White River Junction
That was one of many uncomfortable truths that came out when the public and law enforcement representatives were encouraged last week by Vermont lawmakers to expose problems in the state’s policing systems, and explore legislative solutions.
“It feels like the lives and livelihoods of people in more populated areas matter more because of the kind of coverage that we’re able to provide,” Cara Cookson, of the Vermont Center for Crime Victim Services, told Sen. Alison Clarkson, D-Woodstock, and several other members of the Senate Government Operations Committee at a regional hearing of the panel on Thursday in Hartford.
“We’ve heard stories at the center from small-business owners who are burglarized again and again and they invest what they can in a security system, and it doesn’t make a difference because people know that the nearest police officer is 45 minutes away.”
That’s not a coincidence, officials said. It’s the natural outcome when larger communities spend the money to fund police departments, while smaller communities can’t — or choose not to.
Chelsea Selectboard Chairwoman Joan Goodrich said her community of about 1,250 residents, which lacks its own department, has been unhappy with the police coverage provided under a $12,000 contract with the Orange County Sheriff’s Department.
“In small towns, somebody has to be practically murdered to get somebody to come and help us out,” Goodrich said.
She said calls to the sheriff’s department about, for example, a growing drug problem, are often referred to state police.
“From where I look, it looks like there’s a lot of butting of heads instead of taking care of issues, and I think we are a state of rural communities, a lot of rural communities that can’t afford this,” she said.
But Windsor County State’s Attorney David Cahill said that, under the current system, the communities that choose not to pay for law enforcement can’t expect the same coverage.
“The problem is that, I don’t want to pick on Chelsea, but the expectation of people there is that they want to spend $10 per person for their police contract,” Cahill said. “That’s what it comes out to. Ten bucks. It’s hard to cry poverty when you’re talking about 10 bucks and you know everybody in town is spending 10 bucks on something stupid. I mean, because we all do. I think we just need to re-set expectations.”
Clarkson asked Goodrich whether Chelsea had explored multi-town solutions with neighboring communities.
“Have you talked about a regional policing model?” she asked.
Clarkson and other legislators, who hosted the hearing as one of series being held across the state, said they hoped to learn more about the public’s needs and perceptions.
“One of the things I think we’re all unclear on is what our expectations of public safety are,” Clarkson said.
Mike Chamberlain, who was first elected as sheriff in Windsor County in 1979, said his department has few resources to accomplish its goals, and that its activities in a region are often dictated by the town paying for the contract.
In the Route 4 town of Bridgewater, for example, the Windsor County Sheriff’s Department is contracted to provide 12 hours a day of services, but under instructions to spend all of that time on speed enforcement, and responses to urgent emergencies, such as a domestic violence call in progress.
“If somebody just came home from a two- or three-day vacation and found the garage broken into and found their car was stolen, I’m sorry folks, I have to send it off to the state police. That’s what the town of Bridgewater wants,” Chamberlain said.
In Hartford, the roughly 10,000 residents spend $2.4 million on police services — about $240 per person. Hartford Police Chief Phil Kasten said state, county and local officials work well together for Special Investigation Units tasked with major crimes, a success he attributed to standardization and accreditation by national standards.
But Cahill said that, even for serious crimes, victims in rural towns suffer more.
“Let’s not pretend that they take care of all major crimes. They do not. A good example of what falls through the cracks is domestic violence,” he said. “Once you get out of the town of Hartford up into ‘them thar hills,’ if you place a 911 call for domestic violence, you may very well get what used to be called a part-time certified law enforcement officer who has no domestic training responding. … He may not ask the right questions. He may not ask the right questions out of the presence of the abuser.”
Several law enforcement officers in attendance said they struggle to recruit, retain, and train good staff members to operate in an increasingly complicated and challenging policing environment.
In 2016, the national mean wage for police officers was $62,760, as compared with $54,660 in New Hampshire and $48,360 in Vermont, according to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics.
Other problems that were aired included a lack of safe places for court clerks to meet with victims to secure relief from abuse orders; a lack of resources to transport rape kits from hospitals to court-certified laboratories; and local resistance to unfunded mandates that would impose higher training standards on officers.
Solutions offered included imposing minimum standards on communities; regionalizing police forces; replacing the municipal policing model altogether with a state police expansion; and redirecting traffic fines away from the community in which the fine is imposed in favor of funding statewide coverage in underserved areas.
The Senate Government Operations hearing at Hartford Town Hall was the second of nine such hearings the committee is holding around Vermont.
Matt Hongoltz-Hetling can be reached at mhonghet@vnews.com or 603-727-3211.