[From Our Partners] Gatekeeping Justice: the Role of Communications Personnel in Shaping Public Safety
Public safety communications personnel (PSCP), including 911 call takers and law enforcement dispatchers, are increasingly recognized as key players in facilitating alternative pathways to jail. Often, PSCP serve as the first point of contact for the public and make several important decisions that influence public safety outcomes, shape citizens’ perceptions of procedural justice, and help determine whether mental health services or police respond to an incident. These decisions have cascading effects; for instance, dispatching police to an incident increases the risk of a person being detained in jail. PSCP operate within the context of their training, agency policies, and procedures, though they frequently have the discretion to override normative practices based on their expertise and assessment of dynamic situations they confront in their work. This discretion is necessary given the highly fluid nature of the work PSCP perform—including the evolving, incomplete, and inaccurate information they receive and the vast array of reasons the public calls 911 or non-emergency public safety phone lines seeking public safety solutions to community problems.
Despite their critical role as the actual gatekeepers of the criminal legal system, little research has been dedicated to understanding how PSCPs use their discretion, what influences their decision-making, and how their choices shape the subsequent actions and decisions of other legal system actors. To address this critical gap in the field and learn more about decision-making processes among PSCP and influences on responding law enforcement officers, CUNY ISLG funded Arizona State University (ASU) and the University of Missouri-St. Louis (UMSL) through the Safety and Justice Challenge (SJC) to conduct a mixed methods study with the partnership of three SJC jurisdictions: Charleston County, South Carolina, East Baton Rouge Parish, Louisiana, and St. Louis County, Missouri.
Using Computer Aided Dispatching (CAD) and organizational training guides, interviews with PSCP and law enforcement officers, and systematic social observations of PSCP, the partnership furthered understanding of how PSCP influence criminal legal system (CLS) outcomes and the potential to use the communications function as an intervention point in CLS reform.
Key findings include:
Administrative and Informational Calls Are Often Omitted from CAD, Limiting System Visibility
This omission limits the public transparency of call center workloads and overlooks service demands that do not result in public safety deployment but still require trained staff and appropriate triage protocols.
PSCP Balance Standardized Protocols and Professional Discretion
PSCP have complex jobs and must gather, prioritize, and relay critical information to officers while maintaining situational responsiveness during emergency calls. They see their role as a vital, community-focused response that is emotionally demanding and often underrecognized.
Patrol Personnel Stress that Information from PSCP Critically Shapes their Decisions
Officers rely on detailed and accurate information to prepare themselves and mentally anticipate situations, but they also recognize the need to verify details upon arrival due to the possibility of inaccuracies in the information shared with them.
Police Personnel and PSCP Largely Support Integrating Behavioral Health Clinicians into PSAP Operations
Officers and PSCP note that clinicians can offer improvements in care, resource efficiency, and staff relief, although some participants raised concerns about liability and cost.
ABOUT THE SAFETY & JUSTICE CHALLENGE
In 2015, the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation launched the Safety and Justice Challenge (SJC), a multi-year initiative to reduce populations and racial disparities in American jails. To advance knowledge development grounded in a research agenda that explores, evaluates, and documents site-specific strategies to safely and effectively reduce jail populations and address racial and ethnic disparities, the Foundation engaged the Institute for State & Local Governance (ISLG) at the City University of New York (CUNY) to establish and oversee an SJC Research Consortium. Consortium members are nationally renowned research, policy, and academic organizations collaborating with SJC sites to build an evidence base focused on pretrial reform efforts.