RESOURCES:
Washtenaw County Sheriff's Office (WCSO)
TRANSCRIPTION:
Caroline MacGregor: Joining me today is Alyshia Dyer, the first female and youngest sheriff ever voted into the position in Washtenaw County. Thank you for joining me first of all and tell me how your first few months have gone in the position.
Alyshia Dyer: Well, so really rewarding. You know, being in this seat now as sheriff, it has just been so impactful. We are really busy. Operations really doesn't slow down. We're a 24-7 agency. And so, coming in, getting the new leadership and administration set up, as well as meeting with our 400 employees. We have six different divisions and we're going through a lot of our policies and practices really starting to set the strategic plan and guidelines up moving forward as we move into this first term. And so, I will say it is never dull. It is always something new every day. I'm meeting a lot of people. I'm learning a lot, hearing a lot of really positive feedback from our community partners, as well as our employees. It's just really exciting to get the opportunity to serve the public, as well as our employees here at this agency.
Caroline MacGregor: Your approach to law enforcement, you've mentioned, and I've read that you have a background—a strong background—in social work and mental health, which today seems very important. There's been national cases of alleged police brutality involving, for example, tasers with homeless people who have turned out to be nonviolent. And they've suffered from mental health issues. And there's been some very disturbing things that have happened in the minds of the public, but we always tend to hear the bad about police, which doesn't seem fair. What can be done to improve outcomes for police confrontations with people in Washtenaw County who say do have mental health issues? And there could be a situation where it's not read properly by the officers themselves, and they act with more brute force than necessary. How can that be improved in your mind?
Alyshia Dyer: Yeah. So, a few things. So, here at the Sheriff's Office, we have co-response units where we have a deputy and a community mental health social worker in the car together that answer some of the mental health calls that require the police due to whatever reason. And the deputies that we have in those positions, I personally know, care deeply about mental health and de-escalation and making sure that people are really getting their needs met. But the other reality of this is when people are experiencing mental health crises, we as law enforcement, typically what happens, is we end up filling in the gaps where we have less resources, right? So, a lot of mental health treatment facilities were shut down in Michigan historically. And then, we saw an increase in our jail populations across the state because people that were struggling with mental health issues were then getting criminalized. And it's been really unfortunate because a lot of people in law enforcement--they're not social workers, right? They don't have expertise in understanding how to handle mental health-related calls. And they're doing the best that they can. But people experiencing mental health issues, there are times when even the police presence can be really uncomfortable and escalate the situation. I mean, I remember calls I went on when I was a patrol officer where someone would from 0 to 100 just by seeing the cop car, right? And so, I think what we really need to do as a profession is, one, when we do have to respond, what we always try to do is deescalate and make it as least harmful as possible for the person that it's experiencing the mental health issues. The other part of that is, and this is something I take very seriously as Sheriff, is we as law enforcement have mental health challenges, right? PTSD in law enforcement is rampant. Deputies are responding to really serious calls on a daily basis, sometimes are forced to work with little sleep. Self-care is something that was really kind of thrown aside as a profession in law enforcement, whereas your social work professions, it's normal for them to talk about their stressors or mental health. And so, trying to get folks in law enforcement to really prioritize their mental health is really critical because you cannot respond to calls when the community's experiencing mental health crises when you're yourself are in a mental health crisis. That then puts everybody at risk. So, that's a priority for me internally. But then, there's another part of this where there's a lot of times the police aren't needed in a certain call, right? And so, there's a number of times when it'll be a mental health-related call or a loitering complaint, or maybe somebody doesn't have housing where we really do need to build up different alternative responder programs. So, we have the co-response, and that's countywide. That is one option, and that's not just a standard deputy responding. And we have the mobile crisis response at community mental health. But we need to have alternative responders that are community-based as well. And you look at models across the country that have done this, and it has done just wonders for the whole community, as well as law enforcement, because they are able to take a whole different approach because they're not law enforcement. They're able to move differently than law enforcement would move in that situation. And you're able to really look at the whole picture of what they might need. And so, my goal as Sheriff is to also support building out the alternative unarmed crisis response that is not attached to the Sheriff's Office. Because the public and the community deserves that option as well. And what this will do too on the law enforcement side of things is it reduces the workload. And it reduces the calls for service that they might go on that you didn't really need a police officer there.
