PHOENIX — The Phoenix Police Department has created a plan to address violent crimes, with the hopes of making the city a safer place to live, work and visit.
The Crime Reduction Plan, released Monday, is designed to provide guidance to staff to prevent and reduce crime by utilizing a community and victim-centered approach and focus on a number of key areas, according to a news release from the department.
Interim Chief Michael Sullivan identified four focus areas he believes will drive down violent crime by 5% and property crime by 8%.
The four areas include focusing on:
- The most violent people
- The most active places
- Prohibited possessors
- Violent offenders with outstanding warrants
As part of the plan, police commanders in each precinct around Phoenix will use the Crime Reduction Plan as a guide to customize action plans for their locations. This will help address the issues in individual neighborhoods and business communities in each precinct.
The current crime trend in Phoenix shows that violent crimes have increased over the past five years, while property crimes have decreased.
Homicides, aggravated assault and arson have all increased since 2017. Crimes that have decreased include rape, robbery, burglary and theft.
Chief Sullivan released the following statement about the Crime Reduction Plan:
Addressing crime is a collaborative effort. Law enforcement needs the help of the community, other city departments, and prosecuting agencies. The partnership between police and community members must be rooted in confidence and trust. I will lead this department to become a self-assessing, self-correcting agency, which will lead to continuous improvement and strengthen community trust.
The Phoenix Police Department is committed to addressing the issue of gun violence and other violent crime that has taken the lives of too many of our community members. We will work together with our local, state, and federal partners to do everything we can to hold those people who illegally possess firearms accountable while preserving the rights of law-abiding gun owners.
In response to Chief Sullivan's plan, Poder In Action released the following statement (in part):
A crime reduction plan that doesn’t prioritize meeting people’s needs isn’t about community safety, it’s about criminalizing people. And the communities that have been the most under-resourced, the communities with the most Black and Brown people, are the communities who are going to be devastated by this plan.
Police are a destabilizing force. Putting more of them into Black and Brown communities won’t make us safer, it will lead to family separation, cycles of poverty, and violence.
Chief Sullivan is trying to claim this approach is “sustainable, comprehensive, and meaningful.” It’s not. A billion dollar police budget isn’t sustainable, handcuffs as the only option isn’t comprehensive, and flooding a community with cops isn’t meaningful when we aren’t attending to housing, food, and youth programs.
