WASHINGTON, D.C. — National surveys indicate that law enforcement officials favor community-led strategies to reduce crime, highlighting growing support for approaches that shift some public safety responsibilities beyond traditional policing.
Law enforcement officials support community-based programs and initiatives aimed at making neighborhoods safer for residents. The enhancement of public safety and reduction in crime rates are essential to ensuring shared responsibility among officers.
Active crime-prevention strategies reduce the workload for law enforcement officers, making it easier for them to focus on high-priority matters within the community.
Crime prevention programs, officers say, make their jobs and communities safer and reduce the burden on police departments, according to the first and largest survey of its kind by the Alliance for Safety and Justice.
Importantly, “92% of law enforcement agree that police departments are burdened with a wide range of social problems beyond crime, and 80–92% agree that neighborhood programs reduce the burden on their departments, make their jobs safer and easier, and improve community safety.”
Therefore, officers can transition from responders to proactive partners within the community in promoting public safety.
Responses from officers include how the effectiveness of community-based programs can address social problems and root causes of crime, including programs that focus on “interrupting violence, preventing drug overdoses, treating mental health crises, and addressing homelessness.”
As funding is needed for these programs to operate, without it, more issues are placed on officers without corresponding solutions to help keep the public safer.
“Massive federal budget cuts are causing many programs to reduce operations or shut down entirely,” according to Law Enforcement Views on Safety and Justice.
“Anyone who’s served in law enforcement roles in communities experiencing chronic crime problems will tell you the same thing: we cannot arrest our way to public safety. WE need partnerships.”
“With programs that include mental health crisis assistance, or youth programs, or treatment and housing programs, it all adds up to a strong public safety ecosystem, and it’s the only way to achieve lasting change,” said Chief Renee Hall, former Dallas police chief, along with other national law enforcement leaders.
Centered on improving community safety and strengthening communities, partnerships play a significant role for both residents and law enforcement officials. The reduction of harm and costs is more equitable for communities.
Colonel Thomas W. Synan, Jr., chief of police for the Newton Police Department, said, “Policing alone cannot solve every challenge driving violence, mental health crisis, addiction, and homelessness. Partnerships with community-based organizations are how we move from reacting to emergencies to actually preventing them.”
Additionally, “these collaborations are proven public safety strategies; they save lives, reduce violence, and allow officers to focus on what they were hired to do: investigate crime and stop it before it spreads,” said Synan.
As a result, programs like these have played a role in ensuring safety for residents while protecting first responders on the front lines.
Data show that 92% of law enforcement officers agree that “police departments are burdened with a wide range of social problems beyond crime.”
Prevention programs reduce the burden on police departments, improving the efficiency of officers’ work. “80% agree that community residents trained in street outreach, mediating conflicts, mentoring youth, and diverting problems away from violence would help prevent retaliatory violence, reduce neighborhood incidents, and make their job safer and easier in the long term.”
Further findings indicate, “Just 15% of correctional officers say that long prison sentences are the best way to prevent people from committing repeat crimes; many more identify cognitive behavioral therapy, addiction treatment, job training, and employment opportunities to be more effective.”
Ultimately, “this report underscores how important it is that we listen to those impacted by crime, be they crime survivors or law enforcement officers, when shaping policies and making funding decisions around public safety,” said Shaena Fazal, chief of advocacy for the Alliance for Safety and Justice.
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We already have community-led crime strategies. That’s the problem – some communities have decided to disproportionately “lead” in creating crime. They’re quite effective at doing so, for that matter (year-after-year, generation-after-generation).
The same people who shouldn’t be having kids (because they aren’t successful regarding their OWN lives – and have usually created problems for everyone else along the way) are the same ones creating future problems for everyone else – year-after-year, generation-after-generation.
No one else wants anything to do with those communities. Never have, never will.