Community Up is designed to support community members interested in building equitable public safety systems that can exist beyond the burden and trauma of racist policing.
Historically, this work has been near-impossible for even the most committed advocates. Policing data is hard to analyze, making identifying problems difficult. Even when data is readily available, communities are rarely afforded a central voice in developing solutions.
This program tackles both of these challenges by providing data-driven insights that make policing’s most persistent problems easy to see and equipping community members with the resources, knowledge, and platform-sharing skills necessary to advance their grassroots public safety work. Community Up is both a program and a space through which activists and policymakers can ideate, support one another, and advance public safety research and policy.
For more information about Community Up, our community engagement work, and to get involved, please contact us here.
FEATURED RESOURCES
Community Roadmap: Mental Health Alternative First Response
A comprehensive, action-oriented, interactive community roadmap that communities can use to start building out non-law enforcement mental health and crisis response programs. This roadmap defines what alternative first response models are, highlights existing community-based alternative first response nationwide, provides tips on how to fund these programs, and resources on how to communicate with elected leaders about the need for and implementation of these alternative first response programs.
Community Resource Guide: Do We Need Police in Schools?
An informational, actionable, community resource guide that provides communities with information about when police involvement is and isn’t appropriate in schools, students’ rights when interacting with police, and alternatives to police involvement.
Community Toolkit: Improving Use of Force Policy
An action-oriented community toolkit that provides communities with information to better understand and advocate for improving use of force policies in their own communities. This toolkit outlines the complexities—and importance—of tracking police departments’ uses of force, the key components of a comprehensive use of force policy, and the immediate steps concerned community members can take to reduce use of force and improve equity outcomes in their local public safety systems.