54 Time August 17/August 24, 2020
Nation
and the structure that works for everyone. There is
an elegance to the idea: use the mantle of “public
safety” to funnel resources into the community that
needs them, and knows how to keep itself safe, and
in doing so will make others feel safe as well. No
less important, “the state” can begin to remake its
historical dynamic with the Black community, by
leading with something other than a gun.
In researching his book Uneasy Peace, which
seeks to account for the dramatic decline in urban
crime rates over the past two decades, Princeton
sociologist Patrick Sharkey came upon one telling
contributor: for every community nonprofit set up
to confront violence, the local murder rate dropped
by about 1%.
“I think a model of public safety that starts with
care or concern is exactly right,” says Sharkey, “but
it also has to be carried out by people who under-
stand how to create safe streets, who are trained,
who are trained to shift their work and their prac-
tices so that they’re not dealing only with people
who walk through their doors but are instead look-
ing out and saying, Where are the problems in this
community?”
On those safe streets, nonprofit organizations,
local community groups and neighborhood leaders
will be empowered to take charge of situations. A
social worker with proper training and funding will
respond to a non violent call, instead of a cop with a
badge and a gun. If there’s fear of potential violence,
an officer will accompany the social worker and be
available should the need arise, perhaps waiting at
the curb. And if the streets are ever going to be truly
safe, while all this is going on, people motivated by
care and concern will be working behind the scenes
to address the underlying issues that gave rise to the
problem in the first place.
“There are going to be lots of places where it’s
a disaster, I’ve no doubt. And there are going to be
places where there are really bad outcomes,” Sharkey
says. “I think what we have to recognize is—that’s
already happening. That’s going on right now. We’re
not working toward a utopia. We’re working toward
a different model that will, on average, produce
different outcomes.”
After hundreds of years of cities and their police
departments doing the same things and getting the
same results, any different outcome is a big ask. But
it’s a future worth imagining. —With reporting by
AnnA PurnA KAmbhAmPATy □
BEGIN ANEW
Minister Muhammad, who compares
Camden’s old police department to a
building so wrecked it was only worth
tearing down, plays with children at
Camden’s MEL Childcare Center, which is
associated with his temple