Community Safety

The Path For Abolishing The Police Already Exists

August 18, 2024 Joe Mayall, Scheer Post. Create! Accountability, Community Safety, Defund the police, Police, State Violence

America watched in horror this spring as armed phalanxes of police assaulted peaceful pro-Palestine protesters on campuses across the nation. The raids on student encampments ranged from dubious arrests to snipers on campus rooftops. This most recent episode of widespread police aggression only reinforced Americans’ belief that law enforcement is quick to violent escalation. Last year, a nationwide ABC News-Washington Post survey of 1,003 adults found that only 39% of Americans polled were confident police were adequately trained to avoid excessive force, and only 41% believed they treated Black and white people equally.

We Can Safeguard Democracy Without Giving In To Fear And More Policing 

June 5, 2024 Claire Guinta and Kalaya'an Mendoza , Waging Nonviolence. Strategize! Community Safety, Democracy, Elections, Police, Political Violence

Elections are flashpoints for political violence. Across the country, voter intimidation and related threats have spiked in recent cycles. In one particularly extreme case — in the battleground state of Arizona — one voter was reportedly approached and followed by armed “vigilantes” dressed in tactical gear outside a drop box during the 2023 midterms. Not surprisingly, voter intimidation has become a rising fear among many voters as the U.S. heads toward elections in November. In an effort to dissolve the misinformation that drives threats and violence, some state officials have actually urged election deniers to become poll workers or official observers.

There’s A Better Way To Make Communities Safer

April 4, 2024 Mel Duncan, Waging Nonviolence. Create! Communities, Community Safety, Nonviolence, Peaceforce

Over the past 25 years, as co-creator of Nonviolent Peaceforce, I have seen unarmed civilian protection (also known as UCP or UCP/A to include the methodology of accompaniment) evolve to the point where our teams have worked alongside local communities using evidenced-based, civilian-led approaches to prevent violence and protect civilians in 15 countries. In helping to foster a community of practice, I have witnessed dozens of small and large organizations using active nonviolent methods to create community safety. Here are three examples I find to be particularly inspiring.

Resident-Owned Resilience

June 24, 2022 Zachary Lamb, Grassroots Economic Organizing. Create! Community Safety, Cooperatives, Housing

Residents of manufactured housing communities (MHCs) are disproportionately vulnerable to both hazards and displacement. The cooperative ownership model of resident-owned communities (ROCs) pioneered by ROC USA helps MHC residents resist displacement, but little research assesses how cooperative tenure impacts hazard vulnerability. To fill this gap, we conduct a spatial analysis of 234 ROC USA sites; analyze the co-op conversion process; and interview ROC USA staff, technical assistance providers, and resident co-op leaders. Although ROC USA communities, like other MHCs, face elevated exposure and sensitivity to hazards, we find that ROC USA’s model supports communities’ adaptive capacity by increasing access to financial resources, bridging formal and informal knowledge and skills, and improving social and institutional capacity. This networked cooperative model represents a scalable form of transformative adaptation by enabling low-income communities to address the underlying causes of uneven hazard vulnerabilities that are intensifying under climate change.

Report: Latinos Believe In Better Ways To Improve Safety Than Funding Police

May 19, 2022 Hector Luis Alamo, Latino Rebels. Educate! Community Safety, Latinx, Police, Police abuse

Almost all Latinos believe there are better ways to make their communities safer than simply funding police departments, according to a first-of-its-kind study conducted by Mijente and other groups. In “Futuro y Esperanza: Latinx Perspectives on Policing and Safety,” 93 percent of the Latinos surveyed believe that making their communities safer requires “investing money in things that prevent crime from happening in the first place, such as good schools, access to good-paying jobs, and affordable housing, instead of just funding police to respond to it.” Most Latinos (62 percent) also say they or a loved one have had negative or even “unsafe” experiences with police, though the prevalence of such experiences varies across race, class, and gender.

