Sacramento City Council must listen to the community and redefine public safety
“Public safety” has emerged as one of the most critical issues our city faces, regardless of who you are or where you live.
From different perspectives, “safety” can mean: Can I walk in my neighborhood without fear? Will an encounter my child has with law enforcement turn into something worse than it starts? If a medical emergency occurs, will city services respond fast enough?
Despite our shared concern for the priority of public safety, our city code provides no formal definition of what “public safety” means. For too long we equated public safety with crisis response only: a fire is burning; a robbery has been committed or someone needs immediate medical attention. In other words, an emergency situation.
What we know is that emergency response is only one aspect of the critical resources required to ensure that public safety is provided for all. What if looking “upstream” could provide an essential approach to maintaining public safety? What services might prevent those emergencies from happening before they occur?
It’s time for Sacramento to rethink how we define “public safety.” That’s why I am introducing a resolution that provides a clear definition of public safety for my City Council colleagues to consider.
Opinion
The proposed resolution was developed with input from over 20 community-based organizations. In addition, a significant portion of the language came directly from young people who are engaged in those organizations and youth who are students at local institutions of higher education.
The resulting proposed resolution more formally defines and broadens the delivery of “public safety” services to include police, fire, emergency medical response and citywide emergency management as well as youth-centered prevention services offered by both the city and in partnership with community-based organizations.
Furthermore, the resolution calls for a comprehensive set of community actions through various policies and targeted investment of resources to prevention and youth development services.
This expanded definition aligns the city’s approach to public safety with the definition provided by Sacramento’s youth — that feeling safe means “having the freedom to live and thrive in a community environment that has the capacity and structure to protect and support their well-being socially, physically, mentally and economically.”
The resolution also acknowledges that generations of genocide, structural racism and oppression have created conditions that perpetuate violence, crime and other risks to public safety. It seeks to remedy this fact.
Since its presentation to the Law and Legislative Committee, the resolution has been publicly vetted by the following bodies: the Sacramento Youth Commission, the Measure U Community Advisory Committee and the Sacramento Community Police Review Commission. All three groups recommended that the City Council adopt the resolution.
Sacramento youth have been telling us for years what they need to feel safe in their homes and communities. It’s time for the City Council to respond by adopting this resolution and by providing the leadership required to make this definition a reality in our city.
Jay Schenirer is a Sacramento City Councilman representing Council District 5.
