What do our communities need to be safe?

We released the Investing in Safety We Can Feel survey, in October 2020, to help answer that question. Over 1300 Philadelphia residents responded to our online survey, and their responses tell us very clearly that Philadelphians know that directly investing in communities is how we make them strong, healthy, and safe–not investing in policing.

Here are some key findings:

• The police are not keeping us safe 
  • 75 percent of respondents think the police are bad at preventing violence in their neighborhood. 
  • Of those that had to call the police for help this year, the majority (59%) said the police were unhelpful. Only 10 percent thought they were ‘very helpful’.
• The city is not prioritizing key services for funding 
  • Affordable housing, mental health services, and public schools & community colleges were the essential services respondents said the city prioritized the LEAST for funding. Community violence prevention, drug treatment, and youth recreational programming were also frequent choices. 
• People overwhelmingly support reallocating police funding towards community services
  • Respondents wanted to see more funding going towards centers for mental health and addiction recovery (58%), housing and stability assistance (57%), and education and youth programming (53%) as approaches to addressing violence.
  • 96% of respondents support the decision to reallocate funds from policing to these programs and services. 

The distribution of this survey was intentionally a community effort. We know internet access is a barrier to hearing from some of the most crucial perspectives. That’s why community organizers distributed the survey in churches and at community meetings, in families’ and respondents’ native languages, and some even made phone calls and helped people take it over the phone. It was a challenge with our limited resources, and we didn’t reach every community we would like to in the future. However, we know this survey provides crucial insight into how Philadelphians think about the role of police in keeping us safe, and what investments communities want instead. 

With Philadelphia reflecting on one of its most violent years in recent history, it’s painfully clear that our investments are misdirected. Every year, Philadelphia has given more and more funding to policing and less and less funding to resources that are proven to address the root causes of violence. It hasn’t made our communities any safer. Now, we have over 1000 Philadelphians saying very clearly what the city must do to chart a different path forward. And the time to do it is now.