Legislative District 16

I appreciate the use of the term public safety rather than law enforcement in this question, as the difference between the two is an important mental shift. Too often in the United States, we view challenging issues through a default lens of policing, because the real solutions are more challenging. Take examples like homelessness, drugs, immigration, domestic abuse, and school shootings. It’s relatively easy to throw more police and police budgets at these issues, but our police are overworked and inadequately trained for many of these missions. We need to involve more social workers, mental health and other health specialties, and find ways to target the root causes rather than treating the people involved as law breakers to be penalized. Rather than measuring by persons jailed or fines levied, we’ll reach a point of measurement like people off the streets and reengaged in life, or in the reduction of violent episodes.

We need to take more things off the plate of the police that aren’t their core strengths. Let our police train and be equipped for our most violent situations - the ugly jobs that no other group has the skills to take on. Separately, let’s appropriately fund and bolster those groups - public and private - in our communities that are working to end homelessness, end poverty, end drug abuse, end domestic violence, and all the multitude of social issues that have defaulted to police in the past.

In my area, I observe that many of our roadways are inadequate for our traffic, where the State Patrol is used as a control measure rather than investment in better infrastructure. Accident response teams would be a more appropriate use of public spending.

Given ongoing incidents in my local police department, it’s very apparent that we need reform measures that would enable faster outside review of police actions and behaviors, with real consequences. I’m very concerned concerned at the influence of right-wing extremist ideology in our police forces.