hotspots were a lot of these were concentrated, you saw a significant effect on crime in those places. i would not necessarily just get rid of a tool like that in its entirety, and that is not what is being done. we do have some reported stops by the nypd, and we were still able to maintain some of our public safety in the wake of that decline, but i do think we are seeing a broader safety policing problem, and i think the caller is wrong. it is not that we can entirely arrest our way out of a gun product -- gun crime problem, but we know enforcement matters, and when we do enforcement the right way, we can decrease crime to a significant degree. i would remind the caller that we had 2262 murders in 1990, and the latest books and authors, television for serious readers.

learn, discover, explore, weekends on c-span2. >> washington journal" continues. host: we have been focusing on u.s. crime throughout the morning here on "washington journal." we have targeted on the policing aspect, and hans menos is next, vice president of law enforcement initiatives with the center for policing equity. when it comes to policing, what does that phrase mean, equity? what does that mean to you? guest: it means a lot to different people. host: what is the goal of your organization, the center for policing equity? guest: cpe, we are a research and action center. we understand that we can use data as a leverage for social change. same way attorneys might use the

law for social change or other forms use funding, we use the data, and that is at the heart of a lot of our issues that go toward public safety. host: you spent some time with the philadelphia police, executive rector of the advisory commission there and philadelphia. how does the policing -- executive director for the advisory commission there in philadelphia. how are you working for police forces on issues of public safety? guest: we are working with some police forces, for sure. one of the things we pride ourselves on is the idea that we center in communities, not necessarily law enforcement agencies. we work with communities and law enforcement and minister polities to understand what issues are important to the community, important to law enforcement, and how those issues impact the relationship and impact equity in public safety and what solutions from

the community can be utilized to improve the way they experience public safety and to increase public safety. host: almost two years after the george floyd murder and the social justice protests after that, what are those big issues in public safety that you are hearing from communities? what are top priorities? guest: a lot of those issues are actually shared by community and police, yet it is generalized that police are doing too much. most police officers we encounter will tell us that, and most community members are saying that same thing. that when they have a mental health call, they do not want a police officer showing up. they want someone who can solve that problem, why they call that magic number, calling 911, they want that solved. and police recognize they should not be involved in some situations and they do not have the resources to do something

about a homeless person, and people in those communities recognize that the police will not solve that problem for them, do not have the tools. same with drug addiction. those are the big three. the police are not able and do not have the tools or resources, the position or authority, to address those issues either. so communities and police officers are seeing the same problems, which is that they are doing too much, involved in too many things. there are things like low-level traffic offenses and the correlation between that and public safety. how is a young man, something hanging from his visor, if he is pulled over for a conversation about that, how is the public safety increased by that? and what other things can we utilize to enforce traffic penalties without necessarily

forcing an interaction between police and people of color or people moving and going on with their business? host: we welcome our viewers and listeners comments on policing and public safety, with our guest hans menos. (202) 748-8001 for republicans. democrats, (202) 748-8000. independents and all others, (202) 748-8002. particularly in the wake of those protests, as your organization sees it, it is not just an issue of how much funding the police get but how you reimagine public safety, particularly in urban areas. guest: the police should not be thought of as a separate entity on an island. they are part of a public safety apparatus. if we start thinking about what we're spending on public safety and defining that as all things with impact and influence for keeping people safe in communities, we are rethinking

the idea that police are there and the department of health is over here. our spending should be thought of in that way, for the right responders, for the right problems in each community and each city around the country. host: can you see the police being reluctant in the wake of these d funding calls, these criticisms of the police, particularly after the last couple of years, as sort of a self-fulfilling prophecy in terms of crime rates going up, and after that, with police going back from doing the job they are tasked to do? guest: there are ongoing conversations that depolicing might be contributing to a crime wave. but that is not true, there is not a crime spite, so to speak. it is important in some select sees -- some cities, some not rising.

