Fewer BART officers, more social workers
BART plans to use nearly $ 2 million budgeted to fill six vacant police officer positions to hire social work-trained civilians to respond to homelessness, mental illness and drug addiction that plague the train system.
The plan introduced Friday adds a supervisor and 20 crisis intervention specialists to connect people in need with services — twice as many as were approved by the board last year — to the agency’s new bureau of progressive policing. It will also redeploy 10 existing sworn officers, two sergeants and two community service officers to the bureau. The plan is to pair a civilian with an officer who can stand by in case law enforcement is needed.
The plan, which will be presented to the board Thursday and doesn’t require a vote to move forward, follows national upheaval over policing and internal discussion over the
past seven months about how BART should deal with social problems.
“This bureau of progressive policing is super important in this time in our law enforcement history,” said Deputy Police Chief Angela Averiett, who is running the new bureau. “It really complements our officers to support them in the work that they’ve been doing. I have heard from a lot of people that homelessness never should have fallen on the shoulders of police officers, and I happen to agree with that. It’s a societal issue, but the reality is we are the ones dealing with it.”
BART police data showed that the highest number of calls for service in 2020 — 39% — were for wellbeing or medical assistance. Averiett said although officers can and do respond well to these calls, they detract from other emergencies.
The push to hire social workers in the Police Department, while supported by a majority of board directors, has ignited debate among some of BART’s leaders and law enforcement. Current and former police officers, their union president Keith Garcia and director
Debora Allen, often a dissenting voice, argued officers are trained and equipped to respond to safety and social issues — and will still be called when things turn violent or criminal.
The new plan was the result of engagement with the Police Department, union leadership, frontline workers, outside advisers and riders, the presentation to the board says. Survey results show 35% of these groups wanted only a civilian response to the issues of homelessness, mental illness and drug use, 27% only police and 17% a combination.
The debate is how the agency will pay for the plan. The total labor budget for the new bureau’s 45 positions is $ 8.1 million, with an additional $ 400,000 in ongoing training expenses and $ 560,000 to buy equipment.
The bulk of the money — $ 6.2 million — comes from existing and reclassified positions.
To fill new positions, money will come from leaving other roles vacant — including $ 1.9 million originally budgeted for six officers. Another $ 1.9 million will come out of money budgeted for COVID19related expenses in this year’s budget.
BART spokeswoman Alicia Trost said the new bureau doesn’t take money budgeted for other departments. BART faces a $ 33 million deficit after the pandemic robbed the agency of a majority of riders.
Critics of the plan questioned why the agency was hiring during a fiscal crisis and cutting officer positions when the department was already understaffed. Before rebudgeting six positions for crisis intervention specialists, the department was looking to hire 21 sworn officers. Now it plans to hire 15.
Those opposed to the new plan said that with enough staffing, officers can ably respond to social
calls and connect people with services, pointing to examples such as Senior Officer Eric Hofstein, who said he spends a majority of his time helping the homeless, mentally ill and drug addicts he meets in the train system.
“The new proposal by the BART Board of having social workers follow officers around is not a viable solution, logistically or financially,” Allen said in a statement. “Unfortunately, the BART Police Department has been understaffed and underfunded for decades, often times leaving officers without the time and resources to regularly do this type of work. BART simply needs to adequately fund the police
department with more officers and dedicate more officers like Hofstein to the work of helping those in crisis in the BART system.”
Violent crime on BART has more than doubled over the past five years, and crime in general, while dropping under shelterinplace rules, has not fallen as much as ridership. Board Vice President Rebecca Saltzman said that with trains running during reduced hours because of the pandemic, more officers are patrolling BART. Crime remains a problem, though, and adding more officers wouldn’t necessarily solve it, she said. She agreed officers such as Hofstein have done
“some amazing work,” but said more help is needed.
Other critics doubted whether creating more social service connections would be successful. Garcia, the president of the BART Police Officers Association, said the train system doesn’t “run homeless shelters” or “have treatment centers.” Partnering with city and county agencies for those services has been ineffective, he said.
“Is this going to be the endall, beall that cleans up the system? No. Hardening the system, keeping people from coming in, that will do it,” he said. “This is something that is a feelgood thing and hopefully we can do some good with it, but it won’t solve our problems.”
Saltzman pointed to existing partnerships such as a homeless outreach team at the end of the line in Contra Costa County that she said has helped people, although she added there have not been enough success stories because of BART capacity. She wants riders to feel safer on BART and for people in crisis to get assistance.
“They’re members of our Bay Area community who clearly need help and BART wants to be a part of that,” she said.