INDIANAPOLIS — On June 15, Mayor Joe Hogsett, IMPD Chief Randal Taylor, and NYU School of Law Professor and former New Jersey Attorney General Anne Milgram announced a partnership between the City of Indianapolis and the NYU School of Law Criminal Justice Lab aimed at reforming public safety in Indianapolis. The partnership will identify and include community partners, provide a place for public input and community dialogue, identify and analyze critical public safety data, and build community-wide consensus around an ongoing series of policy recommendations and proposals for change.
In the wake of protests throughout the city for the past two weeks in response to the death of George Floyd at the hands of police in Minneapolis May 25, the city has been urged to institute public safety reforms.
“Our existing approach to policing and accountability leads to an entirely reactive approach to crime, and limits the ability of law enforcement to work as partners with the community to increase public safety. It is simply not enough to wait for crime to occur before we react; we must look upstream to the racial disparities in our health, education and housing systems as well as our gross income inequality to be able to truly address the disease of racism in this country, not just the symptoms,” said City-County Council President Vop Osili.
The partnership will bring together subject matter experts with local stakeholders, provide opportunities for public input coordinated by Community Solutions, Inc., and work to build consensus for swift action.
The first step in the project will be a public-driven convening of community members, law enforcement, public defenders, health, education, social service, housing agencies, and others.
Once community stakeholders have defined justice and public safety for Indianapolis, the partnership will work with them to define the specific information to be collected and monitored. This will require several data analysts to be hired to work alongside the city agencies to ensure they have the capacity to collect and share the data required, which NYU will manage and fund. The project requires, and the City is committed to, collecting and sharing relevant data.
At various stages, the partnership will set forth and advocate for specific, consensus-driven policies before the City-County Council or other relevant agencies.
Finally, the partnership will create a community-driven report card that is transparent and publicly accessible on the City’s website, ensuring members of the public have a mechanism to regularly hold city-county government accountable.
