Primary Submission Category: Policy
The impact of the Let Everyone Advance with Dignity program on police presence and engagement in predominantly racially minoritized communities in Minneapolis
Authors: Tongtan Chantarat, Simone Hardeman-Jones, Ann Brearley, Lindsey Turner, Michele Allen,
Presenting Author: Tongtan Chantarat*
Racially minoritized individuals are many times more likely to come into contact with the police compared to their white counterparts. Over-policing in neighborhoods with a high proportion of racially minoritized residents is associated with injury to individuals involved in the altercations, psychological distress, and trauma for both individuals with direct police contact and those who see or hear about police-involved incidents. Addressing over-policing in these neighborhoods is a key lever to improve population health and mitigate racial inequities.
The Let Everyone Advance with Dignity (LEAD) program is an evidence-based, collaborative, pre-booking diversion program that offers harm reduction-oriented case management to individuals with a known or presumed history of or at risk of repeated contact with the police and the criminal legal systems due to underlying substance use, mental illness, homelessness, or extreme poverty – those who are sometimes dubbed “familiar faces.” Residents, business owners, visitors, and stakeholders in the catchment area of LEAD can refer individuals engaging in non-violent law violations (e.g., shoplifting, drug use in the bathroom, loitering at transit stations) to LEAD instead of calling the police. LEAD has been shown to have a positive impact on their clients, but its effects on community-level policing are unexplored.
Our study compares changes in monthly rates of police calls (total, by misdemeanor vs. felony) and stops (total, by race, by officer-reported violation type) from January 2019 to March 2022 (the pre-LEAD period) and from April 2022 to December 2024 (the post-LEAD period) between the LEAD neighborhoods and “synthetic” LEAD neighborhoods generated using neighborhoods outside of the LEAD catchment area with similar pre-LEAD rates and sociodemographic characteristics. Results can inform the tailoring of LEAD to produce maximal health-promoting impact and/or scaling up to other neighborhoods in Minneapolis.