Could this city hold the key to the future of police in U.S.?

Force dismantled, re-created with less confrontational law approach

CAMDEN, N.J. >> As officials across the United States face demands to transform policing, many have turned to a small New Jersey city that did what some activists are calling for elsewhere: It dismantled its police force and built a new one that stresses a less confrontational approach toward residents who are mostly Black and Latino people.

The Camden Police Department’s efforts to reduce its use of force have made it one of the most compelling turnaround stories in U.S. law enforcement.

The changes have led to a stark reduction in the number of excessive-force complaints against the police and have helped drive down the murder rate in what was once one of America’s most dangerous cities.

“If you’re looking to be a high-speed operator, we’re probably not the right department,” said the current chief, Joseph Wysocki, referring to the type of officer he does not want to attract. “If you’re looking to be a guardian figure in your neighborhood, this is for you.”

Still, even as many other communities look to Camden as a template for reform, it is far from a neat model.

The disbanding of its old force was prompted not by a desire to rethink policing, but by dire finances, a public safety crisis and a political power play meant to break the police officers’ union. It took the drastic steps of firing all of the officers to allow the city to start fresh and overcome resistance.

At the start, and even today, the Camden department has followed many traditional policing practices. For example, it has embraced surveillance technology, including so-called predictive policing that relies on algorithms that can help develop patrol patterns. The technology is based on information like friendships, social media activity and past reports of crime that critics contend can reinforce racial biases.

With parts of the city awash in drugs, the reconstituted force conducted a crackdown, which helped reduce violent crime. But it also issued many tickets for small infractions, the very approach that opponents of aggressive policing call unnecessarily punitive.

That seemed to alienate residents the police were trying to win over. But as the Black Lives Matter movement gained momentum several years ago, the department came to embrace a softer strategy that activists would like to see adopted elsewhere.

The department also revamped the way it trains officers. It emphasizes defusing tense encounters, handing out fewer tickets for minor offenses and requiring officers to intervene if they see colleagues mistreating people.

Police officials talk about the “sanctity of life” as the overarching thread connecting many of the changes.

Many people in Camdenm a poor city of about 74,000 residents across the Delaware River from Philadelphia, said that overall, the changes had significantly improved their interactions with officers. They viewed the force as fairer, less menacing and more effective than before.

“For the most part, it did work out,” said Lary Steele, 41, a lifelong resident who works at Camden Tool, a supplier of industrial equipment. “The old cops used to grab us and whip our butt. A lot of the new guys are really nice.”

Zaire Harris, 18, a recent graduate of Camden High School, said that officers were “respectful and just want us to be peaceful with each other.”

Still, there is tension. Some residents described encounters that felt arbitrary and like harassment, echoing the concerns of residents in cities across the country: a jaywalking stop that escalated into a physical confrontation; a young woman who felt demeaned when an officer asked if she was a prostitute.

“They have issues engaging with the community,” said the Rev. Levi Combs III, 34, the pastor at First Refuge Progressive Baptist Church. “They’re unable to see things other than black and white.”

In a city where more than 90% are Black or Latino residents, slightly more than half of the police force’s 400 officers are people of color. And as is true in other cities, many Camden officers live in suburbs beyond the poor and working-class neighborhoods they patrol.

“They don’t know how to approach African Americans or Hispanics because they don’t come from that culture,” Combs said.

The killing of George Floyd in police custody in Minneapolis has touched off a searing national conversation about police brutality and racism and has inspired protests calling for the abolishment or shrinking of police forces.

The continuing COVID-19 testing supply shortage should come as no surprise. That’s what happens when the president fails to develop a national testing supply chain and states, including California, reopen too soon.

It’s a national disgrace made worse by the fact that President Trump is doing next to nothing to solve the problem. But Trump isn’t the only government official who has failed to rise to the occasion.

Every governor who reopened his or her state without the capacity to conduct the necessary testing shares the blame. That especially includes California Gov. Gavin Newsom, who claimed great concern for the shortage and then ignored it.

The testing shortfall threatens one of our most pressing needs: The reopening of schools throughout California and across the nation. It’s mind-boggling that we don’t have enough testing capacity for students and teachers while professional sports teams, for example, enjoy routine access.

Epidemiologists said from the beginning of the outbreak that the only way to slow spread of the coronavirus was through robust testing and contact tracing. But the U.S. effort was plagued from the onset by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s botched effort to develop a national test.

The emergency situation called for the sort of national focus given to the Manhattan Project or the lunar landing program. Trump, instead, left states to tackle the problem largely on their own.

He ignored pleas from scientists, including a report from Duke University researchers and the conservative American Enterprise Institute, to create a task force to manage the problem. The report encouraged the federal government to gather data, manage testing efforts and provide states with information on what testing capacity would be available during the summer months.

“If this work has been done (by anyone), I have not seen it,” Caitlin Rogers, one of the authors of the report, said during testimony at a congressional hearing in May, as states were gearing up to reopen.

Newsom said on April 14 that he would use six indicators to measure when the state lockdown would end. The first, he said, was the ability to monitor and protect communities through testing, contact tracing and isolating and supporting people who tested positive or were exposed. But a month later he abandoned that prudent approach, declaring he would loosen his lockdown orders even though the state couldn’t meet the testing and contact-tracing criteria.

Now coronavirus cases are surging throughout the state and nation. California last week experienced its deadliest seven-day period of the pandemic, averaging 84 fatalities per day. The number of cases in California has nearly tripled in one month, from a seven-day average of 2,795 to 7,909.

California coronavirus hospitalizations and patients in the ICU have reached record levels. And the portion of those taking the test who show positive results has soared to 7.6%, up from 4.4% a month ago. Which all suggests the situation will continue to deteriorate.

Meanwhile, Los Angeles, San Bernardino and Sacramento counties reported testing shortages that will hinder efforts to slow the spread of the virus. All told, the state is conducting fewer than half as many tests as needed to reduce the spread of the virus and only about about 11% of what’s required to reopen the economy, according to an analysis by Harvard researchers. California also has only about half of the contact tracing ability needed for testing to be effective.

Given the lack of national support, the governor must pull back on efforts to reopen California’s economy until the state has the testing and contact tracing ability to slow the spread of the deadly virus. Otherwise, the death rates will continue to rise.