Associated Press
PROVIDENCE, R.I. (AP) -- The Providence Police Department has joined the departments of three other New England cities for an unprecedented collaboration.
Providence police Chief Dean Esserman and the chiefs in Boston, New Haven, Conn., and Lowell, Mass., have agreed to share ideas and strategies.
The benefit will be better policing, Esserman said.
Although there are chiefs’ organizations in the states and regions, this group wants to go further, exchanging ideas for police work and policies, and running an exchange program for police officers.
According to The Providence Journal, Esserman organized a meeting last week with Lowell police Superintendent Edward Davis, New Haven police Chief Francisco Ortiz, Boston police Commissioner Paul F. Evans and their command staffs.
“It seems a lot of us are doing the same things without knowing it,” Ortiz said. “It’s almost easier that we think alike.”
Lowell has been working with a decentralized police department for nine years, something that Providence has just started.
Providence has undergone revitalization and economic development, and Lowell wants to learn about that.
Boston has a plan to reduce shootings in the city. Providence wants to know how the plan works. Boston has street counselors who work with at-risk teenagers, and Providence has recently put three counselors in the neighborhoods.
New Haven is interested in Lowell’s race-relations council, a program begun in reaction to racial profiling. Lowell is training police officers from across the nation in this council and wants to share what the police have learned with Providence.
New Haven has field-training officers who act as mentors for new police officers, a program that Esserman began when he was an assistant chief there. Providence is launching its first field-training officer program with the current police academy.
Meanwhile, the “exchange program” for police officers is unofficially beginning. Two Providence patrol sergeants recently visited New Haven to see how that city’s department handles details and overtime staffing.
In turn, New Haven is sending some of its detectives to Providence this week to study with the police team in the bureau of criminal identification.
They’ll return, Ortiz hopes, with ideas on case management and crime scene investigations.
Davis said he’s intrigued by the idea of trading personnel for short periods of time. “Police departments are parochial, and that can lead to problems,” he said. “But police work is similar.”
Eventually, the chiefs want to pull more New England cities on board, such as Manchester, N.H.; Portland, Maine; Worcester and Springfield, Mass., and Stamford, Conn., where Esserman was formerly the chief.
“I think sometimes that police departments get cocky,” Ortiz said. “In reality, if they want to help the community, they have to work together.”