Take the Pledge: Reimagine Public Safety

All youth and young adults should be safe from violent crime. The Reimagine Public Safety Pledge is a call for mayors and local officials to invest in public safety strategies and programs that engage community partners to effectively address violence and crime and heal communities.

The Reimagine Public Safety Pledge is a project of  John Jay College of Criminal Justice (Opens in a new tab), with support from the Obama Foundation’s  My Brother’s Keeper Alliance (MBK Alliance) and in partnership with  Cities United (Opens in a new tab) and  The Leadership Conference on Civil and Human Rights (Opens in a new tab).

Our communities deserve smart, effective, and compassionate solutions, which prompt downturns in issues of violence and crime. While we’ve seen significant progress in the reduction of violence around the country, we need to do more to ensure we have safe, just, and healthy communities. 

We need to invest in communities that suffer the highest rates of violence, which are disproportionately communities of color; empower community organizations and leaders to design and implement solutions to violence and crime; and address issues of discrimination and trauma in our existing systems of public safety.  

The Reimagine Public Safety Pledge, hosted by John Jay College, calls on local officials, who are uniquely positioned to implement and fund community-driven public safety strategies, to commit to:

1. Empowering Communities to Address Violence: Establish programs, policies, offices, and budgets that enable community partners to actively contribute to reducing violence and promoting neighborhood safety. Examples: Establish an Office of Neighborhood Safety/Violence Prevention and fund Community Violence Intervention (CVI) programs.

2. Investing in Off-Ramps from the Criminal Legal System: Fund strategies, programs, and services which address the underlying reasons people and/or communities that experience high rates of contact with the criminal legal system. Examples: Investments in programs that divert people from arrest and incarceration into mental health services, substance misuse treatment, and supportive housing.

3. Investing in community health and well-being to prevent violence and crime: Invest in strategies which support safe, healthy communities and address the root causes of violence and crime to ensure all young Americans have the opportunities they need to reach their full potential, as outlined in MBK’s Six Milestones. Examples: Investments in programs proven to improve public safety (e.g., youth employment, blight remediation) and programs that promote racial healing (e.g., racial reconciliation between law enforcement and the communities they serve).

For more information or to get involved, visit. If you have questions about the Reimagine Public Safety Pledge, please reach out to  ReimaginePublicSafety@jjay.cuny.edu (Opens in a new tab). 

Everyone can support this effort! If you are a community member, use your voice.