Platform for Change

We don’t trust them to understand, because they keep proving they are not listening. 

At the invitation of the city and county, community members have spent thousands of hours sharing their testimony and lived experience in the name of community engagement. Yet elected officials have failed to honor this engagement by fulfilling their promises to decarcerate and advance racial equity.

The residents of Spokane have launched several campaigns against building a new jail. Still—despite the wishes of the community—the County Commissioners and the Sheriff’s office continue to pursue a new, larger jail without first enacting the totality of humane, cost effective reforms which have been recommended to them over the past decade.

Sheriff Ozzie Knezovich continues to defend warrior-style police training, which primes law enforcement officers to behave like soldiers in a militaristic conflict instead of public servants collaborating with and within a community. Despite thousands of petition signatures, Sheriff Knezovich continues to promote these dangerous training approaches to our community, including “Killology,” a method of police training that teaches officers how to “…overcome the powerful reluctance to kill…”

Spokane demands transformation. The unwillingness of the Mayor, Police Chief, County Commissioners, Sheriff, and other elected officials to heed expert advice and community lived experience, their stubborn insistence on expanding incarceration and entrenched racist systems, and their failure to listen to the community, convinces us that the elected leadership of Spokane does not grasp—or is not willing to meet—the needs of our community. We do not need more studies, consultants, conversations, forums, or media stunts. We are not interested in incremental change, but in drastic action.

To that end, we present the following Platform for Change. While we cannot hope to provide every comprehensive detail of necessary policy, we know the shape that change must take. This is the product of ongoing work within our community and around the country and is meant to serve as a mandate⁠—it’s up to our leaders to help us all live up to its intent.

 

Platform for Change 

Reimagine Policing: Invest in Community 

SCAR rejects the idea that the only way to increase public safety is to increase policing. The power of state-sanctioned force and threat of lethal violence wielded by police is often inappropriate and inadequate to address the diversity of situations they are sent to resolve. Police are frequently tasked with handling homelessness, addiction, mental health, intimate partner violence, and other conditions in which they have no formal expertise; the result is often harm, injury, or even death for those whom the police are supposed to protect. The weight of these injuries and deaths falls most heavily upon people with medical or mental health conditions, people of color—particularly Black and Indigenous people—and people with disabilities. This is not a problem that can be solved with more training. Expanding the power or authoritative scope of police in our communities will not make us safer.

SCAR rejects the assumption that safety for the masses must be obtained through the subjugation of the individual. A police officer carries a gun and wields nearly unchecked authority over the life and wellbeing of any person they detain. Through policies like qualified immunity, police authority and behavior is habitually justified by court and municipal systems that prioritize the freedom of police to act over the dignity and liberty of the people they encounter. Therefore, regardless of the officer’s demeanor or behavior, all encounters with police automatically carry a state-sanctioned threat of indignity, physical violence, loss of liberty, and death. This threat feeds into a cycle of fear and violence that hinders the safety of Spokane residents and law enforcement officers. It does not have to be this way.

Instead, SCAR embraces a holistic vision of public safety, one that reexamines what is considered criminal behavior, accounts for its root causes, and recognizes that shared prosperity and community care are at the heart of a safe and healthy society. When people’s basic needs are met, and experts are empowered to work within their expertise, communities are free to flourish. The City of Spokane and Spokane County will be safer when our leaders follow the advice of their expensive consultants, and the best practices indicated by decades of research in this and other cities. We demand investment in historically underserved communities to create a vibrant and healthy environment where all families can thrive.

Addiction & Mental Health Services

We demand public investment in culturally appropriate chemical addiction treatment and mental health services and diversion programs. These services should include crisis care, long-term in-patient, and out-patient care. Police are not mental health professionals and incarceration should not be a stopgap for healthcare or an underfunded social safety net.

Housing & Tenant Protections

We demand strong tenant protections and funding for permanent affordable housing to intentionally address racial disparities by providing equitable, stable, quality, safe, and accessible housing for all. We call on our city and county governments to implement just cause eviction and remove barriers to fair housing choice as indicated by the City’s 2019 Analysis of Impediments to Fair Housing Choice. Greater Spokane Progress and the Tenant’s Union of Washington State are working in this area, use their expertise to help shape policy.

Remove Police from Spokane Public Schools 

We acknowledge and support the Public School Resolution Supporting the SPS Student Community Related to Racial Equity, and we believe this resolution represents a promising beginning to the work of racial equity and inclusion in Spokane Public Schools (SPS). In the interest of continuing this work, we demand an end to the contract between the Spokane Police Department and Spokane Public Schools.

SPS has the largest school policing budget in Washington State at $2.2 Million. That’s $2.2 Million spent to support the School-to-Prison Pipeline, a system which disproportionately funnels children of color from educational settings into the criminal justice system. Using police to address student behavior positions students as potential criminals who require management through the threat of legal and physical force, instead of recognizing them as children who are learning to manage conflict and their emotions.

We demand investment in school counselors, restorative conflict resolution practices, and activity programming which provides youth with constructive outlets and interpersonal learning environments. The ACLU of Washington, Team Child, and the Every Student Counts Alliance have been at the forefront of this issue, listen to them.

 

Change Police Culture

Public trust in the SPD is broken. It’s the 5th deadliest police force in the nation, and officers have been using the same knee-on-neck restraint that killed George Floyd until June 8th, 2020. We believe it is necessary to start fresh.

