STRATEGY 2

Minimize unnecessary interaction with law enforcement and the criminal legal system with the community.

Minimize Unnecessary Interaction

Recommendations under Strategy 2 work to limit and restrict community members’ interactions with law enforcement and the criminal legal system. These recommendations include identifying and decriminalizing offenses that pose no threat to public safety and identifying alternative emergency response options for situations where an armed police response does more harm than good. Developing new alternatives to emergency police response – and expanding those currently in place – will protect the community from harm, reduce the administrative burden on the criminal legal system and free up law enforcement to respond to situations that pose direct threats to the safety of community members. It should also be noted that this strategy strictly targets unnecessary interactions and in no way restricts access or availability of emergency services.

STRATEGY 2 RECOMMENDATIONS

Minimize unnecessary interaction of law enforcement and the criminal legal system with the community.

  • 36 : Create and adequately support unarmed community-based non-law enforcement response teams to complement LEAD, STAR and co-responders.

  • 37 : Decriminalize sex workers who are victims of human trafficking. Deprioritize enforcement against all sex workers and ensure access to necessary services.

  • 38 : Develop, expand and fully fund pre-arrest and pre-booking diversion programs in coordination with law enforcement and community providers, using decentralized, cross-functional teams to coordinate behavioral health assessments and connections to community-based systems of care as well as offering restorative practices and transformative justice options.

  • 39 : Decriminalize quality-of-life offenses, survival crimes, and other petty infractions such as drug use, and public intoxication.

  • 40 : Decriminalize traffic offenses often used for pretextual stops.

  • 41 : Prohibit Denver Police from conducting searches in relation to petty offenses or traffic violations.

  • 41 : Prohibit Denver Police from conducting searches in relation to petty offenses or traffic violations.

  • 42 : Remove police officers from routine traffic stops and crash reporting and explore non-police alternatives that incentivize behavior change to eliminate traffic fatalities.

  • 43 : Eliminate the need for traffic enforcement by auditing and investing in the built environment to promote safe travel behavior.

  • 44 : End the school to prison pipeline by eliminating all school-based public safety contracts, diverting budget savings to social and emotional learning, behavioral monitoring and reinforcement, counseling, and peace-able schools programs.

  • 45 : Create regular amnesty events to clear warrants for failures to appear or unpaid fines, and expungement clinics for eligible offenses.

  • 46 : Automatically expunge past convictions for actions that are no longer illegal and automatically seal records for certain misdemeanors and low-level felonies.

  • 47 : Use data to prevent gentrification-driven displacement and reduce criminal enforcement against displaced people through cross-agency collaboration.

  • 48 : Create an ordinance making it illegal to contact law enforcement solely to discriminate against a person for any illegitimate purpose, including a person’s race, ethnicity, disability, religious affiliation, gender, sexual orientation or gender identity.

  • 49 : Enable and increase ambulatory contracts with Denver Fire and Denver Health to improve response times and allow dispatch of ambulances to STAR calls without police.

  • 50 : Create an app to access alternatives for behavioral health crises.

  • 51 : Measure the proficiency of all law enforcement personnel (including relevant civilian personnel) as well as 911 dispatchers in the Denver Metro Area to ensure that Crisis Intervention Team training is effective.

  • 52 : Invest in a community-based, community-led violence prevention strategic plan that includes but is not
    limited to traffic stop violence and government sanctioned violence.

  • 53 : Remove electronic surveillance absent an active investigation, and prohibit future investments in electronic surveillance in overpoliced communities.

  • 54 : Enforce the ban on police preventing civilians from videorecording police activity.

  • 55 : Bar the Denver Police Department from entering into blanket contracts with entities to obtain access to surveillance footage and instead require an individualized request to the person who owns the surveillance device.

  • 56 : Prohibit the use of facial recognition technology by Denver law enforcement.

  • 57 : Require body-worn cameras to automatically activate at a time that captures law enforcement interactions in their entirety.

  • 58 : Permit safe injection sites in the City and County of Denver.

  • 59 : End cash bail for all defendants accused of serious crimes unless it is proven by clear and convincing evidence that the defendant is a flight risk or violent threat to the community. Maintain pretrial jail population at lower levels attained during the pandemic.

  • 60 : Improve return-to-court support services and eliminate jail for those who voluntarily make the effort to clear a warrant.

  • 61 :Use text messages to notify individuals of deadlines for court and make court appearances possible via free virtual platform.

  • 62 : Reduce supervision and probation check-ins for nonviolent crimes and eliminate technical violations and bench warrants that result in more jail or prison time.

  • 63 :Create a community-led committee, comprised of those with lived experiences and individuals from most impacted communities, along with the Public Defenders office to review all municipal criminal ordinances to determine which ordinances are antiquated, ambiguous, and unnecessary to public safety, in order to minimize citizens’ interaction with law enforcement and the criminal courts.

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