Reimaging Public Safety
On October 23, 2020, the Justice Collaboratory at Yale Law School and the Policing Project at New York University School of Law hosted a virtual convening on reimagining public safety in the United States. Our goal was to bring together a broad, crosscutting, and inclusive group of advocates, community leaders, policymakers, practitioners, and researchers to discuss what a reimagined system should look like and how best to achieve it.
Our conversation, summarized in this report, was geared toward identifying both solutions and processes for implementing change and, importantly, identifying hurdles and ways to overcome them. In January 2021, we convened a group of thought leaders from policing agencies, unions, academia, and government to solicit their perspectives on the same set of issues—a summary report is forthcoming. Ultimately, we hope to identify areas of common ground and produce a working document intended for practitioners, community members, and government officials to provide resources in navigating their ongoing efforts to reimagine and transform public safety.
Highlights
The group identified three foundational shifts that must occur to achieve a new vision of public safety: ending systemic racism; decoupling public safety from policing; and centering community voices.
For virtually all participants, reimagining public safety requires building an environment in which people can live and thrive, and where resources are available to not just reduce violence and crime but also to protect and support physical, mental, social, and economic wellbeing.
There is no single solution that will work for every jurisdiction, but there are many commonalities that can inform learning paths and continuous reform efforts.