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Community Responder Teams Fact Sheet
Colleen Kristich — Apr 2, 2025
Community responders are first responders who respond to nonviolent, noncriminal calls without police. Over 100 American cities now use community responder teams to address low-level health and social needs, which saves police and ambulance time and allows them to respond faster to higher-priority calls.
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Community Responder Teams Fact Sheet
Colleen Kristich — Apr 19, 2023
Surprisingly, most calls to 911 are not about emergencies or crimes. In 2019, over 95% of 911 calls handled by the Erie County Sheriff were noncriminal calls for service (e.g., accidents, alarms, nonviolent disputes, etc.). Violent crimes—including murder, forcible rape, and arson—made up just 1.3% of calls.
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The City of Buffalo Police Department
Sarah Wooton — Dec 21, 2017
This fact sheet was drafted by Sarah Wooton, a policy analyst at Partnership for the Public Good. It documents the history and demographics of the City of Buffalo Police Department, its recent activity, its organization and chain of command, the bodies that are tasked with oversight of the department, and how residents can file a complaint. The fact sheet shares the current schedule of district community meetings happening monthly across the City, and concludes by listing contact information …
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Gang Prevention in Buffalo, NY and National Best Practices
Gabriella Agostinelli — Apr 25, 2013
While there is no consensus over a specific definition of “gang,” research has identified a group of characteristics to discern whether a group is a “gang.” According to the Office of Juvenile and Delinquency Prevention, these characteristics include: formal organizational structure (not a syndicate), identifiable leadership, identified territory, recurrent interaction, and engaging in serious or violent behavior.