Public Safety and Human Services

By Nicholas Hollan

Crime must be attacked in both a proactive and reactive manner to make a measurable impact.

Crime is an issue that is pertinent to each Cincinnati community and I believe that maintaining public safety is a basic, primary responsibility of city government. We are currently spending over $100 million of our general fund on policing. In essence, this money is being spent on a vital, yet reactionary measure. Police react to crime and deter future crimes through the threat of imprisonment. While important, it does not address the root cause of why these young people are choosing this path in the first place. Since the root is not being addressed we might be spending $150 million in 10 years and so on. Furthermore, many criminals are not fearful of arrest and instead instill fear in the communities in which they operate.

I believe that crime must be attacked in both a proactive and reactive manner to make a measurable impact.

Recently, my community of Westwood was terrorized by a gang of teenagers and pre-teens that attacked residents so that they could accrue "points" in their gang. One of their victims was a deaf woman who was brutalized while exiting our public library. The security video from that attack helped break the case and several arrests were made. The neighborhood exhaled a collective sigh of relief that these criminals were off the streets.

The goal should be to not only react to crime but to stop individuals from initially going down this path. What opportunities for a successful life are those young gang members going to have? Unless something radically changes, these youth may serve a sentence and pick up where they left off - a little older and criminally wiser.

We must break this cycle by focusing on the root causes of our problems and one area specifically is education. Many counties in our country use a formula to determine how many jail beds they will need in 15 - 20 years. The principal part of that formula is the number of children who fail third grade reading tests. There is a school to prison pipeline; where we know that if X number of kids can't read then we will need Y number of jail beds later. We face the option of investing in our youth today or paying more through the legal system tomorrow. Everyone wins when more children succeed in school and graduate.

Through education and job training, ex-offenders and young adults that are willing to work to turn their lives around should get that opportunity or the cycle will continue. I am not suggesting preferential hiring treatment but rather equipping individuals with the skills necessary to find and maintain employment. Let's promote apprenticeship programs offered by organized labor that teach individuals a trade where they can earn a paycheck.

As more families become economically self sufficient and more children earn an education, there will be a correlating drop in requests for federal, state and local assistance programs.

Crime reduction and increased public safety in our city will only happen when we use a strong two pronged attack: proactively focus on education and job training, while deterring crime through policing and community engagement.

We should remember to fund the police to the best of our ability but not forsake those programs necessary to lessen their workload.