Heartbeats is a revolutionary flagship public safety program that is beneficial to Ferguson and surrounding communities on multiple levels. With this program, we work to solve Ferguson’s police officer shortage to meet the Consent Decree, have sufficiently trained social workers in the police department, and offer social workers an extremely competitive salary with benefits. Hiring trained social workers as police officers will help prevent excessive force, get community members the correct resources they need in cases such as drug abuse/addiction, homelessness, and domestic violence, and help break the cycle of crime and poverty by appropriately addressing causes of crime at the root.
Heartbeats functions as a social worker-to-police academy career program. Local police officers will visit the UMSL School of Social Work to encourage social work graduates to go through the police academy and become public safety officers. The recruitment officers will explain the many benefits of having police officers who are fully-fledged social workers out in the community. Social workers already feel a call to serve their communities, so Heartbeats aligns with their mission to be catalysts for positive change. As police officers, they will be called when people are in distress and will ensure the public gets the correct resources they need, addressing issues at their root, and nearly doubling the traditional entry level salary of a social worker. Having fully trained social workers become police officers instead of social workers riding along with police officers on the beat is much safer for social workers and ensures they get the salary and benefits they deserve. It will also help bridge the cultural gap between police and social workers, creating an environment of respect that is based on public service and safety. Other programs where social workers and police work together but separately have reported issues with respect, hierarchy, and leadership.
An important aspect of this program that cannot be ignored is how this can help address national historic targeting and incarceration of BIPOC. These social workers turned police- who we will call public safety officers instead of “police”- will know community members and their families, because they are part of the community. This will help prevent excessive use of force and wrongful targeting and incarceration. People will get the resources they need such as help with food, childcare, education and job training, addiction help, mental health services, and addressing homelessness instead giving people fines and incarceration that may ultimately lead to more strain on the community and create more crime. This program will also help build trust in the community. Because of historical and current use of excessive force, racial profiling, and police brutality in the United States, there is a large distrust of police, especially by BIPOC, who have been predominantly on the receiving end of this abuse. With public safety officers who are social workers from the community, people will not be afraid to call for help out of fear the situation will escalate.
Heartbeats will provide a long-term staffing solution for the citizens of Ferguson, help us fulfill the Consent Decree, free up police officers to address other safety issues such as speeding, and reduce crime holistically. We need city officials and staff to, at a minimum, get these efforts underway. Reach out to our City Council and request developing Project: Heartbeats.
