An executive summary, drawing from a criticized report assessing the Burlington community’s perceptions of public safety, has found that residents want to increase social services in the city to prevent crime and also invest in police training and oversight.
The summary was written by members of the joint Public Safety City Council committee after concerns were raised about the validity of the survey due to its unrepresentative responses and uncontextualized data. These concerns were first aired Aug. 4 at a citizen oversight Police Commission meeting.
Now the full report, prepared by consulting firm Talitha Consults, has been published, along with the summary.
Commissioners and Skyler Nash, a public policy analyst from the Racial Equity, Inclusion and Belonging Office, said the survey responses were not representative of the city’s population and the report didn’t meet expectations outlined in the contract. The report cost taxpayers $38,850.
Of Burlington’s approximately 40,000 residents, only about 800 completed the survey and about 1,700 partially completed it.
The survey respondents were also overwhelmingly white and wealthier than the average Burlingtonian. As the commission analyzed response data, it found that 88.6% of the respondents were white, 58.1% had a salary above the city’s median household income of $51,394 and 42.8% of respondents had a master’s degree, whereas only 21.6% of Burlington’s overall population has that level of education.
The Talitha report is one of two reports the Burlington City Council commissioned after it cut the department’s staffing by 30% last summer to reallocate funding to other resources in the city. The next report, which is an internal assessment of the police department, is expected next month.
Some councilors have effectively blocked raising the officer cap twice since last summer’s vote, despite faster-than-expected officer attrition, because first they want to see the results of the internal police department assessment.
While there are issues with the report, police commission member Melo Grant says the findings are still valuable for the city. The report also outlines how residents want to reform their public safety systems, which aligns with ongoing efforts to increase support for social services in the city, Grant said.
“I feel that what those people responded was valid because that’s the way they felt. But voices are missing,” Grant said. “Voices have been missing throughout the whole process and discussion because, quite frankly, we have people who are just checked out. They’re afraid.”
The executive summary identified key takeaways from the report:
• Residents want more civilian oversight of the police.
• They want to facilitate healthier interactions between the community and the police.
• They want to fortify public services to meet basic needs to prevent crime.
• They want policing to take into account socioeconomic and racial marginalizations that cause crime.
One of the top priorities for respondents was building more mental health resources in the city.
More than half of survey respondents said they had few if any experiences with the Burlington police. Of those who did, 283 said they had positive interactions while 107 said they had negative interactions.
In a further breakdown of the data in the committee’s executive summary, they found that the survey responses indicate that people of color trust the police more than white people. 50% of people of color surveyed said they would trust police officers the most to help in an emergency, opposed to 35% of white people.
People of color and white people agree that the city should provide better training to first responders through bias awareness, mental/behavioral response, trauma-informed care and de-escalation. That was a priority for 58% of people of color and 69% of white people.
On a scale from one to 10, 83% of respondents picked a seven or above when asked if they felt safe in their community. At night, that figure drops to 58%.
The report also attached dozens of anonymous responses detailing how people perceive the Burlington police. They ranged from favorable to dissatisfied.
One person wrote, “I have witnessed police instigating/escalating situations at demonstrations by the community. They could have not been present; they should not be first responders for
crises.”
Another wrote, “They respond frequently to the emergency department and have seen many patient interactions, often with very difficult patients. Overall, they are respectful and kind. As with any profession, there is a range and there can be burnout, but the general feeling is that they do their job quite well.”
“I work for a community-based org,” another person wrote. “I’ve learned over time that working with police has been difficult. Issues aren’t taken seriously. I’ve encountered anti-trans and LGBTQ+ language, and community members who experience violence or harm rarely choose to interact with police.”
“I’ve met with several of the chiefs over the last five years — they are all responsive and open to
new ideas,” another wrote.
Police Chief Jon Murad said he’s encouraged to see that respondents have a generally favorable perception of the police department. He said he thinks the results mirror those of a 2019 report the National Police Association issued about the department.
“I want this agency to work better and serve better,” Murad said. “But the idea that the agency is somehow broken and in a dire place with regard to the way it serves this community is absolutely not supported by our National Police Foundation survey or the Talitha survey.”
He said he wants to dig into the qualitative data attached to the Talitha report to better understand why some people in the community aren’t having positive experiences with cops.
“You always have to be striving for improvement,” Murad said. “And making certain that you’re doing as good a job as you can.”