Public Safety
Doing What Works
Can we prevent poverty, homelessness, mental health crisis, substance use disorder, and violence prevention with more policing?
Research says no.
Seattle residents agree.
Recent poll results show:
92% of respondents want to see more funding for addiction and mental health treatment
80% want to see more funding for programs that address the root causes of crime.
We keep using the same “solutions” over and over even when they don’t work.
Video credit: Roster of Abolitionist Media Personnel (RAMP)
What if we thought beyond the status quo?
So how DO we increase public safety?
Local groups and community organizations are already developing and providing alternate solutions to increase public safety. These local groups are hard at work and need more support to make their vision a reality. Check them out below!
This list is not exhaustive. If you know of other groups in action that aren’t listed here, feel free to reach out.
HOUSING
Shelter is a basic human need and living unhoused is a fundamental threat to one’s safety and wellbeing. The single most effective way to address homelessness is a housing first approach. Providing wrap-around services helps unhoused individuals to stabilize and remain housed. The city of Seattle continues to conduct forced encampment removals that harm, traumatize, and endanger the lives of our unhoused neighbors. Simultaneously, there are other approaches the city is taking that are showing much more promising results at getting individuals housed and therein increasing their safety.
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Caseworkers spend weeks doing outreach and establishing relationships with those in encampments. JustCARE caseworkers are providers with lived experience - often folks who have experienced incarceration or were formerly homeless. Caseworkers connect unsheltered individuals to services for housing and mental health services. JustCARE has been shown to reduce the number of 9-1-1 calls in the areas it has been implemented. In a recent study of the program 70% of the participants were able to transition to permanent housing.
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Health Through Housing Initiative is a King County Initiative with several sites in the city of Seattle as well as the surrounding region. The initiative funds permanent supportive housing which is a proven effective way to address chronic homelessness.
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DESC serves the most vulnerable community members - those that are chronically homeless and are often struggling with mental illness and substance use disorder. DESC provides emergency shelters and permanent supportive housing. They offer substance use disorder treatment, street outreach for those with mental illness, case management, and medical services. DESC houses 500 adults into places each year.
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LIHI is a nonprofit organization that owns and operates housing for the benefit of low-income, homeless, and formerly homeless people in Washington State and administers a range of supportive services.
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Outreach workers build relationships with people experiencing homelessness and connect them to the help they need - including housing assessment and placement planning, landlord education and support, clothing and medical care, and mental health and substance use disorder treatment.
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Chief Seattle Club is a non-profit organization dedicated to supporting American Indian and Alaska Native people. Chief Seattle Club provides food, primary health care, housing assistance, legal services, a Native art job training program, and opportunities for members to engage in cultural community-building.
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Youth Care works to end youth homelessness and to ensure that young people are valued for who they are and empowered to achieve their potential.
VIOLENCE PREVENTION
Violence Interruption Programs are community-based programs where credible messengers - members of the community who have lived experience and have overcome its challenges, including incarceration and gun violence - intervene to reduce community violence. Intervention can include public visibility, intervening in conflict before situations escalate into violence, and intervening after violence has occured to prevent retaliation. Violence interruption Programs have been shown to be effective at reducing community violence and reducing homicide rates. Violence prevention programs also reduce over-policing that can result in increased arrests.
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Regional Peacekeepers Collective focuses on intervention in critical incidents and shots fired and focuses those most at risk of gun violence: young people seen in Harborview Medical Center Emergency Room for gun-related injury. They provide rigorous intervention for those directly involved, secondary prevention for younger siblings, follow-up care and support for family restoration and healing. Regional Peacekeepers Collective is an umbrella of several local organizations including. Choose 180, Community Passageways, Freedom Project, Harborview Medical Center, Progress Pushers, Renegades for Life, and the YMCA.
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Ambassadors work with families and youth to provide therapeutic and evidence-based approaches to decrease aggression and teach emotional regulation, mindfulness, and distress tolerance. Community Passageways has a community support team that responds to gun violence incidents and focuses on de-escalation. They have several youth programs and offer services, mentorship, and work to keep youth out of the criminal legal system. They have worked with over 100 youth facing felony charges and reduced the time in detention or jail youth were facing by 76%
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Provides restorative justice in Washington state; specifically healing circles, dialogue, and accountability processes. They provide these circles both in communities and in prisons, and they also provide skill building around coping with triggers, self and community care, and building resilience.
