FT 16.12 - Frémont Public Safety Act (DEBATING)

[OBD]

AN ACT
to improve public safety throughout the Commonwealth

Section 1 (Title)
i. The long title of this act shall be, the “Frémont Public Safety Act." It may be cited as the "FPSA."

Section 2 (Declaration of purpose)
i. The Parliament of Frémont finds and declares all of the following:
a. The complexities of emergency issues surrounding crises in mental health, intimate partner violence, community violence, substance abuse, homelessness, and natural disasters can, at times, be addressed more safely, with greater impact, and more cost-effectively and efficiently with community organizations, which often have deeper knowledge and understanding of the issues, trusted relationships with the people and communities involved, and specific knowledge and relationships surrounding the emergency.
b. Furthermore, young people of color, people with disabilities, people who are gender nonconforming, people who are formerly incarcerated, people with immigration status issues, and people who are unhoused or homeless, face significant barriers to engaging with law enforcement and other first responder personnel. Data demonstrates that these populations often do not reach out for needed help when dealing with crises in their communities because of their fear and challenges with engaging law enforcement, which puts lives and families at risk for continued harm and trauma. Community organizations that specialize in working with these populations, understanding their issues, and maintaining deep relationships in their communities have a more successful track record of engaging and supporting them.
c. Philanthropic and community organizations in cities and counties throughout the Commonwealth have recognized the need to expand innovative approaches to emergencies and have created programs to do so.
d. These alternative approaches have strengthened the response to emergencies in places throughout the Commonwealth by deepening impact, preventing violence, deescalating volatile situations, protecting property and the environment, reducing law enforcement use of force, and ensuring the health and safety of communities while, at the same time, saving money by decreasing calls for service and the sole reliance upon first responders for emergency situations.
e. Even as crime rates have decreased or remained static, police spending throughout the Commonwealth has increased significantly over the past 20 years; furthermore, while police play an important role in keeping Frémont safe, tasking them with response to the aforementioned public safety issues requires police officers to do jobs that can be more effectively done by community organizations, which in turn has necessitated such dramatically increased levels of spending.
f. Despite the innovative approaches led by community organizations, the Commonwealth does not have a policy, or a set of protocols to support community organizations’ involvement in addressing emergencies, or to effectively rein in local government spending on law enforcement.
g. This act seeks to remedy those issues by articulating a policy framework to support innovative approaches to build capacity in, and to facilitate grants for, community organizations to support emergency response, while reallocating some resources from law enforcement to support these grant programs.

Section 3 (Local police spending caps)
i. Spending on sheriff's offices, police departments, and equivalent entities by county and municipal governments may not exceed $125 per resident within such an entity's jurisdiction.
ii. Beginning in FY 2022, county and municipal governments shall eliminate annually 20% of the differential between FY 2021 spending levels and those mandated by §3(i).

Section 3 (Guidelines for reallocating resources)
i. The Frémont Ministry of Emergency Services (FMES) shall develop a set of guidelines for providing municipal grants to community organizations, for the purpose of incorporating the participation of such organizations into local emergency response, and for the expanded use of unarmed first responders to address nonviolent situations affecting public safety and well-being.
a. The FMES shall complete the development of these guidelines by January 1st, 2021.
ii. $4,000,000 shall be appropriated to the FMES in FY 2021, and every year thereafter for six years, for the purpose of providing direct aid to local governments in the development of programs for such grant administration and such expansion of unarmed emergency response services, or for other programs intended to assume responsibility for services outlined in §2(i(a)), as well as traffic enforcement, currently provided by law enforcement agencies.

Section 4 (Implementation)
i. This legislation shall take effect immediately upon signature by the First Minister, except where otherwise specified herein.

Sponsor: Ted Bessell (Fine Gayle - Law & Justice, California)

[Mike Thick]

Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

The preamble says pretty much everything I could say here to advocate for the bill. The act contains key provisions of the CRISES Act, a bill currently moving through the California Legislature which would establish grants and guidelines for community organizations to take over some aspects of emergency response. It also caps police spending at $125 per capita, roughly a 60% reduction from current levels, and provides a five-year period for the change to be phased in.

The $125 figure is based on data from this NYT article, which shows that most of what police do involves handling routine matters -- traffic enforcement, noncriminal aid calls, medical emergencies, and other things. Police have an important role in how we handle violent crime, but we're asking them to do too much: we don't need armed police officers to address mental health crises, drug overdoses, and homelessness.

Organizations that form deep relationships with their communities, built from anew on a foundation of trust, can do these jobs more effectively. The money we're currently throwing at police departments to do these things can, through these organizations, be reinvested in our communities. Local governments will have pretty broad authority to take care of that in the bill, but the Commonwealth will provide some guidelines and supplementary funding to help them through the transition.

Questions and amendments are welcome, of course -- this doesn't have to be the final version of the bill. I yield the floor.

[OBD]

Bump. This looks pretty good to me.

[Mike Thick]

Honestly, expected this to be more controversial. I’m good to move to a vote if nobody else has issues with the bill.

[Mike Thick]

Motion for a final vote.

