Skip to content
Search

Latest Stories

Top Stories

Safety is a system, and reducing crime is just one part of it

Protestors with sign called to "Defund NYPD"

The debate over police funding is taking attention away from other aspects of public safety, writes Dixon.

Erik McGregor/LightRocket via Getty Images

Dixon is an associate professor of practice in negotiation and conflict resolution at the School of Professional Studies at Columbia University.

In the United States, despite significant recent public conversations around how to prioritize public safety budgets in cities and towns across the country, political rhetoric and media coverage are frequently reduced to a rather simplistic debate: defund police departments or increase their budgets. Either you’re against the police or you’re for them.

I’m not staking a position in this debate, a complex and important discussion that has already received significant attention in policy and academic circles. Rather, I’m interested in a different question: What are the consequences of this polarized debate on broader discussions around what it means to be safe in America? One answer — the one I’m exploring here — is that it’s taking up a lot of room, stealing oxygen from other important discussions about safety while, probably, making us less safe.

Reducing public safety to simply policing is wrong, because safety involves a whole lot more.


After the pandemic, following some of the largest racial justice protests the country has ever seen, many cities began discussing how public safety budgets should be spent. Some called this “reimagining public safety,” including Oakland, Calif. These visions emphasized the importance of civilian-led and community-based wellbeing and prevention-focused strategies, recalling a multidimensional vision of safety that is emphasized in public health approaches and reinforced by my own team-based research in Oakland. From this perspective, safety is as much about social trust and economic opportunity as it is about responding to crime.

When you talk to folks who experience high levels of crime, violence and policing in their communities about what it means to be safe, the picture that begins to emerge is complex. My colleagues and I held dozens of these conversations in diverse neighborhoods across Oakland. At first, people will talk about what might come to mind for anyone who is asked, “What does safety look and feel to you?”

Initial responses include feeling comfortable enough to walk alone at night, holding your bag draped over your shoulder instead of clutched in front of you, crossing the street without fear that a speeding car will ignore the stop sign. But then the conversation starts to develop. The physical environment comes up, including trash and broken bottles on the street, along with more indirect signs of crime and violence like hearing distant gunshots, seeing helicopters or watching police cars fly by. Finally, the conversation turns to topics not typically associated with “safety”: gentrification, racism, social trust, neighborly relations, intergenerational relations and more.

Embracing complexity

In the field of conflict resolution, we like to think in terms of complexity. Complexity science tells us that conflicts are more like systems than debates over positions. Actors in conflict with each other often stake out polarized positions — you’re either for the police or against them — but the actual dynamics of conflict systems are far more diverse, nuanced and complex than these visible positions reveal.

In conversations about public safety, the polarized debate over policing can mask the diversity of stakeholders who experience crime and injustice in their everyday lives, as well as the diversity of how they experience this injustice. Put simply, in heavily policed communities in the United States, different people can feel differently about the police — and about safety more broadly — depending on their experiences. Because of this, people can also hold contradictory feelings at the same time: needing to feel protected by a police force that responds when there is danger, but also to feel respected by a force that acts justly when it does show up. The positions that show up in public often stem from these kinds of more deeply held needs, which are more nuanced and, importantly, more useful for identifying solutions.

This is the second lesson from a complexity perspective. When we recognize the full diversity of needs and experiences in a system, we can start to see entry points that likely don’t show up when we only pay attention to actors’ positions. Sometimes these can be single strategies tailored to individual needs — adding more street lights around a park, for example, or installing speed bumps. Often, however, they need to be multilayered and multidimensional to really make an impact. This is because complex systems sustain themselves through processes known as feedback loops, which can accelerate or ameliorate conflict, and which require multipronged approaches to disrupt or strengthen.

Moving forward

We have seen how community members’ own perceptions of what safety and the lack of safety look and feel like in everyday life can combine to paint intricate pictures of these feedback loops in practice.

