Reimagine Public Safety

The People’s Budget approach includes both preventative and emergency measures. Shifting to a new model for public safety requires both investment in underlying basic needs like housing, food and education as well as investment in community-led emergency response.

Learn more about what it means to reimagine public safety with the resources below. We urge the Mayor, City Council and all of Los Angeles to study these ideas and to take action to implement them. Our lives and our families depend on it.

The phrase and ideas behind reimagined public safety was coined by LA native Aqeela Sherrills. Sherrills is a peace advocate, mediator, and spirit-centered activist based out of the community of Watts. He is known both for his work on a historic peace treaty in Watts as well as for the innovative approaches to public safety he has brought to Newark, New Jersey at the request of Newark’s Mayor Ras Baraka.

In a recent interview, Sherrills explains it like this:

“Law enforcement is only one aspect of the whole public safety process. The reality is that you can’t have public safety without the public. And safety is not the absence of violence or crime. Safety is the presence of well-being and the infrastructure to support victims and survivors in a respectful way.”
— Aqeela Sherrills

Core tenets of reimagined public safety include

  • Investing in community-based programs

  • Trauma-informed practitioners

  • Resolving conflicts to peaceful outcomes

  • Focusing on victims and survivors

Spaces for Abolition

There are many places in our communities where we do not need police presence. As we’ve seen over and over again, having police in these spaces not only doesn’t make our communities safer, it can often escalate a situation and bring violence into non-violent spaces.

Through our town halls, we’ve identified this list below but we invite you to highlight additional spaces and share them with your City Councilmember.

  • Schools

  • Parks

  • Evictions

  • Shoplifting

  • Homelessness

  • Domestic abuse

  • Caring for rape victims

  • Public transportation

  • Welfare checks

  • Substance abuse situations

  • Car accidents, DUIs and traffic violations

  • Police reports for property crimes

  • De-escalation of any situation

  • Neighborhood gatherings

  • Parties or noise complaints

  • Concerns about street vendors

  • Mental health crises

  • Any space involving children

  • Small-scale economic crimes (like the one that catalyzed the murder of George Floyd)

Alternative Emergency Response

When we talk about defunding the police, we are emphasizing a dual investment. One investment area is in core needs like housing, food and education. The other investment area is in a wider range of more capable emergency responders.

“Police show up and only hyper-escalate the situation, making matters worse. We need community interventionists that can pull up and de-escalate the situation.”
— Joy Stalworth

While some people think of police, firefighters and paramedics as the only first responders, there are already many types of first responders in Los Angeles. We have community leaders who have established all kinds of programs from emergency crisis responders to homelessness support. But they need our investment to expand and serve as citywide models.

Alternative emergency response can include:

  • Mobile mediators

  • Community members and neighbors

  • Violence disruptors

  • Hotlines

  • Addiction recovery services

  • Homeless services

  • Mental health workers

  • Social workers

  • Specialized support and services for trans people (especially Black and Latina trans women)