"The city should recognize this discrepancy"
"The city should recognize this discrepancy"
A look inside the WPD equity audit
Woof! Missed my Sunday morning schedule in a big way! Over the weekend I was hit by a series of cluster headaches. You ever get one of those? They are, to put it lightly, debilitating. I had to do my whole set at the Roast of Worcester with what felt like a nail pressed against the back of my left eye. Not fun! Regardless, the event was a good time. You can watch the whole thing here.
The main subject matter today is the recently released racial equity audit of the Worcester Police Department, which the council is set to talk about tomorrow night. So the silver lining on missing that deadline is that now might be the best moment to talk about this report!
This post like every post is free to read but not free to produce! I put a lot of time and care into making sure it’s a post worth reading. Please consider a paid subscription!
But before we get too far let us rejoice...
...for someone put googly eyes on Turtleboy.
Praise be!
“Several recommendations”
The long-awaited equity audit of the Worcester Police Department has arrived! At some 130 pages, it’s a doozy. You can read the whole thing here. I spent the weekend going through it with the proverbial fine comb, and found that the document I read was a lot different than the document the city manager described in his summary note to the council. We’ll get to that discrepancy later.
The council tomorrow night is sure to be an exercise in refining the spin Batista laid down.
In its 34 findings, the audit offers a portrait of a police department rife with structural racism, disgruntled employees, poor record keeping, flimsy accountability measures, and a clear pattern of targeting Black and Latino youth. It’s a clear confirmation of everything we’ve been saying about the WPD. The city would do well to implement all of the recommendations, but it appears the process of picking and choosing is already underway.
Today I’m going to pull out a few of the most important findings and look at them closely.
First, some background.
This report was one of the marquee elements of city hall’s ostensible response to the Black Lives Matter moment. It was commissioned in 2021, by then-City Manager Ed Augustus, and I don’t think we’re getting an honest answer as to why it took so long to arrive. But that’s nothing new.
The audit was authored by CNA, a Virginia-based “nonprofit research and analysis organization” focused on security. A list of public reports on its website shows a wide range of work in what we might call the “national security world.” Couldn’t find how much the city paid for this audit anywhere but I’m sure it wasn’t cheap. There are six listed authors.
The research process included dozens of interviews with WPD staff and community members, two community meetings, a survey of WPD staff, policy document review, and statistical analysis of data sets provided by the police department (which, the report points out often, weren’t very good).
The audit details six focus areas: DEI, hiring/promoting, policy, “community-oriented policing,” use of force, and how complaints are handled. The 34 findings are split between those six areas, and each finding comes with one or two recommended action steps. In a perfect world, the council would hold the manager, and thereby the WPD, accountable for implementing each of these recommended action steps. That is not the world we live in and, as we’ll see in the finding-by-finding breakdown, there’s already an effort underway to downplay and ignore whole swaths of this audit.
So let’s get to these findings, starting with the most important.
Finding 10
The header reads: “Individuals from Black and Hispanic communities face a higher rate of arrests compared to their White counterparts.”
The firm found that Black and Hispanic people are both about two times more likely to be arrested than white people overall. This is easily the most significant finding in the report, and the one we should expect to see the most effort spent in downplaying.
The data, collected from 2017-2021, are clear.
Black and Hispanic people make up the majority of those arrested in every age category under 45, and in the older age groups, there are many fewer arrests. The juvenile and 18-25 categories are the most striking. Young Black and Latino people are arrested at a much higher rate than young white people.
And the firm didn’t mince words about it.
Black youth accounted for 28.9 percent of juvenile arrests, while Hispanic youth accounted for 48.8 percent and White youth accounted for 18.1 percent of juvenile arrests.
According to the Worcester Public School enrollment data, Black students made up about 16.6 percent of the district from 2017 to 2021, while Hispanics made up 43.3 percent, and Whites made up 29.1 percent.
Considering that Worcester public school enrollment data may serve as a better reflection of this population, that shows Black and Hispanic youth to be overrepresented in arrest.
Now, take a look at how Batista described it in his written summary to the council:
Figures that will likely jump out at people in the report are related to arrests, with Black community members and Hispanic community members 2.17 and 1.84, respectively, times more likely to be arrested than their white counterparts. The numbers are concerning; however, it is important to look at those numbers with context.
