Washington, D.C. — The right to safety is a universal one, irrespective of race, wealth, health, ability, or background. Ensuring protection from crime and violence is a crucial responsibility of government and community leaders. It also plays a pivotal role in fostering thriving, healthy, and resilient communities. Despite the decline in several categories of crime, concerns over public safety continue to be a pressing issue for many Americans. Constituents are looking to their elected leaders for prompt and effective solutions that yield tangible results. A new report from the Center for American Progress (CAP) offers a policy framework aimed at enhancing public safety through improved accountability for offenders while emphasizing both immediate and long-term preventative measures.
The framework comprises two parts. The first part proposes ways to make accountability solutions more effective and targeted by:
1. Enhancing responses to serious crime: In the United States, only 1 in 5 nonfatal shootings result in arrests. Given that most crimes go unreported, it is estimated that only 11 percent of serious crimes lead to an arrest and merely 2 percent culminate in a criminal conviction. To address this concern, the criminal legal system can improve the rate at which crimes are solved, tailor solutions to community needs through enhanced data collection and sharing, and foster better police-community relations.
2. Ensuring accountability systems disrupt cycles of crime: Programs that divert individuals from contact with the criminal legal system while eliminating barriers to reentry can effectively halt cycles of offending. These programs often provide treatment for mental health trauma and substance abuse issues.
3. Prioritizing support for crime survivors and victims: Shockingly, 96 percent of violent crime victims never receive financial compensation or assistance for recovery. Victim compensation funds and support services should be readily available, comprehensive, culturally relevant, and trauma-informed.
The second part advocates investing in proven crime prevention strategies such as:
1. Reducing gun-related harm: Policymakers should adopt legislation like extreme risk protection order laws, safe storage laws, and permit-to-purchase laws while repealing gun industry immunity laws.
2. Expanding the public safety workforce: Including a broader range of professionals, such as those specializing in crisis response, conflict resolution, and behavioral health can enhance immediate and long-term safety outcomes.
3. Increasing services and resources for underserved communities: Federal, state, and local leaders should invest in expanding access to public health programs like substance abuse treatment and mental health counseling, housing resources; increasing economic opportunities in disinvested communities; and protecting and empowering young people.
"Better public safety requires a commitment to more effective accountability that avoids the harms of the past while directing prevention resources and support to systemically neglected communities that suffer most from crime," said Lindsey McLendon, senior fellow for Criminal Justice Reform at CAP. "Without faithful, transparent implementation of both approaches, true safety will remain elusive and inequitable."
The report titled “Improving Public Safety Through Better Accountability and Prevention” by Lindsey McLendon, Rachael Eisenberg, and Nick Wilson is available for further reading. For more information or to speak with an expert, please contact Jasmine Razeghi at [email protected].
