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 I am an African American man who grew up in rough neighborhoods
in Dallas during the most violent period of our nation’s history. Before I
became mayor, I had successfully pushed for police accountability measures and
expanded educational opportunities during my nine years in the Texas
Legislature. I was raising two Black boys in America (and have added a daughter
since then). I was horrified by the death of George Floyd. And Eric Garner. And
Philando Castile. And Tamir Rice. And Michael Brown. And on and on.
But like many of my fellow mayors across the country, I had
become the enemy because I didn’t believe in slashing the budget of our police
department – which had already shrunk by hundreds of officers during the
previous five years – amid staggering increases in violent crime in Dallas.
The movement, which began with bipartisan support and captured hearts and minds
across the country in a way I had never before seen, was hijacked by elitist and
extremist talk of “defunding” or “dismantling.” The loudest voices eschewed
common ground and common sense, opting for sloganeering and an air of
insatiability that repelled rather than persuaded. Many positive changes,
including better use-of-force policies, came out of the movement, but many other
opportunities have been squandered.
It didn’t have to be that way. And it still doesn’t.
Cities and states can implement programs now that provide for equity, improve
policing, and make us less reliant on law enforcement to solve every social ill.
And the federal government could support these ideas through a 21st century
crime bill. Whereas the 1994 Crime Bill centered on punishment, a new plan could
focus on prevention and policing.
Now is the time to take action in a comprehensive way. Violent crime is up
across the country, and underserved communities and minorities are
disproportionately the victims. They deserve safety and justice. During the
pandemic, I was a member of the National Commission on COVID-19 and Criminal
Justice, and we collected data that showed aggravated assault rates in the U.S.
increased 7%, gun assault rates went up by 22%, and homicides spiked by 24%. In
Dallas, the numbers were even higher.
Police can help stop violent crime and bring criminals to
justice. Over and over, defunding activists claimed that police only show up
after a crime is committed – an absurd notion that suggests that all crimes are
just one-offs, and that there is no such thing as repeat offenders and no need
for detectives.
There are bad people in this world. Maybe some people could have been saved and
still can be once they are in the criminal justice system. But once they
victimize someone, they must be stopped. That’s why we need police, and why
defunding – whatever it means – is a mistake. We also need solutions that reduce
our dependence on law enforcement and prevent crimes from occurring in the first
place.
Here is how we can fight crime and make our police departments better and more
responsive:
Demand and develop crime reduction plans. Every city’s police chief should have
an annual strategic plan to reduce violent crime and to engage the community.
This may seem simple, but when I became mayor in June 2019, it became apparent
that the police brass of the ninth-largest city in the country simply didn’t
have a comprehensive crime-reduction plan. I had to demand one. That also meant
that policymakers had nothing on which they could base resource allocation
decisions and had no real way to assess accountability or let their constituents
know what steps were being taken or why. Accountability must start at the top.
Offer competitive pay for police. Simply put, you get what you pay for. Policing
poses many potential dangers for both suspects and the police, and the pay isn’t
always commensurate with the risks and skills required to do the job. In 2019,
we supported market-based pay increases in Dallas after years of losing some of
our best young officers, who we paid to train, to growing suburban cities with
salaries that were $10,000-$15,000 a year more than what we offered. If we want
good community policing, we must set high standards and pay accordingly.
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Improve accountability measures. Those who can’t
meet those expectations need to find other work. The stakes are too
high. A civilian police oversight board can be an important way to
hold our police officers accountable. We have enhanced ours in
Dallas and hired a monitor to help review cases and recommend policy
changes in line with evolving community expectations. We also need
to double down on body cameras, which have allowed prosecutors,
grand juries, juries, and the public to cut through the noise and
see issues more clearly.
Expand training for police officers. Those cameras
also give police something that has been used for decades in sports:
game film. Video is an important training tool. And training must be
intensive. Police are expected to think like lawyers,
criminologists, psychologists, and athletes. No police department
worth its salt should be adhering to only the minimum prescribed
state standards as they exist now. Boost the requirements, give the
best available training, and correct mistakes.
Address environmental factors that cause crime. In August 2019, I
formed the Mayor’s Task Force on Safe Communities to make
recommendations for policies that could reduce crime without the
involvement of law enforcement. After reviewing policies in some
other cities, the Task Force recommended improving lighting and
remediating blight in high-crime areas. Crime tends to exist where
criminals believe no one is watching and that no one cares. We need
to eliminate havens for violence. We have begun implementing these
recommendations through our newly formed Office of Integrated Public
Safety Solutions, and the early returns have been promising. Cities
should move swiftly on place-based crime reduction strategies that
don’t involve law enforcement.
Provide counseling services, early and often. My
Task Force on Safe Communities also recommended two policies aimed
at changing behaviors: implementing social and emotional learning (SEL)
curriculum in schools and employing violence interrupters in
targeted neighborhoods. Both programs are meant to help people learn
to deal with conflict in nonviolent ways. We recently hired Youth
Advocate Programs to run a violence interrupter program, and other
cities have started similar programs. And Dallas ISD has expanded
its SEL program, which has produced positive results.
Handle mental health calls the right way. Police are not equipped
well enough to deal with mental health emergencies. In Dallas, we
have created and expanded our RIGHT (Rapid Integrated Group
Healthcare Team) Care program, which deploys mental health
professionals to calls, accompanied by police. Other cities have
similar programs. They are worth the cost and help cities deal with
their most vulnerable residents in a caring and understanding way.
Create and expand summer jobs programs. These programs are primarily
meant to give young people some money and teach them life and job
skills. But they also help reduce crime. One federally funded 2017
study showed that New York City’s Summer Youth Employment program
participants were 17% less likely to be arrested during the summer
and 23% less likely to be arrested for a felony. In Dallas, we are
scaling up my summer jobs program for youth called Dallas Works and
hope to see similar results.
These are real solutions that do not require defunding or
dismantling anything. They are about building for a better future.
They also reflect the on-the-ground reality that
mayors deal with every day. We know very well that public safety is
our residents’ top priority. We know that our residents must feel
safe to thrive and that they want to be able to call 911 and get an
appropriate response when they’re in a crisis. We can’t expect
people to strive for the American dream if they can’t sleep safely
and comfortably. And we can't expect people to feel safe if they
don’t have trust in our police officers to correctly respond to
difficult situations.
The status quo isn’t working for many people. It’s not working for
crime victims or for the victims of police brutality. We can and
must do better for them and for our children. And in this country
that has seen too many divisions, we must do it in a way that brings
people together.
Eric Johnson is the 60th mayor of Dallas, Texas. He
previously served in the Texas House of Representatives from
2010-2019.
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