Our nation is at an inflection point in its struggle to keep communities safe. Our current system of law enforcement has largely been unsuccessful in reducing violence and increasing public safety on a sustained basis. It is also historically rooted in the racial subjugation of the people it disproportionately targets and harms. We must consider an alternative to the current system and advance a plan for effective, equitable and humane public safety structures. Many promising reforms and models exist. LDF offers this framework, comprised of three mutually reinforcing strategies, as a starting point for progress.
Armed police officers are called upon to intervene in a wide array of crises and routine, non-emergency events for which they are not adequately trained or suited. For example, armed enforcement of traffic laws contributes to racial disparities in the criminal legal system and too often leads to use of force and police killings. Instead, state and local governments should train a corps of unarmed responders to serve as alternatives to law enforcement. These responders should not be part of the law enforcement system. Rather, they should operate as independent civil servants who receive professional training and develop the expertise to enable them to respond effectively and humanely to events such as:
Too often, the criminal legal system fails people who experience harm or violence, as well as impacted communities. In many cases, survivors and the individuals accused or convicted of crimes belong to the same community. Employing restorative justice practices centers the specific needs of people who experience harm or violence and impacted communities and can better address the root causes of many incidents that threaten public safety. Examples include:
All communities deserve and desire safety. However, an over-reliance on policing has ignored safer and less harmful alternatives that would strengthen communities and reduce violence. For example, gun violence is a public safety and public health crisis that disproportionately harms Black and Brown communities. Rather than relying on specialized crime-suppression units and hyper-surveillance, which have disproportionately harmed those same communities, state and local governments should instead make substantial community investments to enable impacted communities to direct and determine the resources necessary to ensure the safety and prosperity of their neighborhoods.
These three interventions are a starting point for a new paradigm of public safety that centers the dignity and humanity of individuals and communities while creating conditions to reduce crime on a sustained basis and avoid the harms associated with the current system of law enforcement. To move from reimagining public safety to making it a reality begins with changing our choices and investing in solution-oriented outcomes.
Through litigation, policy advocacy, and community organizing, LDF works to ensure protestors can fight for change without police violence. LDF has supported the use of peaceful protest to advance civil rights and racial justice for Black communities. Defending the right to protest is a central piece of LDF’s history.
New research from LDF’s Thurgood Marshall Institute (TMI) shows that the recent elimination of gang databases in Portland, Oregon, and Chicago, Illinois, did not result in an increase in reported crime. The findings support the elimination of the gang database in New York City,
This brief by LDF and the Bazelon Center examines the incarceration, institutionalization, and police violence that Black people with mental illness, and all people with mental illness, face in law enforcement encounters when community-based mental health services are not available to respond to their needs.
We Are Not Lesser examines racial disparities in the Tulsa Police Department’s arrests and uses of force and offers transformative public safety policies city leaders can implement to ensure all Tulsans are safe in their communities.
In this Brief, the Thurgood Marshall Institute reviews the existing evidence on the effectiveness and consequences of police traffic enforcement and presents an affirmative vision for equitable traffic safety that does not rely on police.
This report examines three false narratives about the 2020 nationwide increase in homicides: the expansion of bail reform, practices of progressive prosecutors, and attempts to defund the police. Our analysis reveals that the empirical data contradicts these narratives.