Disband the Police 

Disband the police department, and hire a smaller group of officers to carry out narrowly defined, law-enforcement duties. In 2016, the Police Leadership Advisory Committee (PLAC) put together recommendations for the hiring of a new police chief. These recommendations, which could have helped revolutionize the culture of the SPD, were ignored. We believe these recommendations should be applied to all officers hired to work in the City of Spokane. PJALS has been deeply involved in this work, listen to them.

De-escalation Training for SPD & County Forces 

While we do not believe the fundamental problems with American policing can be trained away, we support the will of Washington State Voters who voted decisively in favor of Initiative 940 and demand its enforcement. Passed in 2018, Initiative 940 requires police receive training in de-escalation and mental health, and enforces the duty of all police officers to render first aid. It is our hope that with these tools police will be less likely to use lethal force, and that when they do, that force is less likely to result in death.

De-escalation and mental health training have the potential to not only act as positive tools in the current policing tool belt, but to provide an additional standard to which police can be held accountable.

Demilitarize the Police 

Our city is not a war zone, and weapons of war should not be used on our streets. This includes tear gas—a chemical weapon which is banned by the Geneva convention—and all repurposed military surplus equipment. Military uniforms, vehicles, and weaponry communicate to the residents of Spokane that the police view them as enemy combatants. Furthermore, militarized uniforms encourage a “warrior” mindset in police, which emphasizes readiness for violent conflict over the relationship-based work of building community trust. Spokane does not need street warriors, Spokane needs public servants we can trust; from their uniforms to their equipment, police should be equipped for the job that is needed.

 

Police Oversight 

Independent Oversight with Investigative Power is a necessity at the Spokane Police Department and the Spokane County Sheriff’s Office.

No Contract Without Office of Police Ombudsman Independence 

We demand that the Office of Police Ombudsman (OPO) be empowered to conduct independent investigations and publish public closing reports. We demand that the OPO be free to conduct these independent investigations without fear of reprisal by the Police Guild. The coalition worked together to urge city council to not pass a flawed Spokane Police Guild contract. READ MORE

As a community, we defeated a poison pill amendment to the Police Guild’s contract with the City of Spokane that would allow the Police Guild to preemptively file a grievance against an Ombudsman candidate in an effort to prevent their appointment. It further empowered the Guild to attempt to have the Ombudsman or an OPO Commission Member removed for “exceeding their authority under the collective bargaining agreement.” Police cannot control the fate of the body that oversees them. We commend the City Council for voting 7-0 against this contract on June 29, 2020 and urge that the Spokane City Council to reject any future contract that fails to protect OPO independence.

NO CONTRACT without independent investigative power and public closing report. NO CONTRACT with police guild oversight of the OPO.

Civilian Oversight of Police Hiring Practices

As community members, we have a vested interest in who patrols our streets; yet the residents of Spokane, including communities with a historically low-trust relationship with law enforcement, have no input in the hiring process and are forced to react to police hiring decisions after the fact. SCAR demands civilian oversight of police hiring practices, which is essential to ensuring the interests of the community—especially those currently and historically marginalized—are represented.

Mandatory Body Cameras for SPD and County Forces

Body cameras should be mandatory for every SPD officer and County deputy as a tool for reviewing police encounters with Spokane residents. Body cameras do not prevent violence, but they can be valuable for holding the police accountable. Turning off a body camera should come with an automatic charge of destroying evidence.

 

Justice Reforms

We urgently need to adopt effective, restorative policy solutions that are driven by the needs of those impacted by our justice system.

Jail Reforms

SCAR has been working against a new jail without reforms for a while. Here are our talking points.

We demand divestment from the prison industrial complex: NO NEW JAIL; end policies that criminalize poverty, homelessness, and addiction; end cash bail; and end draconian drug charging decisions by the County Prosecutor’s office.

Instead, the city and county should invest in racial equity tools throughout our justice system; release criminal justice system demographic data; and adopt least-restrictive alternatives to jail with fully funded pretrial services. Furthermore, those incarcerated should be treated humanely, with adequate access to hygiene supplies and facilities, and according to best practices regarding COVID-19 prevention and treatment.

Smart Justice Spokane has been leading on these issues, and we demand our government listen to and collaborate with them.

Judicial Accountability

Impartial judges are the ideal, but we know that their decisions are vulnerable to the forces of systematic oppression and unconscious bias. For this reason we demand that the county, in cooperation with the courts, release sentencing data dis-aggregated by judge and defendant’s demographic information, including race and gender. With this data, voters—and the community groups who help keep them informed—will be empowered to identify racial sentencing disparities, and if necessary, right them at the ballot box.

Establish an Office of Civil Rights

The City of Spokane needs a fully funded and staffed Office of Civil Rights. This office would work within the City government to advance civil rights and end barriers to equity. It would regularly assess the city’s approach to racial equity, and provide education and training to government and local entities. The Office of Civil rights would receive civil rights complaints from the residents of Spokane, address hate crimes, and ensure that laws against illegal discrimination in employment, housing, public accommodations, and contracting within Spokane city limits are equitably enforced. The Office of Civil Rights Exploratory Committee and Greater Spokane Progress are already working on the structure of this office. Listen to and collaborate with them.

These are just some of the changes that Spokane needs. These demands are rooted in the data-backed reality, and the spiritual conviction, that a punitive approach to public safety has never, and will never, yield a free and equitable society.

Policing can no longer be the bandaid we affix to every social wound. Instead, we must build a Spokane where everyone is free to thrive. The time for incrementalism and half measures is past. This community demands transformation, and will continue to do so in statements, in public meetings, at the ballot box, and in the streets. It is up to our leadership to listen, and to do the jobs for which they were elected. The people are watching.