The figures are based off the demographic breakdown of the population of the entire City of Worcester, however the majority of people being arrested in the City are young people. Worcester is becoming a more diverse City every day and because of that the demographics of its younger population don't match the demographics of the older generation. When you look at the arrest data compared to Worcester Public School enrollment data the populations line up more closely. Also keep in mind that the school population does not fully capture a demographic breakdown of all the youth in the City.
Black students make up 16.6 percent of the district and Hispanic students make up 43.3
percent of the district, while Black youth account for 28.8 percent of juvenile arrests and Hispanic youth represent about 48 percent of juvenile arrests.
What the report described as cause to “recognize this discrepancy,” Batista presented as proof it’s not as bad as it might seem. That’s what he means when he writes “the populations line up more closely.” That’s not what the report is trying to tell you, Eric! Not even close. The enrollment data makes it more damning. Not less!
One of the explanations the report offers for why this disparity exists is a concentration of “calls for service to a specific area.”
Prioritizing comprehensive data collection and ongoing monitoring will be crucial for conducting a comprehensive review. It is worth noting that disparities in arrests often coincide with concentrated police activity in certain geographic areas. Therefore, presenting a geographical breakdown of arrest data alongside census data would help provide insights into these patterns.
Using this information from the regular evaluations, the department can develop a detailed plan for implementing reforms and making changes to its policing practices that promote fairness and equity. For example, to mitigate over-policing in areas with higher Black and Hispanic populations, the department may consider reallocating proactive units to ensure a more equitable distribution of resources.
The firm recommends that the city “create a robust data collection system to inform the development of a plan aimed at addressing disparities in arrests within Black and Hispanic communities.”
The WPD currently contracts Shotspotter to do the exact opposite. With its gunshot detection and “predictive policing” tools, the technology optimizes the “calls for service to specific areas” that the report points to as a problem. WPD officials call this “intelligent policing” and praise it often. In a recent WPD annual report on crime data, the importance of Shotspotter got an entire section. But, as a recent Wired investigation made evident, the coverage area of the gun detection sensors in Worcester—as in every other city that has them—neatly overlaps with the city’s most Black and Brown neighborhoods. And the “predictive policing” AI uses the same data sets as CNA! The data with the glaring, 2:1 arrest ratios found in the audit. But the AI isn’t designed to mitigate disparities. Not at all. It claims to “forecast crime” and dispatch patrols to “crime hotspots” it generates from analyzing the data. It’s automating and streamlining the very “concentrated police activity in certain geographic areas” that CNA points to as cause for the disparities in arrests.
It’s too much to get into in this post, but a few weeks ago me and Chris Robarge teamed up to take a good hard look at Shotspotter. Read up: “A streamlining solution for crime manufacturers”
If the city were serious about addressing this problem, a good first step would be parting ways with Shotspotter. It’s not likely they’ll do that. Even after that Wired story forced a national conversation about Shotspotter tech, there’s been no mention at all locally. It’s something me and Chris predicted, unfortunately:
The council hasn’t met since the Wired story dropped. It’s a toss up whether it prompts a discussion. It probably won’t. If a progressive councilor forces a discussion, it won’t accomplish anything save an opportunity to vent. The eight-vote majority will spike any serious attempt to reevaluate Shotspotter, and most of them would take such a move as a personal attack. We’ve seen this show before.
Hopefully that changes tomorrow night, but I’m not holding out hope.
Regardless, it wouldn’t hurt if a lot of people were to loudly point out this simple fact: We pay a private tech company to help the police accomplish a thing that we paid an auditing firm to tell us is bad. It is absurd.
Even on the off chance we adopt the firm’s recommendation, the “more robust data collection system” won’t be free, I’m sure. At that point, it becomes even more absurd. Money spent on two competing systems! One designed to “inform the development of a plan aimed at addressing disparities” as the report puts it. And another designed to amplify those same disparities.
But that’s a moot point. Given the city manager couldn’t even write about this finding in good faith, it’s unlikely we’ll see any real movement on the recommendation. More likely, we’ll see the majority of the council pick up on Batista’s “not as bad as they first seem” line, and explain these disparities away. Any effort to take the findings as seriously as CNA will be similarly dismissed as “divisive.” The cops see no reason to do anything differently. Absurd.
Finding 11
Titled “The WPD s data highlight a disproportionate level of arrests among youth of color,” this finding digs deeper into the pattern of juvenile arrests. The authors call for more diversion strategies and “alternatives to arrest and detention.”
