Recommendations for the Walk & Talk unit

Facing similar concerns about transparency, the two committees took similar approaches in assessing the Walk & Talk unit as they did for the SRO position. The reports agreed that a formal contract between BPD and BHA would be necessary to clear up any uncertainties. According to Sergeant Casey Hatchett, it was likely just an oversight that no formal documents were signed when the program started.
“30 years ago maybe MOU’s really weren’t the way we did things,” Hatchett said. “But I agree that that’s something we should have, a joint mission statement stating what the goals are and our commitment, both the police department and Brookline Housing Authority, to establish these relationships and make them the most positive experience for their residents.”
Hatchett and the Reforms Committee came to their conclusions using the survey of BHA properties that they conducted, in which a vast majority of responses indicated satisfaction with the Walk & Talk program. In contrast, the Task Force’s research included anonymous reports of fear of coming forward about bad experiences, as well as firsthand accounts of the bad experiences of several residents of color. This research led them to suspect non-response bias in the survey and suggest that the program had disparate outcomes for people of color.
This suspicion was critical in the Task Force’s recommendation: to fully eliminate the Walk & Talk program, with keeping the program but formalizing a contract as an alternative. Fernandez said that the sunsetting of this program is necessary to move towards a more transparent alternative.
“No analysis, no measurable outcomes for the community, no regular review of these programs, nothing, nothing, nothing,” Fernandez said. “And we’re spending precious dollars on that when instead we could be investing in social services that have deeper, more durable, intergenerational impacts on people in our community.”
According to Bonnie Bastien, this recommendation intentionally left the question of execution an open one, because it is important for the community to decide what that looks like.
“Whether that is removing it right away or slowly building up social service alongside the Walk & Talk program, so that it can be dismantled piece by piece, so people don’t feel like something is being taken from them, but also respecting the people who don’t feel like they get anything from it. That’s going to require more conversations with the community to figure out what the best approach is,” Bastien said.
Given the hesitancy of many community members to discuss the program, Bastien understands this conversation could remain difficult going forward. Regardless, she said she sees it as an investment in trust that, for too long, the town has not made.
“We commit to building trust. That’s what we do. It’s not going to happen tomorrow, that’s what we’ve seen in the last six months. You can’t just say, we want to know what you think,” Bastien said. “It’s a long-term process. The idea that we’re going to understand what a community needs within the next few months is wrong-headed.”
The Reforms Committee report pointed out that all precincts have local patrol officers on their beats, ready for calls in the neighborhood. Greene said that such officers would constitute a regression in the quality of policing for residents of public housing, were Walk & Talk to be eliminated.
“The Task Force says end Walk & Talk. Now, what does that mean? It doesn’t mean that it won’t be police in the housing authority properties,” Greene said. “It means it just won’t be {Walk & Talk officers}, just regular cops. Which are fine, because they’re trained to handle the types of situations that’ll come up, but they won’t have the type of relationships and comfort levels that the Walk & Talk officers have. And that’s important.”
However, the Task Force’s recommendations include the suggestion to replace the unit with new support systems for BHA residents, as a supplement to the usual patrol officers. Resident Kimberley Richardson said that social work may have an even greater impact on the community by addressing issues further upstream, much like an STS social worker would as a replacement for the SRO.
“Part of the reason why I decided to go to school to be a social worker was because I worked in the court system, and I see brown and Black boys and girls come through the system every day. And I keep thinking to myself, if they just had a social worker in school, they just had a social worker connected with their community, something, that maybe they wouldn’t be here right now,” Richardson said. “So I think social workers are essential, and I don’t think they need to be in the police department.”
Of course, social workers, even those with mental health crisis training, have a different skill set than police officers, which Greene said would make replacement potentially dangerous.
“Sometimes a social worker, no matter how skilled, is not going to be able to handle a volatile situation that doesn’t necessarily require use of force, but does require the type of training that is kind of unique to policing,” Greene said. “How to have the threat of force, but also how to do de-escalation of situations so that it could be handled without the use of force. Now, social workers have those skills, but it’s at a different level.”