Safety and Justice

How Should Communities Reduce Violence?

Tony Wharton

• Publisher: National Issues Forums Institute
• Year: 2017
• ISBN:
  9781946206039
• Topic: Social Sciences
• Subtopic: Discrimination & Race Relations
• Index: Social Sciences

After falling steadily for decades, the rate of violent crime in the United States rose again in 2015 and 2016. Interactions between citizens and police too often end in violence. People are increasingly worried about safety in their communities. How should we ensure that Americans of every race and background are treated with respect and fairness? What should we do to ensure that the police have the support they need to fairly enforce the law? To what degree do racial and other forms of bias distort the justice system? What should we do as citizens to help reduce violence of all kinds in our communities and the nation as a whole? How should communities increase safety while at the same time ensuring justice? This issue guide is a framework for citizens to work through these important questions together. It offers three different options for deliberation, each rooted in different, widely shared concerns and different ways of looking at the problem. The resulting conversation may be difficult, as it will necessarily involve tensions between things people hold deeply valuable, such as a collective sense of security, fair treatment for everyone, and personal freedom. No one option is the "correct" one; each includes drawbacks and trade-offs that we will have to face if we are to make progress on this issue. They are not the only options available. They are presented as a starting point for deliberation.

Safety and Justice

How Should
Communities
Reduce
Violence?

AFTER FALLING STEADILY FOR DECADES, the rate of violent crime in the United States rose again in 2015 and 2016. Interactions between citizens and police too often end in violence. People are increasingly worried about safety in their communities.

Many Americans are concerned that something is going on with violence in communities, law enforcement, and race that is undermining the national ideals of safety and justice for all.

It is unclear what is driving the recent rise in violence, but bias and distrust on all sides appear to be making the problem worse. Citizens and police need goodwill and cooperation in order to ensure safety and justice. For many people of color, the sense that they are being treated unfairly by law enforcement—and even being targeted by police—is palpable. Others say police departments are being blamed for the actions of a few individuals and that the dangers, stress, and violence law enforcement officers face in their work is underestimated. Still others hold that if we cannot find ways to defuse potentially violent interactions between citizens and police, we will never be able to create safe communities in which all people can thrive and feel welcomed and comfortable.

Source: The New York Times, from FBI and local police data

How should we ensure that Americans of every race and background are treated with respect and fairness? What should we do to ensure that the police have the support they need to fairly enforce the law? To what degree do racial and other forms of bias distort the justice system? What should we do as citizens to help reduce violence of all kinds in our communities and the nation as a whole?

How should communities increase safety while at the same time ensuring justice? This issue guide is a framework for citizens to work through these important questions together. It offers three different options for deliberation, each rooted in different, widely shared concerns and different ways of looking at the problem. The resulting conversation may be difficult, as it will necessarily involve tensions between things people hold deeply valuable, such as a collective sense of security, fair treatment for everyone, and personal freedom. No one option is the “correct” one; each includes drawbacks and trade-offs that we will have to face if we are to make progress on this issue. They are not the only options available. They are presented as a starting point for deliberation.

It is unclear what is driving the recent rise in violence, but bias and distrust on all sides appear to be making the problem worse. Citizens and police need goodwill and cooperation in order to ensure safety and justice.

THE FIRST OPTION says that our top priority should be finding ways for communities and police to work together to stop violence of all kinds. Most Americans want safer streets and communities. Through neighborhood watch programs and community policing, citizens and police should identify sources of violence and work together to stop it.

THE SECOND OPTION says that only by addressing basic injustices and implicit bias in law enforcement and the courts can safety for all be achieved. Currently, the law is not enforced or applied fairly. From dealing with the ways people of color are treated on the streets to unequal sentencing in the courts, widespread reforms are needed in order to restore trust and reduce violence.

THE THIRD OPTION says that law enforcement officers are asked to handle a range of problems that go well beyond what they should be responsible for and what they were trained for. The police are often the first responders to mental health, domestic, and drug abuse crises that escalate into violence. We should provide more mental illness and substance abuse treatment so there are fewer such episodes. We should commit to the de-escalation of violence, by police and in the larger society.

Source: FBI

Option 1:

Enforce the
Law Together

Expand policing while strengthening
community-police partnerships.

ACCORDING TO THIS OPTION, residents and police officers in every community should focus on working together in ways that ensure that everyone feels safe. Americans should be able to expect that they can go about their daily lives, taking reasonable precautions, without becoming the victims of violence.

Communities should maintain law and order by improving the partnership between residents and the police. This means that police should do their part in protecting all citizens, and all community members should take some responsibility for reducing crime and violence as well.

©EMILE WAMSTEKER

This option sees citizens working in tandem with the police in a range of ways. This could include: supporting the enlargement of police departments; expanding and strengthening...