By Michael Bielawski,
According to the year-end Burlington Police Department report, while progress was made in 2023 towards replenishing their ranks after a 2020 defunding, it has largely been lost in 2024.
“Since July 01, 2020, staffing has fallen by nearly 30 sworn officers,” the report states. “During that time, incident volume has risen.”
The department will start the year with 63 officers, down from 92 which is how many they had in 2020 just after the City Council voted to reduce the force by about a third via attrition.
“An officer exodus ensued,” the report states. “In Oct 2021, the council raised the cap from 74 to 87, but it was not until a strong police contract was ratified in July 2022 that headcount stabilized. Since then, the BPD has worked to rebuild, but after significant success in 2023, the BPD lost progress and rolled back in 2024.”
Of those 63 officers, just 58 are readily available for deployment for reasons ranging from injuries to family matters and more.
The result is there are not enough officers to deal with the current volume of crime, which was 30,110 incidents for the year. That’s down 3% from the previous year when there were 30,883 incidents, but crime is still up overall when looking back five years.
“They were up 6% over 2019. BPD addressed more incidents than in 2019 with 50% fewer patrol officers than in 2019,” the report states. “Of the 30,110 incidents in 2024, the BPD ‘stacked’ 3,959, or 13%. Additionally, 1,570 were taken via online reporting, or 5%.”
It adds, “This is insufficient for Vermont’s largest city. Historically, headcount averaged 97; currently we are authorized for 87 officers.”
The department has six Community Support Liaisons and seven Community Service Officers helping the regular officers. They are limited in that they are only qualified to respond to nonviolent situations, they do not carry guns or make arrests.
In addition to unarmed support, there is the evolving Priority Response Plan. This is what goes into effect when calls are “stacked”.
It states, “Twenty-six officers on patrol is not adequate for a city of our size or BPD’scall volume,” the report states. “Accordingly, we have created the Priority Response Plan. It husbands resources while remaining true to our duty to prioritize our NEIGHBORS’ PHYSICAL SAFETY and their sense of safety.”
One positive development is there has been more public engagement via the Creemie with a Cop program.
“The event was a great success and we are appreciative to all those who made time to stop by The Bagel Café and Deli on North Avenue to enjoy creemees and conversations with our BPD team,” the report states.
Poor relations with the City?
This report comes amidst renewed tensions between the department and both the mayor's office and the City Council. The former insists on reviewing all of the department’s public communications through her office while the latter recently voted to have oversight powers taken away from the chief - who has announced he’s leaving the job - regarding officer disciplinary actions.
A report on NBC News noted the poor marks for city leadership by outgoing BPD officers. They wrote, “The report did detail exit surveys from former Burlington police officers, most of whom indicated they were not satisfied with the city's commitment to employees. When asked their reason for leaving, the surveys show most officers found jobs elsewhere or selected an option labeled ‘other.’”
Restorative Justice good for some, not all
The report notes that Restorative Justice, a program that allows offenders - sometimes of violent crimes - to take part in community-run programs intended to help with finding work again and keeping healthy social relationships, is a great opportunity for one-time offenders.
“The majority of people who get arrested in a given year are only arrested once,” it states. “It’s not an experience most people want to repeat. These are the people for whom alternative justice like that provided by the Community Justice Center (CJC) is not only the right choice, it’s a better choice—more efficient and more impactful.”
However, that doesn’t mean the department thinks it’s the right choice for everyone. They had this to say about it regarding repeat offenders.
“These offenders are not eligible for CJC, but those in the bottom bands in the graphic— less than 10% of arrestees—are involved in a third of the arrests. How then to address the disruption and danger these offenders pose to the public?”
The author is a writer for the Vermont Daily Chronicle
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