What does it mean for Black and Brown communities to feel safe and to thrive in New York City?
And how might the government better measure and promote safe and thriving communities?
This website is the result of a year-long collaboration between the National Innovation Service (NIS) and the NYC Mayor’s Office of Neighborhood Safety (ONS). In 2020 we partnered to speak directly with the communities most directly affected by violent crime, police violence, and neighborhood disinvestment, learn what communities need to be safe, and build a framework to measure community safety so that the government can better direct their investments to achieve community safety.
Backdrop
This work is focused on some of the most important questions of our time. The health and economic impacts of the global COVID-19 pandemic, national anti-racist activism, and protests against police violence have heightened public awareness of the historic and systemic racial inequities in our country.
Black and Brown communities have disproportionately contracted and died of COVID-19, exacerbating already severe inequities. And the deaths of George Floyd and Breonna Taylor at the hands of the police catalyzed conversations, in white communities and among communities of color, around the role of the police and the justice system in creating harm in Black and Brown communities.
In New York City, the rise in violent crime that has coincided with the pandemic has been heavily covered by the media and is one of the key issues at play in the mayoral race. Candidates were divided about the role that the police do and should play in creating safety in communities of color across the city. While some candidates are focused on increasing police presence, others are calling for neighborhood-level investment in economic, health, and other opportunities as the foundation for more robust and sustained community safety.
News media and political actors have used the rise in violent crime statistics to indicate that New York City is less safe.
But what about the residents who live in the neighborhoods where violent crime is rising?
How do they think about safety for themselves and for their communities?
And are violent crime statistics an actual indicator of neighborhood safety?
Without engaging the lived experience of a community, external parties cannot understand the dynamic and evolving nature of neighborhood safety or how to improve it. That’s why NIS, in partnership with ONS, asked Black and Brown New Yorkers who live in areas with high rates of violent crime what it means to feel safe and thrive.
This project engaged over 100 residents in focus groups and interviews about neighborhood safety in NYC. NIS attempted both to learn what communities say they need to be safe and to build a concrete, actionable framework for understanding where government investments should be directed in order to create safe and thriving communities.
How did residents talk about safety and thriving?
Safety is a multi-dimensional phenomenon
Residents describe safety as a multidimensional phenomenon, spanning everything from access to housing and employment to internal psychological factors. For residents, psychological safety is grounded in a freedom from fear, as well as the cultivation of community connection and trust. Overwhelmingly, residents emphasize safety as economic, articulating the connection both between ongoing disinvestment and feelings of unsafety and between meeting economic needs and the ability of residents to build secure lives. Finally, residents see sustained community safety as possible only through Black and Brown community ownership and power, and in particular, the power to direct government investments.
Thriving is safety over time
Residents describe thriving as the extension of safety, in that safety is the foundation upon which thriving communities are built. It is an expression of a community’s ability to move beyond economic survival, and sustain that positive progress over time in a way that allows residents to cultivate agency in their own lives. That, in turn, enables the realization of community power, where communities are successful in directing government to meet what they need to thrive.
It’s time to replace crime statistics as our only measure of community safety.
Residents made clear that safety depends on much more than crime. Through our analysis, we developed a series of indicators or ways of measuring community safety. The indicators are grounded in the expertise of the communities we engaged in this work, and represent the most salient priorities that emerged throughout our conversations. The indicators are organized into seven domains that contribute to community safety.
Economic
Security
Communities that have well-paid, stable jobs that provide enough to meet individual and family needs, access to quality housing, food, and healthcare, and agency in their economic future. Residents emphasize economic security as foundational to sustained community safety.
Economic
Readiness
Communities that are equipped with the quality education and employment preparation needed for residents to succeed in the economy. Residents discussed economic readiness as a driver of economic security, as well as an indicator of the community investment and opportunity necessary to community safety.
Local
Economy
Neighborhood economies that support and sustain locally-owned-and-operated businesses that provide residents with quality goods and services, as well as employment and wealth-building opportunities. A thriving and equitable local economy contributes greatly to resident economic readiness and is an essential component of economic security in a community.
Physical
Security
Speaks to residents’ need to be protected from physical harm, including the harm that they experience at the hands of the NYPD and other residents.
Public
Services
Highlights the service areas identified as important for economically insecure residents, with emphasis on mental health and healthcare.
Built
Environment
Focuses on physical spaces and neighborhood conditions, with a focus on quality housing, green spaces, and non-hazardous conditions.
Community
Power
The ability of communities to develop, sustain, and grow an organized base of people who act together to set agendas, influence who makes decisions, and cultivate relationships of mutual accountability with decision-makers.
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