Police training focuses on children
Grant covers costs of teaching Hudson officers to care for kids when parents arrested
Police will receive training on how to protect the mental well-being of children whose parents are arrested after the urging of a local community organization and a grant from the U.S. Department of Justice.
The training is based off a model created by the International Association of Chiefs of Police in 2014 that urges police departments to do everything in their power to arrest suspects when their children are not present. The model also lays out how to talk to children about a parent’s arrest and urges departments to have social workers on standby when making arrests, among other recommendations.
Hudson Mayor Kamal Johnson called it an honor to receive the grant.
“Taking steps to protect children’s mental health in traumatic interactions with police will help in the longterm well-being of our communities,” he said.
The $120,000 grant was applied for by the Hudson mayor’s office in partnership with the community organization Greater Hudson Promise Neighborhood and the Osborne Association.
GHPN Executive Director Joan Hunt has been pushing the issue for years, and said she first brought up the policies to Hudson police in 2015.
She said things changed after the 2020 murder of George Floyd, when Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo signed an executive order mandating all communities in the state adopt a policing reform plan.
“We started to have some real conversations about ... ways to engage better with the community, including training, policy revision programming, etc.,” she said.
Hunt was one of the members of the city’s Police Accountability and Reconciliation Committee, in charge of developing the reform plan, and penned a section of the final report discussing how to protect the children of incarcerated parents.
Many components of PARC’S final report were adopted by Hudson, including the banning of no-knock warrants in most situations.
When the Osborne Association approached the city with the grant opportunity, the mayor saw an opportunity to adopt policies Hunt had included in the PARC report.
The training will be spearheaded by former interim Albany Police Chief Robert Sears, according to Hunt.
Allison Hollihan, director of the New York Initiative for Children of Incarcerated Parents at the Osborne Association, said the association had already helped train police in Albany and Buffalo on better dealing with children during arrests, and had recently trained more than 90 sergeants in the NYPD.
Hudson Police Chief Ed Moore said his department was involved in applying for the grant and expected the training to happen over the summer.
When asked if the internal policies of the department would change with the training, Moore said there would be addons to how the department traditionally functioned.
“I think definitely the policies will be fine-turned as we get educated on these situations,” he said. “We’ll write the policies, we’ll check it for completeness and legality and we’ll probably implement it when this is all said and done.”
Hudson Mayoral Aide Michael Hofmann said there was nothing mandating that Hudson police adopt new policies with regard to protecting children. However, Hudson police have been on board with the training, and he expected new internal policies would be adopted.