Rethink Community Safety Campaign October Update
Early Survey Results: Overwhelming Support to Redirect Police Funding to Community Programs
As part of our Rethink Community Safety Campaign, we are surveying our neighbors about violence, policing, and the investments they want from city leaders. We believe that communities who experience harm know best how to repair and transform that harm. We launched our Rethink Community Safety survey this Summer to learn about what’s important to those directly impacted by these issues. So far, we’ve heard from a small sample of community members in Germantown, Frankford, and North Central Philadelphia, neighborhoods in the council districts of Cherelle Parker, Cindy Bass, Darrell Clarke, and Maria Quiñones Sánchez. The message has been loud and clear – our communities are struggling and we need more than what policing can offer. Of those surveyed, over 80% identify as non-white, over 75% identify as Black and or African American, and 80% live in a neighborhood where a shooting has occurred this year. Here’s what they had to say.
Do police make us safer?
For decades, politicians have justified bloated police budgets by claiming that more police equals less crime. That’s not true according to the experiences of many of our neighbors. About 44% of those surveyed thought police are either very bad or somewhat bad at preventing violence before it occurs and only about 20% felt that police presence has a dampening effect on violence.
Do large police budgets mean better quality service?
Most - almost 70% - of the people we surveyed have called the police for help. With police as the single largest line item in the Philadelphia city budget, some might expect that money would buy us quality service when needed. This isn’t what we’re hearing. Of those surveyed who have called the police, over half felt they were unhelpful. In fact, many folks think twice about calling police at all. Almost 50% have decided against calling the police in a moment of need.
What would help make Philadelphia safer?
The city is choosing to overfund a police force instead of investing in services that would help lift Philadelphians out of poverty. We asked our neighbors what services they thought were being neglected. Over 70% thought that affordable housing, mental health services, and public schools and community colleges are the community services and programs least prioritized by the city.
Communities are the experts on how to best keep themselves safe. When we asked Philadelphians what needed more investment to prevent violence, they named the following as most important:
Centers for mental health and addiction recovery (64%)
Education and youth programs (57%)
Community-based violence prevention programs (53.2%)
Crisis response counseling services (48.9%)
The bottom line: A whopping 90% of respondents want funding redirected from the police department into community based programs, such as the ones listed above. White progressives are not the only people in Philadelphia that want to Defund the police, as has been claimed by many in city leadership. Working class Philadelphians, Black Philadelphians, and Latinx Philadelphians also want and support this redirection because they understand and have lived the consequences of decades of divestment from our communities.
What’s next?
It’s critical for Reclaim’s work to seek out, amplify, and advocate for the needs of underserved and underheard Philadelphians. Help us collect community feedback - Be sure to join the next Mass Liberation Taskforce Deep Canvass this weekend of October 23rd and 24th. Sign up HERE!
And be sure to join our next street surveying event on Saturday, October 30th, contact Katia at katia@reclaimphiladelphia.com for more information.