more people would have called if we had given them “special” tickets. There’s absolutely no evidence for that.
This statement is disingenuous. The citations aren’t “special” just because they are specific. The change in citation involves educating the recipient on the program and what will happen if they do not engage in the program. The “special” citations are clear, written instructions designed specifically to encourage addicted and often unhoused people to participate.
What was done instead was a small number of non-informative business cards (which were often not provided anyway) and regular (uninformative) tickets issued by officers who received zero training on encouraging participation in the program. There were no general orders created for police requiring them to provide instructions to ticket recipients and no training of any kind on implementing the new measure.
Police need to be trained and instructed on how to implement something like this. They can’t be expected to guess what’s needed or to make it up as they go. They cannot be expected to make an effective verbal sales pitch to an addict, or to even try without training. That is not an appropriate way to implement such a measure.
The few police who did their best to verbally explain it and handed out business cards did so on their own, without training or standard process. This program was simply never fully implemented.
This statement is disingenuous. The citations aren’t “special” just because they are specific. The change in citation involves educating the recipient on the program and what will happen if they do not engage in the program. The “special” citations are clear, written instructions designed specifically to encourage addicted and often unhoused people to participate.
What was done instead was a small number of non-informative business cards (which were often not provided anyway) and regular (uninformative) tickets issued by officers who received zero training on encouraging participation in the program. There were no general orders created for police requiring them to provide instructions to ticket recipients and no training of any kind on implementing the new measure.
Police need to be trained and instructed on how to implement something like this. They can’t be expected to guess what’s needed or to make it up as they go. They cannot be expected to make an effective verbal sales pitch to an addict, or to even try without training. That is not an appropriate way to implement such a measure.
The few police who did their best to verbally explain it and handed out business cards did so on their own, without training or standard process. This program was simply never fully implemented.
The instructions were covered with the traditional ticket, verbal instructions, and the business card.