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In D.C., Mayor Shops Cop-Child-Shrink Revival

by Paul Bass | Feb 15, 2012 12:03 pm

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Posted to: Legal Writes

Mayor John DeStefano brought some familiar calling cards—and a familiar idea of pairing cops with child psychologists—to the nation’s capital in order to pitch the city’s efforts to revive community policing.

DeStefano plans to meet with the city’s U.S. senators and Congresswoman Rosa DeLauro Wednesday. On Tuesday, seeking to make connections with officials from whom the city might seek federal dough, he popped in at the Department of Labor, Amtrak, and the Department of Justice.

At the latter stop he spoke of how New Haven wants to revive a program that started in New Haven, went nationwide, then atrophied back home in New Haven: training cops and child psychologists to work together to help children who witness or at risk of committing violence.

Then-Police Chief Nick Pastore developed that program with then-Yale Child Study Center head Donald Cohen in the early ‘90s. The idea was to identify kids at risk, early, and help them cope with problems before the problems get worse. Teams of neighborhood-based officers and Yale Child Study staffers would visit young kids who said their parents or others get attacked or killed, for instance. The partnership became a foundation of community policing. The Clinton administration’s Department of Justice took notice and helped spread the concept to cities around the country.

But by the time Dean Esserman took over as New Haven’s new police chief late last year, he found the program functioning at only a fraction of its former pace. He immediately starting attending the weekly meetings at Yale Child Study. He’s had all his district managers attend. And he’s asking the managers to start inviting their officers to visit and get involved.

Meanwhile, DeStefano told justice department officials Tuesday that the city is looking for financial help to rebuild the program in three ways: Pay to have more Yale clinicians arrive at crime scenes with officers again; offer counseling to female victims of domestic violence; and develop a diagnostic program for kids considered at risk of committing violent acts.

They know us. [But] they knew us a lot better when we were doing a lot more of this stuff,” DeStefano said in a phone conversation from D.C., referring to the justice officials involved in supporting community-based policing programs.

So he brought up three names the officials know well: Esserman, who has worked on these programs in three different cities. (Esserman put the original program into place as New Haven’s assistant chief along with Yale’s Steve Marans. Then-Deputy Attorney General, now Attorney General Eric Holder visited New Haven back then to see the Child Study program in action.) Yale Law Professor Tracey Meares, who has worked with justice department-funded urban crime-prevention programs. And David Kennedy, whom the justice department has sent around the country to help roll out gang- and shooting-reduction programs; New Haven is planning to bring him here to do that now. (Read about that here and here.)

Esserman said Tuesday night that in his subsequent stints as Stamford and Providence police chief, he maintained the relationship with Yale Child Study. He sent his supervisors and cops and clinicians there to train to work with children in crisis. He said he aims to “rebuild” the program in New Haven. “It’s another building block of putting back into place some things that used to work in the city,” he said.

3rd Floor Changes

Esserman also described some recent internal changes at the department. He has moved the narcotics unit back to the third floor of police headquarters and taken the “tactical” out of its name; it previously had a separate headquarters downtown. He’s also housing the department’s new shootings task force (read about that here) and a joint police-state probation department “Meet & Greet” office on the third floor. (People let out of jail on parole or probation go there to get to know both their probation officer and the cops.) All three units will work together and share information, the chief said.

Also being contemplated: The chief may disband the Street Interdiction Unit (which does street-level drug stop and frisks) and fold its officers into the new shootings unit.

“The department needs to focus like a laser on guns and violence,” Esserman said.

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