They point out that the department’s juvenile arrest policy makes no mention of any procedures to “prioritize the diversion of youth from the criminal justice system.” Instead, it focuses on “detention, interrogation, and release procedures.” They suggest changing that, and also more diversion programs.
Finding 9
Underscoring both of these important findings about the age and race of those arrested is another that throws the whole exercise into question.
Finding 9 is about how the WPD’s data is so lousy the firm couldn’t do as much as they’d have liked:
The audit team was unable to complete several analyses on racial disparities for use of force, traffic stops, and pedestrian stops or field contacts because of a lack of adequate data containing racial demographics.
It’s not a stretch to think that the disparities that exist in the arrest data would carry over to these other categories but hey, who’s to say?
Finding 25
In this finding, about how there’s no “formal mechanism” for gathering community feedback, the firm suggests a citizens advisory council. A civilian review board, in other words. The city has been very hostile to that idea over the years. The Human Rights Commission was established out of that refusal, actually. This finding isn’t mentioned in Batista’s summary at all. It seems they’re going to do their best to ignore it.
Finding 29
A running theme throughout this document is the lack of good record-keeping. In this finding, it becomes glaring. The race of community members involved in use of force incidents is not collected at all, apparently.
The WD collects relatively little information about use-of-force incidents and does not collect data on the race of involved community members. This hinders useful analysis of these data and does not allow for developing an understanding of any disparities in use-of-force incidents.
Finding 30
Along a similar train of thought, this finding shows the department does not have a procedure to “systematically assess use-of-force incidents, examine any racial or geographical disparities in these incidents, and develop strategies to rectify these disparities.” Hmmmmm maybe that’s on purpose?
They recommend a formal process to gather this data and also an annual report which details it.
Batista doesn’t mention this recommendation in his summary.
Finding 31
The department reports use of force data on its website, but it doesn’t disclose any information regarding racial or ethnic demographics. They recommend that the department starts. Again, Batista does not mention it.
Finding 32
Here, the firm takes to task the internal review mechanisms, which are apparently lacking.
“Both WPD staff and community stakeholders perceived bias and favoritism in how complaints and disciplinary actions are handled.”
Here, again, they recommend the implementation of a civilian review board.
Batista does not mention the civilian review board.
Finding 33
The database for internal review of complaints does not include racial data. The firm suggests changing that. A statistical breakdown of complaints and how they’re handled raises an eyebrow.
Not a whole lot of complaints getting sustained here!
Survey data shows that not even WPD officers really believe the complaint process is legitimate.
That’s 43 percent of officers believing the discipline process is not transparent, and 44 percent believing there’s favoritism. Not good!
Finding 3
The WPD's ongoing engagement with Worcester's Human Rights Commission (HRC) offers opportunities to better address DEI issues.
Finding 4
“Community members expressed concerns that the WPD has not sufficiently acknowledged how institutional policing practices that have impacted communities of color may be negatively affecting community trust in law enforcement.”
Here, former Chief Steven Sargent’s famous statement about how he’s “never seen any racism” in the WPD came into focus in the report. The “unease surrounding comments made by WPD leadership” was a “recurring theme” in community interviews, CNA writes.
This assertion caused significant consternation among both community members and external stakeholders. It was seen as a failure on the part of both the WPD and its leadership to recognize how policing practices have disproportionately affected communities of color.
CNA recommends that the WPD “publicly recognize the findings of this audit's data analysis” and “take steps to acknowledge past incidents involving communities of color.”
Hard to imagine that happening. Especially considering that CNA’s survey data shows that the majority of WPD officers agree with Sargent.
That’s 64 percent of surveyed officers “strongly disagreeing” with the statement that “various forms of institutional racism are present in the WPD.” And 78 percent disagreeing overall. Only 4 percent wholeheartedly agreed with the notion that institutional racism exists. That’s crazy. How are we to seriously expect this department, which is 80 percent white and 78 percent of the belief that no racism is going on, to act on this recommendation? Or any of these recommendations, for that matter?
It would be very interesting to see how survey questions like that one broke down along racial lines. It’s frustrating that this audit, extensive as it was, didn’t provide that analysis. And they had the data! In an appendix, they provided the demographic breakdown of survey responses. But they didn’t see fit, apparently, to make any cross comparisons. Maybe that’s something a councilor could ask for, but I doubt they’d get the votes to do so. But absent the data, it is interesting to consider the percentage of officers who refuse to acknowledge institutional racism is very close to the percentage of officers who are white.
A fitting way to transition to the next set of findings!