Community Guards: Self-Protection And Peoples’ Autonomy

October 16, 2021 Progressive International. Create! Colombia, Community Safety, Democracy, Indigenous culture

An interview with the guard leaders of the Peasant, Cimarrona and Indigenous communities about the processes they have implemented since the beginning of the National Strike in Colombia. For them, self-justice goes beyond exercising authority; it means protecting their territory and the lives of those who inhabit their lands. The National Popular Assembly (NPA) that took place on July 17–19 at the University of Valle, in Cali, was systematically targeted and sabotaged by public forces. But, the intervention of the Cimarrona, Indigenous and farmer community guards and the front-line protesters guaranteed a safe and peaceful space for the meeting. "Police officers know how to treat others as police officers, a guerrilla as a guerrilla, and the paramilitary as the paramilitary," said Manuel Correa, "(...) they each have their own ideology, but they are far removed from the cosmovision of the black people."

Street Response Effective At Resolving Non-Violent 911 Calls

October 10, 2021 Alex Zielinski, Portland Mercury. Create! Alternatives to police, Community Safety, Police, Portland

Portland, Oregon - The first six months of the Portland Street Response pilot project is meeting its lofty expectations, according to a Portland State University (PSU) study released Tuesday. "Based on the findings... we feel very optimistic about the future of Portland Street Response and believe it is well on its way to becoming a citywide solution to responding to 911 and non-emergency calls involving unhoused people and people experiencing mental health crisis," reads the report, conducted by PSU's Homelessness Research and Action Collaborative. The Portland Street Response (PSR) is an unarmed first responder team comprised of a mental health clinician, firefighter paramedic, and two community health workers who are dispatched to 911 calls regarding mental health crises or issues regarding unhoused people.

What’s Happening With Nonviolent Cities?

September 3, 2021 Rivera Sun, Waging Nonviolence. Create! Campaign Nonviolence, Community Safety, Nonviolence

What an exciting time for the Nonviolent Cities Project! For years, Pace e Bene has fostered the vision of communities that promote nonviolence in schools, businesses, cultural events and more. We organize with local cities/towns to implement nonviolent solutions and alternatives to physical violence as well as systemic, structural, cultural and other forms of violence. From Nonviolent Carbondale, Illinois, to Nonviolent Springfield, Massachusetts, groups are working to transform their communities. Here’s what’s happening in this ever-expanding effort. We’re welcoming new groups in Nonviolent Opelika, Alabama, and Nonviolent Rochester, New York. We’re celebrating inquiries from Salford, in the United Kingdom; Cleveland and Cleveland Heights, Ohio; Lakewood, Ohio; Gresham, Oregon and more.

Report: Incarceration Destabilizes Neighborhood Economies

November 24, 2020 Hannah Gaskill, Maryland Matters. Educate! Community Safety, Local Economy, Maryland, Mass Incarceration

A report released by the Maryland Center for Economic Policy suggests decreasing the state’s prison budget will lead to a healthier economy and increased public safety. The report, released Wednesday, found that Black Marylanders are 4 1/2 times more likely to serve prison sentences than any other racial or ethnic group. Indigenous Maryland residents are twice as likely to be incarcerated than any other racial or ethnic group. “None of what we’re doing is making any of us safer and it’s most certainly not making those Black communities that are being robbed of human capital ― it’s not making them any safer...

Connecting Beyond The Height Of Emergency

September 3, 2020 By Anoa Changa, Prism. Strategize! Anti-Racism, Community Safety, George Floyd, Rebellion2020

Three months ago, protests in Minneapolis gave way to a national uprising. Ushering in a new focus on racial justice, the uprisings have challenged the way people relate to one another and how some talk about community safety. Coupled with the stress of the COVID-19 pandemic, the uprisings have forced people to rethink how to protect their communities through strengthening their bonds with one another. Mutual aid groups and block-level community defense are two ways people shifted beyond traditional American individualism. A climate organizer with TakeAction Minnesota, Magdalena Kaluza said that in the midst of the uprising, neighbors began meeting and planning with each other. For Kaluza and many others, the focus was on protecting people first and foremost.

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