A 2016 report from the federal Department of Justice found that Baltimore cops engaged in overly aggressive street enforcement resulting in routine violations of the constitutional rights of pedestrians and Black residents. We all get it. Among Black male and female officers, 62 percent of them live outside the city, according to employee demographic data released to Crain's. That is something we need to address. "In the little research weve seen, its not clear that the residency requirement would improve community relations," said Sarah Greenman, aprofessor of criminology and criminal justice atHamline University in Saint Paul, Minnesota. Tim Stevens, the chairman and CEO of the Black Political Empowerment Project, a nonpartisan voting awareness group in Pittsburgh, thinks the citys police residency requirement still serves two important functions: It generates tax revenue for the city, and it creates a connection between police officers and the community. Residency requirements for city workers date to the turn of the 20th century, when aldermen would staff municipalities with a cadre of friends. / CBS Pittsburgh. ", Defund police in schools? For many who oppose such requirements, it's a simple issue of a person's right to live wherever he or she . Taylor said he would have moved out of Detroit earlier had there not been a city ordinance that required him and every other uniformed police officer to live in the city in which they served. "What other kind of business puts those kind of restrictions on a person?". To address staffing shortages, the Philadelphia Police Department has said new recruits no longer have to live in the city. May 22, 2017 / 4:55 PM / CBS Pittsburgh. But residency requirements weren't all about community relations. Only 17 percent of Tampa Police officers live within city limits Commissioner Outlaw (not shown) spoke to Class 395 at the Philadelphia Police Academy Training Center, Woodhaven Road in Northeast Philadelphia on Monday, July 12, 2021. Officers had been required to live in the city since 1902. "Who is qualified if not someone who is a member of an historically marginalized community? Everyone should be able to look at a police officer and identify with them.. The settlement outlined a series of police reforms, including a housing credit program to incentivize police officers to live in certain areas of the city. Batya Ungar-Sargon is a freelance writer. They continue to be seen by activists and politicians as a social good, part of the struggle to improve police force diversity. This "State your case" looks at whether law enforcement officers should be required to live within the communities they serve. Some policies give employees time to move into the city after they're hired. "Outside of when theres a snowstorm and people live 50 miles away, thats not an issue," saidSteve Nasta, a lecturer at John Jay College of Criminal Justice who spent more than three decades withthe New York City Police Department. In Cleveland, Ohio's second-largest city roughly 71% . By implementing these policies, you were keeping the salaries that you were paying to civil servants in this local economy and you're also retaining that tax base. push to eliminate the residency rule from the contract. The police department is representative of Newark in all races, Detective Hubert Henderson said. Jorge Gomez, an assistant chief of police in Miami, where there is no requirement, agrees that police diversity is crucial. The idea is that it's trying to improve police-community relations. I don't want these officers in my neighborhood. There are many potentially lasting lessons that will come from the George Floyd tragedy. We start at the top and work our way down. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission data, majority of cops live outside the cities they serve, aldermen would staff municipalities with a cadre of friends, wrote about residency requirements in 1983. There was a time when some Ohio cities required municipal employees to live within the city limits. Dave Bicking, a board member of the group, called residency requirements "a distraction from real reform.". Sterling Heights still has this rule in place. Marq: It definitely does matter and it improves responsiveness when there are well-established-- its personal relationships between the police and the community. These concerns remain significant in Pittsburgh and in cities across the country, where demographic gaps plague police forces and are often linked to tensions with the public. Tanzina: Grace, one of the things to that point, I'm wondering, is there data that show that any of these residency requirements have an effect on improving community-police relations? As the mayor mentioned in that clip, the idea is that if you live and work in a community, you'll be more likely to have cultural competency to understand that neighborhood and you'll be more invested in it to have a stake in that community. That's the only thing that gets through. Their hunch corresponds with the arguments of police officers in departments around the country, who say recruitment, rather than residency, is the key to a diverse force. In 2016, the Wisconsin Supreme Court upheld a state law that barred Milwaukee from requiring police officers to live in the city. Tanzina Vega: In the months following the police killings of George Floyd, Breonna Taylor, and so many others, calls for police reform are reviving a long and contentious debate over whether or not police officers should live in the communities where they work. City officials want the requirement to remain in place, as do the people of Pittsburgh, who voted overwhelmingly in a referendum last year to keep it. Published. PITTSBURGH (KDKA/AP) -- The Pennsylvania Supreme Court has ruled that Pittsburgh Police officers no longer have to live within the city limits. PDF ENTRY LEVEL POLICE OFFICER FREQUENTLY ASKED QUESTIONS - Chicago He lived around one of the east side "copper canyons. Part of the position that they've taken over the years is that their civil servant, their blue-collar police officers can't even afford to live in a geographical area of employment. That's going to be traumatic for me and that will cause stress and fear.". City looks to mend relations through community policing - KMGH As she braces for talks with the FOP, shell face a union resistant to a host of crucial reforms aimed at overhauling training, supervision and accountability at the department. at Even when we control for the racial and ethnic composition of the cities and the size of their minority groups, a residency requirement remains the most significant variable, and with a strong effect toward increasing the dispersion score. According to government data, in 75 U.S. cities with the largest police forces, on average 60% of police officers live outside the city limits.