Caroline MacGregor: If you're just tuning in, I'm speaking with Washtenaw County Sheriff Alyshia Dyer, and we are talking about her first few months on the job. I know you ran on a platform that the county deserves a sheriff that is transparent, accountable, and that there's true systemic change. What do you mean by systemic change, specifically with regards to Washtenaw County, and what challenges is the county facing mostly today?
Alyshia Dyer: Yeah. So, true systemic change is not looking at the one incident or one individual, and it's really looking at the whole system locally in this county. Our legal system oftentimes does not offer fairness for everybody. It depends on how much money you have, the amount of resources you have, the amount of supports. And so, when you think about true systemic change, it's looking at it deeper than a policy or an incident that happened that we needed to change. It's looking at the whole continuum of care. And what we do as law enforcement is we react a lot to 911 calls for service. But then, we also have to ask ourselves why some of these things are happening. And I always say no fifth-grader is going to raise their hand and say, "I want to get in trouble when I get older." And when you go to an elementary school classroom, you ask people what they want do when they grow up. They say they want to be a police officer or a firefighter or a nurse or a doctor or a lawyer. Not one of the young people is going to say, "I want to get in trouble." But we as law enforcement come across people in crisis. And sometimes, people have done crimes. And we have our role where we have to sometimes take investigative action. But what I also want to do as a county is look broader at what we're seeing and really focus on the front end. Because if you can focus on uplifting communities and safety on the front end, as opposed to just reacting, then you start really changing the whole narrative around how we are using our legal system in the county, but also the country.
Caroline MacGregor: You know you actually segued into what I really wanted to focus on today: youth and the high level of incarceration among young people. It just seems America has a huge number of people in the jails. The youth crime stats in Washtenaw County--what are they currently? Are they pretty high?
Alyshia Dyer: So, when you look at crime as a whole, they're not. But I will say what we have seen in Washtenaw County, it is a serious crime and youth are involved. We've had some youth gun violence, and I responded to a lot of youth-related homicides when I was a deputy. You know, what's really devastating is you look at some of the young people that have been incarcerated and been in and out of our detention system. And nine times out of 10 when they were of younger age, they were victims repeatedly of different crimes and did not get proper support. And you really can see this trajectory. Then, they end up doing worse in school and being more likely to be suspended. Then maybe, they're running away. Then, they're getting in trouble. And it's a cycle. And what we really need to do to really make a dent in this is we have to provide real support systems and ensure that our resources are inclusive, so that young people in this county can actually thrive. And the research is overwhelming that when you give young people positive, adult role models separate from just their parents--when you're a parent, you got to be a parent. That's a different relationship. So, having that separate adult mentor, that positive relationship with an adult, whether it's a community member, someone at a local church or a teacher, it can make all the difference in the world. So, that is one evidence-based way to really help impact young people's trajectories. And then, the other thing we need to do is we need to look at our systems, and we need to figure out are we properly serving everyone the same and equitably? Because what I saw as a deputy and as someone that grew up in Ypsilanti that had my own challenges as a youth, when I saw young people in our community, specifically young Black children, I could tell they were being treated differently. I can compare the way they were treated to how I was treated for doing some of the same things. Me as sheriff, what I'm trying to do is make sure that we have an agency where we are having conversations about different challenges that youth may go through in our community, how can we be positive role models, but also you have to look at the schools. You have to look at the courts. You have to look at community mental health and social work. When I was talking with young people that were involved in gun violence in our detention, some of the things that they said I think we can learn from. I'm never gonna forget one of the young people said, "You keep telling me to stay out of trouble, but what do I have to live for anyway?" I mean, you say depression, but it's devastating to hear a young person say that. There's correlations when we're looking at our gun violence among youth, where you can literally see similarities: a lot of trauma and didn't get proper support, like victim services-related things. There is a clear racial disparity and then unnecessary negative contacts with law enforcement can also set young people up for failure. I experienced positive and negative contacts growing up. I've made a lot of mistakes, and there's times that I did things where I reflect back on it and I'm like, "If I was caught for those, I would not be Sheriff right now, right?" And so, I think really prioritizing deflection and youth diversion when we're able to do that is another way. I mean, what I've seen is when young people get in our legal system, it's hard for them to get out.
Caroline MacGregor: You've been listening to my conversation with Washtenaw County Sheriff Alyshia Dyer. This is 89.1 WEMU FM Ypsilanti.
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