Top 10 things I learned about Public Safety in Seattle
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Top 10 things I learned about Public Safety in Seattle

1.  1 in 4 Seattle residents named downtown as the number one neighborhood where they don’t feel safe. Nearly 40% of downtown residents worry about going out in the evenings because of that same fear.

Surprise! Many of you probably thought it would be Pioneer Square, but I don’t know how many times I have to keep telling you that we’re just as safe as our other friendly neighborhoods (which, I admit, isn’t perceived as very safe, despite low crime numbers).

Tim Burgess tried to spin that concern around to talk about his issue of aggressive panhandling. In a survey by DSA last year, 66% of the respondents said they felt that aggressive solicitation was out of control and the city wasn’t doing enough.

Those are not the top 2 concerns, however. In a Publicola article yesterday, they report that 75% of the respondents were most concerned about drug dealing and 69% were concerned about dangerous drunken behavior (both ranking higher than panhandling.. although they are all serious problems)

2. We need to add more police officers and police beats to our Seattle neighborhoods.

As part of the aggressive panhandling proposal Burgess is making to City Council, he is suggesting that they fund adding more police officers to the streets (21 in 2011 and 21 in 2012). Click here to see the article in the Seattle Times.

Dan Satterburg, KC Prosecuting Attorney added that a visible police presence is very important – it makes tourists, residents, and the work force feel safe.

3. We need to be proactive regarding open air drug markets

“It’s not just about arresting people – by the time they get to my office or Pete’s office (Seattle City Attorney), the damage has already been done to the city’s reputation of being unsafe,” said Satterburg.

There are some interesting programs that the city is working on right now, including the “drug market initiative.” The pilot neighborhood for this was 23rd & Union, where residents have felt unsafe for decades. SPD spent months doing undercover buys and videotaping drug deals. They then sent a letter to 18 of these individuals, requesting that they and a guardian (parent, teach, coach, youth leader) come to a meeting.

At the meeting, they were told that they either stop what they’re doing, or they will file the case against them and send them to prison. “The impact wasn’t necessarily on the individual,” Satterburg said. “It was on the neighborhood.”

“If you do it only once, it will dissipate, so it needs to continue as a strategy and to occur in other neighborhoods.”

4.  We need to be proactive regarding the youth in our communities and schools

After Kate Joncas of DSA asked a question about what to do regarding youth issues  (i.e. like Westlake who had one group of youth last summer that intimidated everyone else out), and if creating a community center downtown would help, you could have heard a pin drop.

Burgess did make a good point, however, when he said that “usually the young people that are at Westlake park, for example, or causing problems on the street, are typically not the kids who are going to our community centers or involved in our sports programs.” He continued saying “it’s very complicated. I don’t have a good answer.”

Satterbug added that 3 out of 4 prison inmates in the state dropped out of high school, so it’s a big red flag. They are doing a similar proactive program to the drug issue of inviting students in who miss too many classes (with a guardian) and talk about why they are unable to make it to class and work to make accommodations so that they will attend.

“We’re making an effort because we know how important it is.”

5. Fantastic walking cities don’t combine their “showcase area” with where they provide social services

Dan Satterberg, King County Prosecuting Attorney, made a statement that I applaud whole-heartedly:

“When you go to any great city, fantastic walking cities invite you to get out and just explore on their streets. In none of those cities is the showcase area also the area where we provide social services. In those cities, those services are somewhere else. It doesn’t mean that they don’t have the same complicated problems that we have in Seattle, here, we just tend to overlap the two.”

Thank you for saying out loud what I’ve been trying to write for months (without being jumped all over). And just to be clear: it’s not opposing social/human services. It’s opposing where they’re located and how concentrated they are. Although someone mentioned after the forum that every neighborhood feels like they have too many social services. There just needs to be a balance.

6. There needs to be a middle ground between night life businesses that want to stay in business, and residents that want to sleep

Pete Holmes, Seattle City Attorney, said that they are crafting a comprehensive framework for regulating the nightlife industry to make sure that it’s both vibrant and safe. They are also looking at staggering last call, something that will really help the police department.

Satterburg added that “the problem is not what happens inside the club, it’s the closing time, in the parking lot when the bartender says you don’t have to go home, but you can’t stay here, and that’s where we need a visible police presence – robberies, assaults, gangs that come in to find a drunken, vulnerable person, ridiculous gun fights over insults – all of that will dissipate if there’s a visible police presence.”

The city is also looking at staggering last call, something that will really help the police department. There is evidence in other cities, like Birmingham, Alabama, where they let the market establish when and where bars will close, and that has worked very effectively.

7.  The creation of a 24/7 shelter with onsite services = housing

There are concerns about 24 hour shelters and new day centers to address a lot of the problems the city is facing with homelessness.

“The cost of opening an emergency shelter versus the cost of creating housing… it really makes sense to invest in housing,” Bill Block said. “We have managed to stabilize thousands of lives for people. Recognize that this works and continue those investments.”

After that statement, Burgess added that “it’s increasinbly apparent to me that we need another [day center]. People come out of shelters, and don’t have a place to go, so they go to the library or on to the streets. Most often, not causing problems for us, but they do need a place to go.”

8. The easiest way to stop aggressive panhandling? Just stop giving them money

Block said that he’s met with cities across the nation to talk about how they deal with aggressive panhandling and “the only thing that actually seems to work is to have people stop giving.”

Instead, he said, people should give money to the social service agencies, or to the real change vendors. “All the laws in the world don’t have nearly the effect of giving to social services agencies rather than the person on the street.”

9.  A clean, safe environment is conducive to a vibrant tourist industry and vibrant residential downtown: Remember 3-1-1

Holmes’ parting advice on the one thing you can do to make a difference is to call 3-1-1 to report broken windows, illegal graffiti – any non-emergency situation that will make a different in your neighborhood.

He says that we should insist on a clean, safe environment where you live and work.

10. Stay engaged

Each panel member listed one piece of advice for how individuals can make a difference.

In addition to requesting that we stay engaged, Burgess added another way we can help, which drew laughter from the crowd. “Let the other council members know that you support my initiative.”

Holmes hit the nail on the head, however, when he said that “underlying all of these discussions is a resource question – if you really want to address these problems, address the fundamental funding problem in the state.”

Satterburg finished it off by adding that “there is no substitute for professional law enforcement. We’d all love to build housing rather than hire police officers, but we don’t have to do one or the other, we can do both.”

Go to DSA’s website to add your thoughts/opinions – make your voice heard, and stay engaged.

To watch video of the entire forum, click here.

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