For example, as after-school programs are cut, older generations are incarcerated, youth self-medicate to deal with trauma, and skills-building programs in schools are eliminated, we can start to see a feedback loop that pushes youth toward criminal activity. Alternatively, where children can stay out late playing on their blocks, people can access secure housing, neighbors are able to mediate disputes despite their differences, and neighborhoods come together through sports and block parties, we can see a feedback loop that promotes social cohesion and trust.

All of these can be targeted through policy interventions and resolution strategies. But rarely are they seen as public safety policy. If we accept that safety operates as a system — where some feedback loops combine to increase crime, violence, deprivation and exclusion and others are propelled by community resources, social cohesion and public investment — thinking of safety as a question of policing alone does not make us safer.

Read More

IssueVoter Bill of the Month (July 2025): The Global Stakes of America’s $9 Billion Budget Cut

As Congress considers slashing nearly a decade's worth of international assistance, the ripple effects could extend far beyond Washington's balance sheets

Bill Track 50

IssueVoter Bill of the Month (July 2025): The Global Stakes of America’s $9 Billion Budget Cut

The Rescissions Act of 2025 was finally passed on July 18 and its implications will reverberate across continents. This $9 billion budget cut represents far more than fiscal housekeeping—it signals a fundamental retreat from America's role as the world's primary humanitarian superpower.

The bill represents a significant fiscal policy initiative that seeks to permanently cancel previously allocated but unspent federal budget authority - known as 'rescissions'. Introduced in the House on June 6, 2025, by Representative Steve Scalise and five Republican co-sponsors, this legislation implements budget rescissions proposed by President Trump on June 3, 2025, under the Congressional Budget and Impoundment Control Act of 1974. The cuts essentially codify actions taken by the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) over recent months - which has been criticized for appropriating congressional authority over budgetary matters by halting spending previously approved by Congress.

Keep ReadingShow less
Image of a U.S. map noting the locations of 1000 NPR Member Station signals broadcasting across the United States

There are over 1000 NPR Member Station signals broadcasting across the United States

There’s nothing “meh” about dismantling public media

This morning we woke to our local NPR affiliate, WAMU, reporting a story about how the public media network it belongs to is on the brink of losing funding, per a party-line vote in the U.S. Senate last night.

The public media portion of the claw-back is 1.1 billion – the amount Congress previously approved to fund the Corporation for Public Broadcasting, which distributes funds to NPR, PBS and over 1500 local radio and TV stations that serve communities around the U.S. The deadline for the House to seal the deal is tomorrow – July 18.

Keep ReadingShow less
Two people holding hands, comforting each other.

The National Domestic Violence Hotline fields up to 3,000 calls and messages a day from all over the country.

Getty Images, Tempura

Trump Funding Cuts Endanger Domestic Violence and Sexual Assault Survivors

The Trump administration’s funding cuts and new rules for grants are threatening critical programs from food and housing to medical research, parks, and much more. Among them are programs proven to prevent and reduce violence as well as initiatives that assist survivors of domestic violence, sexual assault, and other acts of violence.

Although the administration claims to care about violence—citing concerns about “rapists,” for example, in justifying policies that target immigrants and transgender individuals—its actions in fact increase the risk of violence and jeopardize survivors’ safety and ability to move forward. The administration’s harsh approach aligns with Project 2025’s failure to support critical social services, which can be a lifeline for victims of sexual violence or domestic abuse.

Keep ReadingShow less
Did Putin Play Trump?

Russian President Vladimir Putin speaks during the New Ideas For New Times Forum at the Russia National Center, July 3, 2025, in Moscow, Russia.

(Photo by Contributor/Getty Images)

Did Putin Play Trump?

President Donald Trump issued a warning to Russia this week. He demanded that Russian leader Vladimir Putin end the Ukraine war in 50 days, or else. But does anyone care?

“Putin played Trump” has resurfaced with renewed intensity as political analysts, former aides, and media commentators dissect the evolving dynamic between the two leaders. What was once a murmur has become a chorus, with even conservative voices acknowledging that Trump may have misjudged the Russian president’s intentions.

Keep ReadingShow less