By Mikayla Patel and Emily Meschertson
The Northampton Policing Review Commission (NPRC), created by the Northampton Mayor and City Council, released its recommendations for reforming “the current organizational and oversight structures, municipal funding allocations, and policies and ordinances” of the Northampton policing system. The creation of a “new Department of Community Care” should be a top priority according to the NPRC.
In the published suggestions, the Review Commission stated that its members “recognize the need for new types of responders, intervention models, and programs within the city to perform actions to ensure the residents of the city are cared for and expand access to safety.” In other words, they found that removing police officers from certain situations and replacing them with unarmed people from the community (members of the proposed Department of Community Care) is a productive way to decrease police violence.
The NPRC stated that “the leadership and governance of the department should include people with lived experience of criminalization and marginalization” and with proper training in “de-escalation” and “harm reduction.” These alternative responders would be dispatched instead of or alongside police and are largely intended for circumstances in which there is no need for armed individuals. Ultimately, the Department of Community Care would reduce the police presence and number of weapons present during a crisis in the community.
The Policing Review Commission also proposed reinvesting money cut from the Northampton Police Department budget into the Department of Community Care. They also stated their support for investment in The Community Resilience Hub that they stated will “increase the safety for the homeless community in Northampton and reduce the calls to the Northampton Police for surveillance of the homeless community.”
There are many local organizations fighting for the city to divest from policing and advocating for the Northampton Policing Review Commission’s recommendations. Northampton Abolition Now (NAN), a leading group involved with the recent Spring into Abolition event, strongly supports the NPRC’s proposed Department of Community Care.
At the Spring into Abolition Festival last month, local abolition organizations came together to connect with one another and with the community, and discuss their visions for a world beyond policing.
The event featured speakers from many local organizations working to move away from, speak out against, and abolish the police. Some expressed legislative goals while others focused on the substantial change they believe needs to take place outside of the political system. A few organization representatives described their own violent experiences with police, especially during times of houselessness or housing insecurity.
The Sophian spoke with Tay, who decided not to share their full name, an organizer for Touch the Sky, who said of the organization, “We focus on and are led and guided by the direction of unhoused people.” They explained that there are “endless barriers like documentation, citizenship, incarceration, income and needing a job that’s on paper” in obtaining stable housing.
Touch the Sky, formerly PV Housing Now, focuses on responding to mutual aid requests and long-term needs for housing, jobs and transportation, particularly for those facing houselessness, poverty, incarceration, undocumented immigration status or facing racial or gender violence.
“Houselessness is so tied to policing,” said Tay. “Northampton acts as if policing isn’t a problem here and that it is somehow kinder. How policing operates … is that it just polices Black and Brown and unhoused people from staying in the area. It keeps the area white and wealthy and it just displaces people who are already displaced, again and again.” They mentioned Northampton’s lack of public restrooms, and also that Northampton shut off its water fountains during the winter as examples of ways that the city mistreats its unhoused population.
Touch the Sky is looking for more recurring donors in order to pay for their space and distribute resources. They post mutual aid requests on instagram @pvhousingnow and are also accepting donations through their general fund.
The Sophian also spoke with Alla Sonder, an organizer for a mutual aid network, Trans Asylum Seeker Support Network. Sonder said, “[abolition] cannot be done through electoral politics,” and stressed the importance of “building alternatives to the state using transformative justice.”
“Radical queerness challenges the conception of the nuclear family and emphasizes broad networks of chosen family and mutual aid family,” said Sonder.
Trans Asylum Support can be found on instagram @transasylumsupport where they regularly post mutual aid requests.
Organizers from A Knee is Not Enough, a BIPOC led and community-based group founded in Easthampton after public officials took a knee to acknowledge the murder of George Floyd but did not follow up with further action, also collaborated in putting on the event.
“We don’t need the performative part of it,” said Nataly Gomez, an organizer for A Knee is Not Enough. “Writing things down on paper and saying ‘this is a rule’ is not enough.”
“Reform has been tried and it hasn’t worked,”said Gaby Stevenson, another organizer for the group. “This has been a long time coming and this is just the start of the movement.”
A Knee is Not Enough keeps track of progress on their demands on their instagram @01027akine where they also post calls to action.
The featured organizations continue their lobbying, organizing and mutual aid work and share information about other events on their social media pages. These organizations alongside the Mayor’s Policing Review Commission and Community Resilience Hub put Northampton in a critical moment for police reform.
[Image: The Spring Into Abolition Festival in Pulaski Park, April 18 2021. (Photo: The Sophian/Abby Golden ’23).]
