this plan is to be a visionary document that outlines the concrete steps needed to create a criminal justice system that reflects the beliefs and needs of our community,” the document states.

The plan includes immediate actions the county can take through resolutions, budget amendments and executive orders, as well as a five-year plan in each of the four broad categories that will enable county officials to track whether the county is taking the incremental steps needed to attain the longterm goals.

Among the recommendations spelled out in the report are:

• Expanding the county’s restorative justice programs, including bringing the programs into schools and offering training to community leaders in restorative justice practices.

• Reducing recidivism by working with lawbreakers to provide them with job training and housing opportunities — including recommending the county support the construction of affordable and supportive housing — and increasing mental health support at the county jail and in discharge plans developed for inmates, which members said would help end mass incarceration.

• Continuing to reduce staffing at the jail and working with the state to reduce the future allowed jail population, with savings used to bolster mental health, diversion programs and social supports.

• Re-evaluating the sheriff’s Student Resource Officer program and either no longer making deputies available to schools or refocusing those programs and limiting the role of those deputies.

To improve police oversight and accountability, the commission should “create a transparent and accountable system that makes the community feel safe and protected,” the report states.

To that end, the commission recommended the county consider enacting a police review board, adopt a “Right to Know Act” that would require sheriff’s deputies to immediately identify themselves and explain the reason for the police stop, and take more steps to update the Sheriff’s Office’s excessive force policy.

The commission also recommended the county Legislature pass additional consent-to-search laws and over the next five years, and improve mental health services by expanding crisis intervention training to 50% of the Sheriff’s Office and 25% of all local police departments.

The commission recommended that to address systemic racial bias, the Sheriff’s Office adopt an intelligence- and evidence-based policy for police stops. Also, it said, the county should partner with SUNY Ulster to create a training course for civil service, physical fitness and resumé assistance, and hire a community liaison to prioritize outreach in diverse communities in order to hire more people of color in the department. The ultimate goal, the report said, should be creating a “recruitment and training pipeline for people of all backgrounds” for the Sheriff’s Office. It also said the office should require annual racial bias training.

To heal relationships between the Sheriff’s Office and the community, the commission recommended the office create a community liaison to implement community programs, plan community events and meet with community stakeholders, and use the Restorative Justice Center to hold quarterly community-building events.

The commission was appointed by County Executive Pat Ryan in response to an executive order by Gov. Andrew Cuomo that all local governments in New York with police departments “perform a comprehensive review of current police force deployments, strategies, policies, procedures and practices, and develop a plan to improve such deployments, strategies, policies, procedures and practices.”

Cuomo’s directive came in the wake of the May 25, 2020, death of George Floyd, a 46-year-old African-American man, after a white officer with the Minneapolis Police Department pressed his knee into the unarmed and handcuffed man’s neck for more than eight minutes. Floyd’s death sparked outrage across the country and led to months of protests and civil unrest.

Cuomo directed that local governments pass a local law enacting the reforms by April 1, 2021.