About Us
Decades of Government Experience
Over 30 years of government policy and planning experience in a variety of government programs including:
Training and facilitating parts of Vice President Gore’s Reinventing Government Program
Juvenile justice program development and reporting for BARJ projects, PREA and Disproportionate Minority Contact (DMC) projects
WIC conversion from checks to EBT in Connecticut and support for other states
Creation of victim services systems for Connecticut Children’s Alliance, New York Office of Missing Persons, El Paso Sheriff’s Department and others
Various town councils and projects
Our Mission & Approach
Having seen how some local police departments were defunded based on public pressure, we decided to come up with an approach to prevent this from happening in future departments, and to help those who have been defunded develop a plan forward. Communities need to start with a plan and see what makes sense. Cutting the budget and than trying to come up with a plan, just makes it harder for everyone.
We have since expanded to offer comprehensive planning services to rural communities and similar strategic planning for fire departments as well. The goal is to make rural communities resilient. And having served on town committees and seen budgets, or lack there of, spending six figures on a plan that sits on a shelf doesn’t make a lot of sense, even if your state requires it.
Our approach leverages a best of breed library of goals, objectives and tasks as a starting point and then we take away and edit as needed. This is a lot faster than updating an older plan or starting from a blank sheet of paper. We keep what makes sense, and leave out the rest. We also don’t do elaborate studies because most of the models that used to be used were largely upended during covid and still aren’t to a point of being predictive again. The plans we create are designed to fill a need and set a direction, not be something is referenced for the next decade. Ideally all plans should be reviewed annually which rarely happens with traditional plans because they are so expensive to create in the first place.
Fix the Cause, Not the Symptoms
Upwards of 10% of most municipal police calls involve some combination of homelessness, substance abuse, or mental health. One California community in 2016 had over 30% of its 911 calls related to homeless individuals. One in four fatal police interactions involve a person with mental health issues. We want to help you reduce these types of interactions, rather than simply transfering responsibilty to a different agency.
Common Needs
Most communities are in the same boat and have similar needs for the future of their police departments. The faster they can adapt to a new normal, the better it is for the community. We have created a strategic planning approach for police departments focused on best practices that can easily be adapted to specific community needs. It is intended as an exercise in editing rather than starting from scratch. When completed, our plan should be 50-75 pages in length and cover over 100 common community objectives to be addressed during a 3-5 year period.
We take a similar approach with our comprehensive town plans and fire department plans.
Don't Reinvent the Wheel
As part of our strategic planning approach, we have already looked at many of the successful programs to augment Law Enforcement. These include:
- Eugene Oregon’s Crisis Assistance Helping Out on the Streets (CAHOOTS) which now handles almost 20% of its 911 calls. While originally envisioned as an alternative to police involvement, it’s been a partnership which has reduced community mental health costs more than Law Enforcement costs.
- Gloucester Ma’s program to transition to a treatment referral model for drug users has resulted in less police involvement, lower costs, and a decrease in drug overdoses.
- Law Enforcement Assisted Diversion (LEAD) programs in communities like Seattle and Santé Fe have seen up to 70% reduction in costs associated with low risk offenders.
- We also cannot over emphasize the importance of women in police roles. Increasing female officers reduces negative interactions with the public in terms of both racial bias and violence during arrests.
Similar plans have been looked at for our fire department and comprehensive town plans.
Have a Plan
we have decades of experience in implementing both multi-year plans for program roll out, as well specific plans for onetime events. We also know that one decision or world event can throw existing plans out the window. Coming up with a new plan quickly prevents stagnation and helps get staff on board with the new direction. Speed of recovery and resiliency are key factors in communities/organizations recovering from unexpected changes.
Get Started Today
Let us help you create a new direction for your town or department that adapts to the changing world we live in and meets the needs of the community in terms of focus and affordability.