Work for the future
A new report on community initiatives and police practices documents the extraordinary levels of innovation in public safety emerging in communities across the country. The research examines the 50 largest U.S. cities and found that 44 of the 50 cities have an alternative 911 emergency response system, 34 of them are non-police centered, 30 cities have health centered responses to public safety, and 21 have “civilianization” initiatives that depend on unarmed city employees to handle incidents that are typically addressed by police. Overall, the study concluded “a remarkable 48 of the 50 cities have at least one program or initiative within those four categories.”
The report emphasizes that:
“When taken as a whole, these alternatives to police intervention are handling nearly every kind of call for service that police receive. In fact, for more than 90% of the 911 calls, there are already alternatives underway within major U.S. cities. In other words, these cities are collectively creating a blueprint for a dramatically different approach to community safety in the future.”
The data in this report helps us think more imaginatively about how to create safety in communities. The report begins with two important perspectives. The first is to acknowledge the tremendous growth in spending on police forces at the municipal level. From 1980 to 2017 spending on the police has increase 230% from $56 billion to $185 billion. The second perspective argues that we have stretched the duties of police to cover community problems that they are incapable of resolving. Because their primary preparation is centered around the use of violence, police are not well suited to handle most urgent needs of people.
The research found:
“Our public safety and crisis responses are frequently ineffective at meeting residents’ urgent needs and addressing root causes in order to break cycles of crime and violence. The excessive and misguided reliance on the police is also perhaps best characterized by the consistent, severe, and needless harm it causes, the systemic racism it perpetuates, and the resources it consumes that could have been used to advance more effective community safety strategies.”
Rather than relying on police powers, the report offers alternatives that document “efforts to replace our current systems of mass criminalization and incarceration with “systems of community care” that advance authentic forms of safety and healthier, more equitable communities.”
The report examines over 4 million 911 calls for service in 2022 in eight cities: Chicago, Los Angeles, Denver, Baltimore, Phoenix, Cincinnati, Richmond and Nashville. This data provides the foundation for the conclusion that there is “a severe misalignment between what residents need from the public safety systems and what they actually receive.”
They discovered that the overwhelming majority of calls were unrelated to urgent safety needs. Only 4% of calls were related to violent offenses or reports of gun shots. Over 36% were about health-related issues or low-level concerns such as parking problems, auto accidents, barking dogs, loud music, fireworks, and noise complains.
The vast majority of the calls resulted in the police doing nothing.
In Baltimore, for example, only 363 of the 1.6 million calls were classified as an emergency. The vast majority, 81.7% were identified as “low priority” or “non-emergency.”
Rather than spending more and more money on policing, the report outlines innovative approaches that take a multi-disciplinary, problem-solving approach to community concerns. They advocate “Customized Community Safety (CCS) programs” to develop responses by “a variety of trained professionals with a diverse set of skills available to respond to and, more importantly, prevent crime and violence.” This approach enables communities to look at root causes of community concerns, and promote healing and compassionate care, rather than increasing the possibility of violence and harm.
Looking carefully at the 911 data enables us to “analyze how crimes are prevented and how safety is created.” Across the 50 cities
“What you find is that the overwhelming majority of that work is being done not by police, but by strong family units and communities. Countless studies have shown that when communities have well-funded public institutions, are able to meet people’s basic housing, healthcare, and income needs, and have an ecosystem of caring individuals—such as childcare providers, educators, afterschool program personnel, and community resource providers—who dedicate themselves to meeting the needs of residents, then those communities are safe. When those conditions do not exist, then community safety usually suffers. In other words, these other institutions and individuals do far more than the police to prevent crime.’”
Last week Detroit City Council passed a budget that showed little understanding of how to use our resources to promote safe, healthy, and productive communities. But across the city organizations are creating alternatives rooted in the experiences of what keeps us safe. The upcoming forum sponsored by the Coalition for Police Transparency and Accountability, Michigan Coalition for Human Rights, the National Lawyers Guild and Damon J. Keith Center for Civil Rights provides an opportunity to learn about some of the work for the future happening now.