Community and Public Safety Introduction

Feeling safe and protected (especially by those entities expected to serve in a way that provides this safety) impacts how people interact in their environment and experience life.

To create an environment in King County where everyone experiences the feeling of safety necessary to thrive, we must begin with understanding the experience and perceptions of safety unique to their experiences with government services, as well as their actual experiences of crime. 

Community and public safety can be complex and traumatizing topics for Black, Indigenous and Brown communities, especially when different forms oppression and marginalization act together to worsen all aspects of safety for these and other communities. Historically, currently, and systematically, government services in the U.S., such as fire, police, emergency medical services and code enforcement have been often used and designed to enact fear, hate, terror, oppression, and exclusion toward communities deemed as “other,” “dangerous,” and “alien” based on differences in race, religion, gender identity, ethnicity, nationality, ability, sexual orientation, language, immigration status, and social and economic status. Often, these same communities have experiences of being overly surveilled, neglected and cruelly treated (even in moments of their own need of these services), fueling distrust and a profound lack of safety.

Public safety and crime prevention require focusing on institutions and community-centric solutions that are broader than the current, traditional policing and punishment paradigms. A more equitable approach to real public safety and security requires addressing structural racism and other forms of injustices, as well as examining real barriers in traditional models of social supports, including but not limited to education, health, living wage jobs, housing and economic justice. Structural and systemic changes and reconciliatory initiatives that recognize and seek to address the victimization of individuals within certain communities at the hands of public service systems and authentic efforts to repair the harm, can build capacity for communities to thrive and therefore increase community and public safety for all.

Some historical examples of ongoing injustices include:

•  History of Policing in America  
•  13th Amendment: Incarceration and slavery    
•  Black Codes and Jim Crow Era   
•  Doctrines of Discovery and US Supreme Court’s use to design US and international property laws   
•  Federal Indian boarding schools and forced assimilation of American Indian, Alaska Native and Native Hawaiian children  
•  The Alien Land Laws of 1800s in Washington State    

Limitations on the data for this determinant: U.S. law and justice systems still do not offer equal access to justice for all people. As a result, distrust and unequal application of laws lead Black, Indigenous and Brown communities to underreport crime and not access public safety resources. This can be due to generational and contemporary experiences characterized by having their public safety situations neglected or minimized or fear of being harmed themselves. At the same time, communities who wield more racial, societal, economic, and political power can tend to disproportionately use community and public safety resources for their own protection, particularly related to communities they fear. This historical and current dynamic also adds to disproportionality in harm to Black, Indigenous and Brown communities.

For these reasons and due to the potential to continue the harm caused by publishing community and public safety data absent the ability to effectively include the multifaceted issues that impact it, King County is not at this time publishing the “business as usual” single dimensional crime rate data.  The County is committed also to do the work necessary to more completely tell the more complete story.

 Education 

 Jobs and jobs training 

 Housing 

 Health and human services  

Click on the links below to learn more about each indicator for  Community and Public Safety: 

 EMS incidents involving firearm injury : Monthly number of firearm injuries in King County treated by Emergency Medical Services (EMS) personnel.

Additional/ideal data: Examples of data and indicators that better reflect the impacts on communities but are not readily available or routinely collected, include: 911 call response and time/outcome- Data available does not include all King County police departments.

Return to King County's  Determinants of Equity and Data Tool  web page.

This application was created with ArcGIS StoryMaps by members from the King County GIS Center and Department of Information Technology on behalf of King County  Office of Performance, Strategy & Budget . For more information or further questions on this program, please email Priti Mody-Pan at  pmodypan@kingcounty.gov .