What are the most critical public safety issues in your community and how should they be addressed?
January 7, 2010 · Posted By Belva Davis · Filed Under Law & Order, Social Issues
Kamala D. Harris is our guest on this week’s episode of This Week in Northern California. In 2003, she became the first woman in San Francisco’s history, and the first African American woman in California’s history, to be elected District Attorney. Harris has written a new book entitled Smart on Crime about ways in which we can better fight crime and improve public safety. She argues that we need changes that will not only cut costs and reduce recidivism but, most importantly, make us safer.
Our Question of the Week: What are the most critical public safety issues in your community and how should they be addressed?
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One Response to “What are the most critical public safety issues in your community and how should they be addressed?”
I'd argue that most important public-safety issue we face in the urban Bay Area–and in cities everywhere–is how to create a true sense of personal security for those who live in economically disadvantaged neighborhoods. High levels of crime in these areas erode or destroy what those in more affluent areas think of as "normalcy" — the sense that you can go about your life with a certain expectation of safety. The lack of this sense — in fact, the prevailing and widely justified fear that one's person and property are chronically at risk — has a huge negative effect on the life of many inner-city communities and all the institutions that try to operate there, from the schools to small business.
But: It's easy to say all that, very difficult to find and implement solutions. One small step in this direction, though, would be for police agencies to make serving these communities their first priority.