Findings 7 & 8
Subhead for 7: “The City's promotion process has historically advanced individuals at WPD who do not reflect diversity.”
Subhead for 8: “Both WPD staff and community members raised concerns that the WPD's current promotion process may be lacking.”
Both of these points are backed both by data and survey results. I mean just look at this:
The recommendation is to remove the civil service system (a supposedly objective ranking mechanism based on standardized testing) entirely, as other departments have done. Batista has only partially moved on this recommendation. Last week, the council approved his recommendation to remove the chief and deputy chief positions from civil service. But CNA is recommending that the department move away from it entirely. In his summary, Batista poo-pooed the idea, and the underlying concerns about favoritism.
Another finding from the CNA survey found that some employees feel there is favoritism in the department when it comes to promotions. Due to the civil service exam, which places candidates for promotion in a ranked pipeline based on their scores, favoritism does not play a role in promotions.
Yet again, the report says otherwise! It makes it pretty clear civil service facilitates favoritism, especially for white officers. It doesn’t disprove the existence of it, as Batista alleges.
Batista’s decision to only partially act on this recommendation is likely due to intense opposition from the police unions. The removal of the chief and the deputy chief already has the unions up in arms. I’m sure it’s not the only recommendation in this audit they’ll oppose. If the manager even dares to try.
Looking to tomorrow
While we’ll have to wait and see how the council and the manager approach this document tomorrow, Batista’s summary suggests that relatively few of 43 recommendations in this audit are going anywhere.
In that summary, he only mentions a handful specifically. Others are left vaguely addressed. For instance, he writes the city and department “fully support the collection of more data, and the sharing of that data with the public.” Some are completely absent, most notably the recommendations for a citizen advisory council and civilian review board.
He ends with this: “I look forward to a detailed review and discussion of the audit in committee.”
In committee are choice words here. What he means is the Standing Committee on Public Safety, and the implied request is the “review and discussion” happen there, as opposed to the full council. As we’ve discussed many times, the public safety subcommittee is deeply corrupted. It’s the total opposite of the oversight body it should be. Kate Toomey is the chairwoman, and she seems to earnestly believe that role makes her a police officer. She takes marching orders from police union officials, and that’s a documented fact. As chairwoman, she gets to decide when the committee meets, and for what reason. She only tends to call them when the cops need approval for something they want. She is the least likely of the 11 councilors to take oversight of the police seriously.
For Mayor Joe Petty, that’s a feature, not a bug. He gives her that committee assignment every term, knowing full well she won’t use it to hold the cops accountable. This term, Toomey is joined by Moe Bergman and Luis Ojeda. Bergman is the number two least likely councilor to take police oversight seriously. Ojeda’s new so we don’t know for sure, but it’s irrelevant. Nothing is going to come out of that committee that the cops don’t like. In Toomey and Bergman, there’s two of three votes making sure of that. It’s about as clear an example of regulatory capture as you could find.
And that’s where Batista wants this audit to go.
Hopefully there will be some attempt tomorrow to get this sent to a different subcommittee. If it goes to public safety, and it probably will, this audit is effectively put in the hands of the police.
Really all this document gave us was a clearer picture of what will not change. Heavy note to end on, but what else is there to say?
Odds and ends
Thank you for reading this especially difficult to produce post! What with the ice pick in my left eye and all. Hopefully I’m through the worst of it. So far so good today.
Anyway, please consider a paid subscription to keep this outlet up and running!
And make sure you join us on Worcestery Council Theatre 3000 tomorrow if you plan on watching the city council meeting! It’s the only tolerable way to get through those things.
Besides the equity audit, other interesting things on the agenda include Bergman getting mad the statehouse is trying to make it harder to punish teens (10l) Aaaand the council is going to dip its toe into the rental registry fracas, per several orders from George Russell (10d, 10m).
The rental registry discourse of late has been about as dumb and frustrating as the Mill Street discourse.
The landlords are getting pissy, folks!! Worcester property owners are “having a normal one” over the rental registry paperwork that recently went out in the mail.
This Worcesteria column details more ummmm hysteria still. And then there’s this NextDoor thread, which is hoooo boy.
More trouble at St. Vincent. Eight nurses are suing the ownership company, Tenet, for what they say is retaliation for complaining about work conditions. CEO Carolyn Jackson never ceases to amaze. Having spent a good amount of time at St. V’s over the past year, I can say first hand those nurses deserve better.
Ok that’s all for now! Talk soon.