PUBLIC SAFETY
As in cities around the country, crime in Seattle is finally beginning to fall after a major spike during the COVID-19 pandemic, and police hiring is picking up as labor markets slacken. This is good news — but we have ongoing, underlying public safety problems that the incumbent mayor’s administration is failing to address. We can do better.
Youth violence remains at alarming levels, with devastating impacts on families, schools, and communities. A recent Auditor’s office report highlighted the City’s failures to follow best practices to understand and address gun violence. Assaults on frontline workers like transit operators, school staff, library staff, hospital workers, social workers, and first responders are far too frequent. The City’s current approach to violence prevention is fragmented and ineffective.
Seattle’s CARE Department, our primary alternative response for crisis calls, has shown success — but its expansion has been stymied by a poorly negotiated police contract, which caps the department at just 24 civilian responders. We are still deploying highly paid, highly trained armed officers to mental health and other non-crime calls they’re neither suited to nor needed for — and many other jobs civilians can do, from directing traffic at events to taking down crime reports. This crowds out proactive police work and limits the immediate availability of officers to respond to crimes in progress.
We have also failed to make meaningful progress on police accountability. The current mayor negotiated a police contract that overrides accountability legislation passed in 2017, hamstringing the Seattle Police Department’s ability to discipline or fire officers for serious misconduct. With the $57 million in retroactive salary payments and additional $39 million for 2024-2026, we should have gotten more for our money. We need to recognize that our officers have a difficult and stressful job while also expecting high levels of professionalism and public service.
The mayor’s failure to meaningfully address the homelessness crisis has created a true public safety crisis for our most vulnerable neighbors; in the past few years, record numbers of homeless people have died outside or by violence. Aggressively removing encampments without providing appropriate shelter and services has forced people to the margins — and created desperation and chronic instability that contributes to the public disorder and crimes of poverty that make our streets feel unsafe. We can do better.