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Public safety is effective when all people feel equally safe in their homes, neighborhood, and larger community. For too long, public safety has been assumed to be the responsibility of solely the police. Now, communities across the country are taking steps to comprehensively reexamine public safety and grapple with the systemic injustices that shape it. A community-led approach centers the voices of the most vulnerable and advances policy solutions that address a community’s most pressing public safety needs. Unlocking Safety supports community

HOW WE ENGAGE WITH POLICYMAKERS

We work toward a world where communities are empowered to co-create and refine the institutions that are meant to serve their needs, including public safety systems. As part of this work, we advocate for promising policy interventions with federal, state, and local policymakers with the goal of driving such systemic changes. We concentrate our efforts in cities or states where we have existing partnerships, where we believe there is a unique political opportunity to change laws or policy, or where we are asked to weigh in based on the issue area. In all cases, we strive to center and advance the priorities of communities by providing resources, data, and expertise needed to help redesign public safety systems to be more effective, equitable, and just. We focus on creating relationships with policymakers that allow us to amplify community voices and leverage science to support the case for policy changes.
Dr. Ayesha Delany-Brumsey Behavioral Health division director at the
Council of State Governments (CSG) Justice Center

“I urge policymakers to implement the recommendations outlined in [the Mental Heath Emergency Response white paper]. Across the country, we’ve seen support for mental health systems, educational resources, and community-based response programs effectively improve public health and public safety when communities embrace the opportunity for systemic change. And I’m particularly proud that Unlocking Safety and the CSG Justice Center are currently facilitating learning communities with a diverse group of leaders from around the country who are focusing their efforts on how to implement many of the policies that this report details.”

Rob Poggenklass Executive Director of
Justice Forward Virginia

“[Unlocking Safety’s Substance Use Whitepaper is a terrific guide for advocates and policymakers who want to end the harmful stigma around substance use and bring drug policy into the 21st century.”

Leo Beletsky Professor of Law and Health Sciences
Faculty Director, The Action Lab at the Center for Health Policy and Law, Northeastern University

“At a time when the role of the criminal justice system in overdose crisis response remains hotly debated, the Redesigning Public Safety: Substance Use white paper provides a sober and balanced analysis of what works and what doesn’t. As investments in public health and community-based programs are finally starting to pay off, this report provides guidance on opportunities to shift key crisis response tasks to specialty programs while re-centering the work of police on more traditional public safety responsibilities.”

Dr. David C. Turner III Assistant Professor of Social Welfare at UCLA
Senior Advisor for the Alliance for Boys and Men of Color

"The research [in Unlocking Safety’s K-12 Schools white paperr] is quite clear - police officers do not belong in schools. If we genuinely care about student safety, we will invest our resources in proven strategies that we know can improve school climate - not create a culture of punishment."

USING SCIENCE TO SHAPE POLICY

Public safety redesign demands bold action, especially from elected leaders. Often, the stakes are high when proposing new laws and policies that can have far reaching consequences. For the most effective change, leaders need sound science to back up their proposals, and Unlocking Safety supports these policy efforts through the publication of white papers, reports, and briefs. Unlocking Safety’s findings and recommendations then support discussions in unique spaces like bipartisan debriefings, panel discussions and other public events, along with our own internal programs such as the Elected Leaders Council, where officials meet with their peers to innovate new approaches to public safety redesign.

Programs

UNLOCKING
DEMOCRACY

Unlocking Democracy is a community empowerment program and the central hub for Unlocking Safety’s community-centered resources, initiatives, and interactive working groups. This program is designed to empower stakeholders seeking to build more equitable public safety systems through various learning communities, adaptive community resource hubs, and more.

Elected
Leaders
Council

Launched in partnership with the CSG Justice Center, Unlocking Safety’s Elected Leaders Council is a peer-to-peer learning community for elected officials nationwide who are dedicated to spearheading innovative efforts to take actionable steps toward true public safety reform. The Elected Leaders Council brings together elected officials and staff members seeking to implement new approaches to public safety, including Consent Search Reform, Ending Low-Level Traffic Stops, Non-Police Traffic Enforcement, and Police Stop Data Transparency.

Featured Resources

Unlocking Safety supports communities with data-driven analyses, resources, and policy solutions to improve public safety systems. The policy resources provided contain recommendations grounded in evidence to achieve equity, justice, and safety.

Resource LIBRARY
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