Identifies strengths and areas for improvement

We wanted to understand what we are doing well and where we can improve when it comes to keeping people safe. We partnered with the Policing Project at New York University (NYU) School of Law to create the Community Safety Ecosystem Asset and Gap Analysis.

This analysis gives a clear plan of action steps. We will use the steps to enhance and expand community safety efforts.

Focus of analysis

• Bring resources together into a well-organized system with clear rules and responsibilities.
• Address equity issues in service delivery.
• Be open about decisions and use proven methods.

Read the analysis

Our current strengths

The City has a strong base of existing programs and services. We have motivated personnel who want to improve community safety for residents.

Minneapolis already has a well-established network of unarmed real-time response services. We currently send about 9 out of every 100 911 calls to expanded non-police services. These services help handle situations where police aren’t needed. This could include a mental health crisis, parking issue, or damaged property.

Current unarmed response services include:

• Behavioral Crisis Response (BCR)
• Traffic control
• Animal control
• 311 and online response

The report provides action steps to scale these services for greater impact.

Areas for improvement

To become safer together, we will take action to improve safety services. We will also work on our governance structure.

The report provides steps to:

• Define which services are part of the community safety ecosystem.
• Increase transparency and accountability.
• Standardize data collection and have clear ways to measure progress.
• Provide better support to safety service providers.
• Create clear referral policies and processes.

Phase 1: Near-term

In this phase, we are:

• Building a strong foundation for long-term safety efforts.
• Focusing on coordination of prevention, response, and restoration services.
• Making current safety services better.
• Helping different systems work together more smoothly.

Phase 2: Mid-term

In this phase, we will:

• Begin turning safety services into a connected ecosystem.
• Use plans developed in Phase 1 to make changes.
• Grow the safety system by working with county, state, federal and community organizations.

Phase 3: Long-term

The final phase will:

• Keep improving how services work and use data to learn what's effective.
• Expand services to address big issues like poverty, racism, and other forms of oppression and trauma. We will address the root causes of these issues.