Outcomes and Impacts of Community Engagement Listening Sessions on community-wide Effort to Reevaluate Police Funding and Public Safety as a Whole.

In early, September 2020, our firm took on a project that would draw a bridge between a very active community and its public police department. The history surrounding the activism in Asheville, NC and the history of police brutality and violence in our county met at crossroads in July when our country erupted in protest after the unjust killing of George Floyd in Minneapolis.

The Asheville City Council signed a resolution to provide Reparations to all Black Asheville residents. Amplify, in partnership with I Am Brilliant, a community engagement firm located in Raleigh, led an effort to carry out one part of this policy decision. Through engagement discussions between the City of Asheville, the Police, and the Public, we launched "Reimagine Public Safety in Asheville NC", a 2-week virtual and in-person event. We collected feedback from Asheville citizens together with feedback from the Police Department. 

We organized 6 virtual listening sessions and two in-person sessions. And then on September 22nd, Asheville City Council voted to reallocate 3% of the police budget (nearly $800,000) to other departments or agencies to offer outreach to homeless people, community engagement efforts, response to nuisance complaints, and technology for safety and transparency.

..."We want to reassure the community that we hear you and commit to working with you for as long as it takes to make our city better.” - City Manager Debra Campbell at August 25th Council Meeting.

“Blackness and being poor is not a monolith. Everyone has a different experience and everyone has different needs. We’re going to have to be very specific to what the people in Asheville need, and we may not get that by September. But I’m telling us to be patient with one another and know that we’re all in this together.” - Asheville City Councilmember Council member Sheneika Smith.

In doing this work, we learned that there are different versions of what public safety means in Asheville. After listening to residents online, and listening to APD officers in person and receiving 20,000+ public comments from the Online survey hosted on the Engagement HUB on PublicInput.com, we also learned that we rely on learned behaviors and systems that are already in place in order to make policy decisions. We are entering new territory in the public safety realm in that we are placing numerical value on the outcomes enacted by law enforcement. We know that we can only work within the data that is readily available. We also know that the demographic makeup of Asheville lends to its disparity. Communities of color, namely Black communities often have vastly different experiences with the police.

When asked what does Public Safety mean to you, Asheville residents responded:

• Freedom

• Equal Access to Resources

• Racial Equity

• Ownership of Space

• Representation

• Mutual Respect

When asked which area should be APD response priorities and which should be reallocated, Asheville residents responded:

• Violent crimes should be a priority

• De-escalation training

• Increased community engagement

• Increased budget transparency

• Increased Collaboration between APD and Mental Health Service Providers

• Mental Health services should be conducted by trained professionals

• Nuisance Crimes should be reallocated

• Crowd management should be reallocated

When asked who’s missing from the conversation?

• LGBTQ residents

• Youth

• Teachers

• Homeless individuals and residents

• Those experiencing poverty

• Seniors/Elderly residents

• Black Asheville residents

• Residents experiencing the Digital Divide