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Safe Passage is a community-based violence intervention program in the Rainier Beach and Mount Baker neighborhoods. Safe Passage staff patrol high-risk and youth-prominent areas that have been identified as violence hot spots and use a restorative justice approach when practicing violence mitigation. Safe Passage staff all wear bright blue coats—with their Be Safe motto on the back—so they are highly visible and easily identified.
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Rainier Beach Action Coalition is a Black-led organization of Rainier Beach residents. There are multiple programs including Corner Greeters. The program is led by community members and they coordinate with SPD, Boys and Girls Club, and Seattle Neighborhood Group. Cultivating Community Engagement in Youth Violence Prevention: A Community-Led, Place-Based, Data-Driven, Non-Arrest Approach. Rainier Beach Action Coalition also provides crime prevention assessments for businesses, residential areas, and nonprofits through preventative strategies of environmental design, positive behavioral support, and offering connections with community partners.
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LINC is a multi-jurisdictional, multi-disciplinary coordinated effort, to reduce youth gun violence and gang involvement. LINC provides services, counseling, mentoring, and helps youth to re-engage in secondary education. LINC is an evidenced-based program based on the Comprehensive Gang Model and is proven successful in reducing gang-related violence and increasing pro-social outcomes for gang-involved individuals.
GENDER-BASED VIOLENCE PREVENTION
Gender-based violence prevention programs address people's basic needs. Gender-based violence is any form of violence that is rooted in rigid gender roles that reinforce the power imbalance between men and women. Addressing people’s basic needs allows independence and autonomy to make their own decisions and be free of oppression and coercion.
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The Coalition Ending Gender-Based Violence coordinates service providers to provide survivors with housing support, access to mental health supports, substance use disorder treatment, tools to increase supports to LGBTQ survivors, and legal counsel to: obtain protection orders, for victim-defendant related tools for survivors who are arrested and/or charged with domestc-violence related crimes, and family law legal supports.
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Empowers survivors of gender-based violence in the South Asian, Asian, and Pacific Islander communities to gain safety and connection. API Chaya offers mental health support, referrals, safety planning, and legal advocacy.
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Empowers Deaf and DeafBlind survivors of domestic violence and assists with safety planning, connects to a ADWAS therapist, and provides legal advocacy.
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Aims to provide survivor-focused, trauma-informed care to those experiencing gender-based violence. They offer advocacy, therapeutic, and housing services.
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Supports, empowers, and shelters survivors of domestic abuse in South King County. Provides 24 hour advocacy and support hotline, safety planning, emergency shelter, community advocacy, mental health supports, legal and immigrant survivor advocacy.
HUMAN TRAFFICKING PREVENTION
Human trafficking is also a form of gender-based violence that reinforces power imbalances between men and women. We know that our Black and Indigenous community members, LBGBTIA+ community, and unhoused residents are disproportionately trafficked. There are several community groups that offer housing assistance, victim advocacy, financial assistance, education and employment services, health care including mental health supports and substance use disorder treatment, and social support. Addressing people’s basic needs allows independence and autonomy to make their own decisions and be free of oppression and coercion.
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the website below includes a comprehensive list of resources including prevention, exit services, housing support, employment support, substance use disorder treatment, mentorship, counseling, and health care resources for those experiencing or who are vulnerable to sex trafficking.
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This organization offers outreach, emergency shelter, permanent housing assistance, exit services, case management, access to low barrier trauma-informed medical and mental health care for those experiencing sex trafficking or looking to exit the sex trade.
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This organization's mission is to accompany survivors of prostitution in creating and sustaining efforts to heal from, and end, this practice of gender-based violence. OPS is survivor-founded, survivor-led, staffed predominately by survivors, and elevates survivors in all they do.
PRE-TRIAL DIVERSION
Pre-Trial Diversion Programs typically serve those charged with low-level, non-violent offenses and are designed to divert individuals from prison or jail. Usually the individual is required to complete a program which may include community service, counseling, or substance use disorder treatment.
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Choose 180 offers a community-based and restorative justice approach to re-entry. Courses are led by those with lived-experience and offer goal-setting, identification of personal strengths, alternatives to retaliation, accountability, and trauma recovery.
