It is no secret: 2021 has been an absolutely devastating year for gun violence and homicides in Buffalo. Like many of my neighbors, I am still reeling from the violence earlier this summer, when 21 Buffalonians were shot, including a 3-year-old, in 15 incidents of gun violence over the July 4th weekend.
It’s not just street violence. With housing, health care and job insecurity rampant, an intensifying climate crisis, and a still-raging pandemic that threatens terrible illness and economic ruin, we have every reason to yearn for a feeling of comfort and security in our own beautiful city.
The current administration’s approach to public safety has been an abject failure. Year after year, the mayor takes one approach, to the exclusion of all others: heavier surveillance; more aggressive prosecutions; and harsher punishments. And year after heartbreaking year, we never get any safer. The fear, anger and grief only compounds.
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From my experience as a survivor of violence, registered nurse and executive director of a democratically run housing development corporation, I understand what a holistic approach to public safety would look like.
The current mayor has tasked our law enforcement officers with taking time away from solving crimes in order to perform a wide array of other functions, well beyond what is fair to them. My approach, on the other hand, is evidence-based, data-driven and founded on proven practices: Our city already has promising models like Buffalo SNUG and BRAVE to point to, and the University at Buffalo’s pioneering work on Crime Prevention Through Environmental Design to draw from.
There are viable solutions for us to implement, if our vision is bold enough, and if we are politically courageous enough to finally get serious about public safety.
Safe neighborhoods: It’s time we addressed the root causes of gun violence before harm occurs, rather than simply punishing it after the fact. I will work to implement the path-breaking Life Camp model, which deploys teams of credible messengers with histories of violence, themselves, to canvass neighborhoods daily, mediate conflicts, de-escalate violence and mentor youth. The approach also provides therapeutic services, including yoga and art therapy, to help heal our communities’ abundant traumas. In New York City, the model resulted in a stunning 15% decline in shootings in the highest violence precincts.
I will pair this effort with a non-violent, mental health first responder corps, modeled on New York City’s Behavioral Health Emergency Assistance Response Division (B-HEARD), which sends out mobile crisis teams staffed by therapists and social workers for calls involving mental health crises, such as suicide attempts, substance misuse and serious mental illness. In its pilot program this summer, people accepted care from the B-HEARD team in 95% of cases, 13% higher than when the response team includes police. Only 50% of people treated by B-HEARD were transported to the hospital, a 32% reduction from police-involved 911 responses.
Safe schools: As a former school nurse, I know firsthand the factors that increase the danger of violence in schools. Without resorting to criminalizing our youth and funneling them into a pipeline to prison, we can address these factors by reducing class sizes, thereby enabling each child to receive adequate individual attention and guaranteeing every single student regular mental health and wellness checks from a guidance counselor, therapist or school nurse.
Safe housing: The desperate circumstances facing our unhoused neighbors dramatically increase the risk of property crimes. As an accomplished executive with the Fruit Belt Community Land Trust, I have the expertise necessary to address housing in Buffalo.
First, we must transfer the Buffalo Police Department off of homeless outreach and replace those officers with mental health professionals, community organizers and other trained experts to help connect people to housing and services. Then, we must support community land trusts to enable neighborhoods to democratically direct their own development and guarantee livable, decent housing to all residents on a permanent basis.
Safe hospitals: As a former critical care nurse, a profession with some of the highest rates of workplace violence, I know very well how dangerous hospitals, which are high-stress, life-or-death environments, can be. I am committed to working with organized labor and state legislators to ensure safe staffing in hospitals and nursing homes, so that nurses aren’t stretched to their limits by overwhelming patient loads, which exacerbate wait times and stress levels, as we’ve seen starkly during the Covid-19 pandemic.
Additionally, we must invest in medical social workers to defuse potentially explosive situations by helping patients and their families navigate an all-too-complicated health-care system.
Safe streets: Too many of our neighbors are injured or killed in traffic collisions. As a proud member of the coalition that defeated the current administration’s disastrous school speed zone camera initiative, I believe strongly that infrastructure improvements like protected bike and bus lanes, widened and accessible sidewalks and speed bumps are a much better way to reduce crashes than routine traffic stops. Moreover, we should relocate collision investigation responsibilities from Buffalo Police to the Department of Transportation to better assess factors underlying traffic risk and streamline the process of turning strategic recommendations into life-saving infrastructure improvements.
Safety from gender violence and sexual assault: As a survivor of domestic abuse, I have an all-too-intimate understanding of the resources and systems needed to address sexual and intimate partner violence. Survivors seeking safety need community-based supports like trauma-informed mental and physical health care, housing services and child care. Additionally, we must invest in restorative justice programs that offer those who have harmed others a path to accountability, amends, growth and healing.
With this agenda, we will target the root causes of danger and violence, rather than just taking action after the fact, and only to punish people. With this agenda, we will begin to meet our duty to treat all Buffalo residents with dignity and respect. With this agenda, we will finally be able to say we are taking public safety seriously.
It’s time for a change. Together, we can build a safe, healthy Buffalo.
India Walton is the Democratic nominee for mayor of Buffalo
