The Syracuse Police Department implemented a policy in December governing officer interactions with transgender people. While some see the policy as a milestone, others see it as an opportunity for continued growth.

The five-page document sets department-wide standards for how officers should address transgender, intersex, nonbinary and gender non-conforming individuals and sets protocols for instances when officers might not know what to do.

Meetings in Syracuse to discuss a potential policy began in February 2018, said Sgt. Matthew Malinowski, SPD spokesperson, in an email.

The workgroup tasked with creating the policy included representatives from community organizations such as Black Cuse Pride and the Transgender Alliance of Central New York, Malinowski said. Representatives from SPD and its legal affairs department also participated, he said.

“There were certainly a lot of debates and disagreements,” said Mallory Livingston, co-founder of the Transgender Alliance of Central New York and a member of the Volunteer Lawyers Project of Onondaga County.

SPD’s policy is unique in its specific focus on transgender people, but could use greater clarity about officer training and discipline, said Livingston.

The department’s policy details procedures for contacting, arresting and documenting interactions with transgender people. Officers are obligated to address the public using the names, pronouns and titles of respect appropriate to an individual’s gender identity.

Nearly half of respondents to a 2015 report from the National Center for Transgender Equality said officers they interacted with who knew they were transgender addressed them by the wrong pronouns.

Information about adjudicating policy violations and training supervisors who will advise officers on the policy is more sparse. SPD’s Office of Professional Standards is responsible for the department’s internal investigation of gender-profiling complaints, according to the policy.

“If someone violates the policy, there is an internal progressive discipline system in place that the officer may be subjected to,” Malinowski said. He did not elaborate on the specifics of the disciplinary process.

The working group had no authority to unilaterally come up with a rubric of punishment or discipline for violations of the policy, Livingston said. Doing so would go against case law and the contract the city negotiates with the SPD, she said.

Requests to speak to Jeff Piedmonte, president of the Syracuse Police Benevolent Association, about disciplinary measures and police contracts were not returned.

Livingston wonders about the qualifications of those reviewing disciplinary complaints pertaining to the policy.

“Are those folks going to be trained? Do they understand this policy? Do they understand these rules? Do they understand these terms? Do they know anything about trans people?” Livingston said. “If there’s no discipline, then what’s the point?”

Though the policy acknowledges that transgender people are disproportionately the victims of hate-based, violent crimes, it stops short of reckoning with data suggesting that some police officers have perpetuated disrespect or hostility toward transgender people.

Twenty percent of respondents to the NCTE report said police officers had verbally harassed them, and 4% said they had been physically attacked.

Developing clear policies and training that increases law enforcement’s familiarity and understanding of LGBTQ people is essential to addressing disparities in peoples’ experiences, said Naomi Goldberg, policy and research director at Movement Advancement Project, a nonprofit research think tank.

“LGBTQ people, particularly LGBTQ people of color, are more likely to interact with police. And when they do have interactions with police, LGBTQ people often report harassment, discrimination and even violence and sexual assault,” Goldberg said.

Updates are needed to many departments’ officer misconduct policies and procedures — not just those relating to LGBTQ people, Goldberg said.

Some law enforcement agencies have established review boards for officer-involved shootings and other serious incidents that make changes to practice manuals and other policies in response to incidents, she said.

SPD’s policy calls for officers to investigate and document allegations of gender bias from multiple sources, including complaints directed to the Citizens Review Board, a forum for citizen complaints regarding members of the police department to be heard and reviewed.

Livingston, who has served on the CRB, said SPD could do more to facilitate a productive dialogue within that group.

“The response with the police when we would have meetings with them was that our review board’s punishments were off the wall and made no sense and were wacky,” Livingston said. “They weren’t willing to discuss any metric that would bring order to that kind of chaos.”

The tenor of the working group’s discussions was sometimes similar, Livingston said. Police representatives pushing back on what group members wanted to discuss was a recurring issue, Livingston said.

Malinowski said that SPD reviews policies “from time to time” to make sure the department is reflective of best practices and 21st-century policing.

“The consultation of advocacy groups can be part of the process,” he said.

Continued conversation with community activists and organizations would prove beneficial, Livingston said. Multiple groups already provide advice and training to doctors, nurses and employees at local homeless shelters, among others in the community, Livingston said.

Those kinds of discussions would better inform policy and clear up misunderstandings, Livingston said. A policy that mandates an arrestee’s gender be classified as it appears on government-issued identification cards, for example, would benefit from extensive knowledge of the state’s identification laws, Livingston said.

New York law allows for changes to gender markers on licenses, passports and other official identification.

SPD has and plans to provide its officers with “cultural-based training” about how to interact with people from varying backgrounds, Malinowski said.

“They want to train their officers to understand trans people,” Livingston said. “Well who better to do that than trans people?”

Published on February 5, 2020 at 11:43 pm

Contact Michael: msessa@syr.edu | @MichaelSessa3