Sacramento residents want real public safety — not just more policing | Opinion

Last year, Sacramento officials surveyed residents on budget priorities. Public safety ranked as the top concern, yet the Sacramento Police Department also received the strongest support for budget reduction. That should have sent a clear message: Residents want safety, but not through more investment in police.

Last week, the Sacramento City Council voted to fund many vacant police positions — channeling resources to unfilled law enforcement roles — while undercutting the community-based approaches residents support.

This reflects a clear disconnect between how the city defines “public safety” and what residents actually want.

As a public health researcher focused on community safety, I am not surprised. Research shows that safety isn’t synonymous with law enforcement. Many safety concerns — such as mental health crises, homelessness and family disputes — aren’t suited for an armed response. And the underlying causes of violence, including poverty, trauma, structural racism, lack of opportunities and easy access to guns, are not best addressed by law enforcement. In fact, policing practices can exacerbate harm, especially in communities most impacted by violence.

Yet city leaders continue to prioritize law enforcement over services that address the real drivers of harm: violence prevention, mental health support, housing and non-police emergency response.

This pattern is not unique to Sacramento. Nationwide, economic and health crises have exacerbated inequities, while incidents of police brutality have brought renewed calls to rethink public safety. In response, some communities have invested in community-based violence prevention programs, led by people closest to the solutions. Others have built expanded approaches to emergency response using behavioral health specialists instead of armed officers for nonviolent calls.

Sacramento County has piloted one such program: the Community Wellness Response Team, which sends clinicians — not police — to mental health crises and connects people to long-term care. Though county-run, it serves city residents. The team urgently needs more support to build awareness and capacity, as the County Sheriff’s recent withdrawal from responding to mental health crises has created an alarming gap — one that demands swift city investment in alternative response systems.

Expanding alternative 911 responses is a critical step, but it’s only part of the solution.

Last week, dozens of residents urged the city council to invest in programs that provide mentorship, opportunity and alternatives to violence for young people. These are the long-term solutions that actually work.

One such program is the UC Davis Hospital-Based Violence Intervention Program, the only program of its kind in the city. Located in the region’s only Level I trauma center, it extends care beyond the hospital and into the community, offers wraparound services to youth and young adults recovering from violent injuries. The program provides mentoring, case management and coordination with community-based agencies to support young people and families to secure basic social needs for healing, health and safety, including housing and job support alongside medical care.

Hospital-Based Violence Intervention Program are well documented strategies to interrupt cycles of violence and promote healing. But like many community-centered safety efforts, they face challenges: Federal funding cuts have put programs across the country at risk.

In California, the California Violence Intervention and Prevention Program — a key funding mechanism for UC Davis’ Hospital-Based Violence Intervention Program — hasn’t kept pace with need. Sacramento’s new budget failed to close that gap, despite the program’s small cost and large impact.

In tough budget years, cities face hard choices. But what Sacramento left out this week isn’t just a line item, it was an opportunity to invest in long-term safety and justice. Instead, the city chose to double down on reactive strategies, pumping more money into policing while sidelining the prevention strategies that build trust and reduce harm.

Public safety isn’t about armed officers showing up after a crisis. It’s about creating conditions where those crises are less likely to happen, and ensuring the right people respond when help is needed.

Sacramentans asked for that kind of safety. The budget reflects something else.