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LEAD provides community-based care for people who commit law violations related to behavioral health issues or extreme poverty. Individuals referred to LEAD receive access to chemical dependency treatment, mental health care, legal system support, financial counseling, and referrals to shelter and permanent housing. LEAD partners with other local organizations including REACH, DESC, ACRS, Co-LEAD
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Co-LEAD is an adaption of LEAD developed during the COVID-19 emergency period. “Co” stands for both COVID and CoResponder and enables communities to redirect individuals engaged in law violations arising primarily from behavioral health conditions such as substance use or mental health issues to community-based services instead of legal sanctions like arrest and jail.
RE-ENTRY PROGRAMS
These programs aim for successful reentry after incarceration. They may include supportive housing, mentorship, and job training. Reentry programs serve formerly incarcerated individuals, reduce recidivism, and improve overall community safety. Many programs offer a variety of services, including community re-entry.
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A non-profit corporation which advocates for criminal legal system reform and develops alternatives that shift from a punishment paradigm to a system that supports individual and community health. The Public Defender Association launched LEAD in 2011. It also houses the Civil Survival Project, a project by and for formerly incarcerated leaders who advocate for individuals and for the community of people reentering the community after incarceration; and Collective Justice, a base for people who have experienced serious harm and want to advance alternative models of accountability that rely less on punishment and shame, and more on healing justice and transformative justice principles.
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Chief Seattle Club is a non-profit organization dedicated to supporting American Indian and Alaska Native people. Chief Seattle Club provides food, primary health care, housing assistance, legal services, a Native art job training program, and opportunities for members to engage in cultural community-building.
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Choose 180 offers a community-based and restorative justice approach to re-entry. Courses are led by those with lived-experience and offer goal-setting, identification of personal strengths, alternatives to retaliation, accountability, and trauma recovery.
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Freedom Project offers mentorship, case management, and restorative practice workshops. In a peer-reviewed study 30 hours of participation in Freedom Project courses reduced chances of being re-incarcerated by 43%.
With all of the effort there are still major gaps in public safety
To re-envision public safety we must gain a better understanding of existing community-led interventions that can be scaled up to improve community safety as well as gaps in our public safety system.
So where can we improve?
Scaling up Evidenced-Based Solutions
One identified gap is scaling up evidence-based successful programs that exist. While many evidenced-based solutions to public safety issues such as housing first approaches, permanent supportive housing, community violence prevention, and diversion are successfully operating in Seattle - funding for existing successful programs is often insufficient to allow these programs to scale to the need. That is why at People Power we continue to advocate for our city dollars to be directed toward solutions that get at root causes.
Community-led Mental Health Crisis Response
A mental health crisis is an emergency, but it is not a crime. Nationwide, in 25% of all officer shootings the individual was suffering from an acute mental health crisis. The mere presence of an officer uniform, badge, and gun is traumatic and can escalate situations. Crisis Intervention Teams International (CIT), who provide de-escalation and behavioral health training for law enforcement, has published a position paper that speaks to how national best practices are evolving away from embedded co-responders (police officer & mental health specialist riding together in the same car.) “Why doesn’t CIT International promote the embedded co-responder model?” There are 96 mental health response units and counting across the United States. Alternative response teams reduce overreliance on law enforcement by dispatching professionals equipped with the tools necessary to resolve a crisis without creating unnecessary criminal legal system involvement. This creates more equitable outcomes for communities of color and others disproportionately impacted by the criminal legal system.
Effective Evidenced Based Treatment for Substance Use Disorder
Over the last several decades public health officials and substance use and recovery experts have learned a lot about effective treatment for substance use disorder. Effective evidence-based treatment for substance use disorder is an important part of our public safety system. Addressing simple possession as a crime and failing to treat substance use disorder has failed to improve public safety, while disproportionately impacting our Black, Brown, Indigenous, Asian and other marginalized communities. Unfortunately there is a paucity of accessible treatment for community members suffering from substance abuse. You can learn more about effective evidence-based treatment here and here.
Overdose Prevention Centers
We are seeing a record number of overdose deaths in Washington State. Overdose Prevention Centers are a proven effective method to reduce these fatalities. We are in dire need of these centers to prevent the record number of deaths we are seeing in Seattle. You can learn more about Overdose Prevention Centers that have operated in Europe over three decades here.
Health Engagement Hubs
Health Engagement Hubs would provide a wide range of services for those with substance use disorder including harm reduction; minor wound care; screening and treatment for HIV, viral hepatitis, and sexually transmitted infections; referrals for primary and specialty care; medications for substance use disorder; mental health supports; and care navigation and case management. Health Engagement Hubs are recommended by the Washington State Healthcare Authority and could be made possible by expanding the services offered in needle exchange programs.