[Unconditional Surrender Truman]

Sending the police to address a mental health emergency is like trying to cut bread with an axe. Even when departments are conscientious about their responsibilities to the communities they serve —and as we have seen from Ferguson to Brunswick to New York and L.A., this is far from the truth far too often —law enforcement simply are not equipped to handle these situations. Meanwhile, as we are pouring our resources into police departments, we are stripping every other public agency of funding, which only exacerbates an already bad situation.

I second the motion; this bill will have my full support.

[OBD]

Vote opened. 48 hours.

Aye.

[Tirnam]

Aye

[Unconditional Surrender Truman]

Aye!

[OBD]

Frémont Public Safety Act
Frémont Parliament Bill 16.12 - Sponsored by Ted Bessell, Former MP

	LAB	IND	TOTAL
Aye	3	0	3
Nay	0	0	0
Abstain	0	0	0
Not Present	1	1	2

	FF	BB	ML	SF	TOTAL
Aye	2	0	0	1	3
Nay	0	0	0	0	0
Abstain	0	0	0	0	0
Not Present	0	1	1	0	2

First Minister HARRY S TRUMAN of North Dakota (LAB/FF)
Mr. AUSTRALIANSWINGVOTER of Washington (IND/ML)
Mr. TIRNAM of California (LAB/FF)
Mr. SCOTT of Wyoming(LAB/BB)
Mr. OREGON BLUE DOG of Oregon (LAB/SF)

#WheresASV? smh haha

[Unconditional Surrender Truman]

AN ACT
to improve public safety throughout the Commonwealth

Section 1 (Title)
i. The long title of this act shall be, the “Frémont Public Safety Act." It may be cited as the "FPSA."

Section 2 (Declaration of purpose)
i. The Parliament of Frémont finds and declares all of the following:
a. The complexities of emergency issues surrounding crises in mental health, intimate partner violence, community violence, substance abuse, homelessness, and natural disasters can, at times, be addressed more safely, with greater impact, and more cost-effectively and efficiently with community organizations, which often have deeper knowledge and understanding of the issues, trusted relationships with the people and communities involved, and specific knowledge and relationships surrounding the emergency.
b. Furthermore, young people of color, people with disabilities, people who are gender nonconforming, people who are formerly incarcerated, people with immigration status issues, and people who are unhoused or homeless, face significant barriers to engaging with law enforcement and other first responder personnel. Data demonstrates that these populations often do not reach out for needed help when dealing with crises in their communities because of their fear and challenges with engaging law enforcement, which puts lives and families at risk for continued harm and trauma. Community organizations that specialize in working with these populations, understanding their issues, and maintaining deep relationships in their communities have a more successful track record of engaging and supporting them.
c. Philanthropic and community organizations in cities and counties throughout the Commonwealth have recognized the need to expand innovative approaches to emergencies and have created programs to do so.
d. These alternative approaches have strengthened the response to emergencies in places throughout the Commonwealth by deepening impact, preventing violence, deescalating volatile situations, protecting property and the environment, reducing law enforcement use of force, and ensuring the health and safety of communities while, at the same time, saving money by decreasing calls for service and the sole reliance upon first responders for emergency situations.
e. Even as crime rates have decreased or remained static, police spending throughout the Commonwealth has increased significantly over the past 20 years; furthermore, while police play an important role in keeping Frémont safe, tasking them with response to the aforementioned public safety issues requires police officers to do jobs that can be more effectively done by community organizations, which in turn has necessitated such dramatically increased levels of spending.
f. Despite the innovative approaches led by community organizations, the Commonwealth does not have a policy, or a set of protocols to support community organizations’ involvement in addressing emergencies, or to effectively rein in local government spending on law enforcement.
g. This act seeks to remedy those issues by articulating a policy framework to support innovative approaches to build capacity in, and to facilitate grants for, community organizations to support emergency response, while reallocating some resources from law enforcement to support these grant programs.

Section 3 (Local police spending caps)
i. Spending on sheriff's offices, police departments, and equivalent entities by county and municipal governments may not exceed $125 per resident within such an entity's jurisdiction.
ii. Beginning in FY 2022, county and municipal governments shall eliminate annually 20% of the differential between FY 2021 spending levels and those mandated by §3(i).

Section 3 (Guidelines for reallocating resources)
i. The Frémont Ministry of Emergency Services (FMES) shall develop a set of guidelines for providing municipal grants to community organizations, for the purpose of incorporating the participation of such organizations into local emergency response, and for the expanded use of unarmed first responders to address nonviolent situations affecting public safety and well-being.
a. The FMES shall complete the development of these guidelines by January 1st, 2021.
ii. $4,000,000 shall be appropriated to the FMES in FY 2021, and every year thereafter for six years, for the purpose of providing direct aid to local governments in the development of programs for such grant administration and such expansion of unarmed emergency response services, or for other programs intended to assume responsibility for services outlined in §2(i(a)), as well as traffic enforcement, currently provided by law enforcement agencies.

Section 4 (Implementation)
i. This legislation shall take effect immediately upon signature by the First Minister, except where otherwise specified herein.

[AustralianSwingVoter]

Nay ftr