but there is a conversation for that. i do not think there is any evidence, and as an organization that uses data, i do not think we can endorse the idea that de policing are causing police officers to pull back and that is causing crime. but i think there's something there, the idea that police officers, if they are reluctant terry magic -- to reimagine public safety, they are concerned that the funding or the resources they have will go away and nothing is going to fill that gap. so they have just as much work they had before the resources were taken away. communities, particularly black communities, are afraid of the same thing, so we tell them we're going to reimagine public safety, and it is tough for them to say if i have less of a police response, how do i trust that something will take that place? i would rather have police they and nothing. so they communities are really agreeing on the idea that we

have to fulfill these promises. host: which communities do you think are getting it right in terms of the balance between the proper amount of police presence and the concern -- their concern for the public safety needs of their residents? guest: it is important to note that no two communities are really the same. i came here to philadelphia from new york city, and one of the first lessons i learned was that any effort to compare these two cities is fruitless because they are so different. that is true for any city around the country, so everyone is doing some the different. but certainly, we have partners around the country that understand that the way of doing things, certainly in terms of public safety and policing, have not been impactful. our partners have been working for the best part of two years trying to reimagine what it looked like to have a public safety system. they want to send the right

responders, send a responder to a call that requires a police officer and then an unarmed responder to a call that does not require a police officer, that requires someone to come help, come sit, come do something. so those folks are in the process and they have worked through complicated issues. they have done that by letting the community lead. i want to stress that, the idea that community members form the working group and lead the working group and drove the creation or recommendations in the report, that got down into the details of what it would look like. so they went through a process where they said for this type of call, police officer, and for this type of call, unarmed officer. for them, that process, that long process of letting communities lead is a great example of what we can do if we really rethink the structure of power and rethink

decision-making on public safety. host: sounds like in some way you are saying we have asked police officers to do too much, be social workers in some cases, intervene in domestic service -- disturbances, be immigration officers in some cases. guest: i do not even think you needed me to say that. i think they police officers around the country are saying that. most police openly say that they are asked to do far too much. and it is not just a matter of volume but a matter of capacity and training and ability, a matter of resources that they can deploy, and they recognize that. you mentioned domestic violence, a good example of a police officer might go to ensure someone safety, but how do we rethink the problem of domestic violence to address that upstream? we could identify families or children affected by domestic violence, so how do we make sure

there is not a second third 911 call or 10 more because of the problem they are experiencing? that is something police officers will tell you, that they cannot resolve the problem and it is constantly going back. that kind of issue exists all throughout the public safety system. host: our guest is hans menos with the center for policing equity. we go first to peggy in washington, democrats line. caller: good morning. i really feel sorry for the police. i think they are being asked to do way too much with too little thanks and with a huge penalty if they make a mistake, and especially when they are overworked and overrun, understaffed. police are problem-enders, not problem-solvers. each state and each county needs to start changing the policies. yeah, anyway, that is what i wanted to say.

host: hans menos? guest: i think it is appropriate to say we have concerns for police officers who are asked too much, but let's not forget the people who are experiencing these. if you live in a municipality, you expect certain things from your government, and some of that is the right response to issues you might have as a person who lives there. so yes, the police are probably sent to a problem and they are the wrong person, but the community members are still experiencing the problem. so i support the idea that we should be thoughtful about our police officers, but we should be doubly thoughtful about the communities impacted by a lack of services, a lack of ability to solve or address the problems they are experiencing. and even worse, the framing of those problems as their fault, some kind of personal feeling. so we want to keep communities centered in this conversation to make sure we're are not saying it is a conversation focused on

how police are being harmed and mistreated. i agree, too much, but the people there asking too much for are also suffering in the communities. host: john in manchester, connecticut, republican line. caller: thank you for taking my call. i would like to add to the definition of equity. equity is nothing else more than yield affirmative action, which is nothing more than preferences or quotas for everybody except whites, especially white males. and thanks to biden, equity nowadays means giving up on standards. a local community is no longer enforcing laws in the books, and we all know how that has turned out to be. an increase in crime. in 2020, we had riots all over america. and we were watching them on tv.

in the common thing is they say they are quiet, peaceful protesters. so it is the standards allowing all kinds of -- what biden calls -- i forget, antifa, he calls antifa not a movement but an idea. well, it creates an awful lot of crime. host: response from hans menos. guest: i think it is important to first note that the continued insistence that crime is universally rising, that is not actually accurate. i understand people feel that way and i am sensitive to community members feeling that way. but by and large, it is untrue. i do not know specifically which laws on the books are not being enforced that the caller is

referencing, but i do not know that the universal suggestion is just. there have been plenty of laws that were on the books, and we're all pretty happy with them for a period of time. i think it is a really important idea that we think through. yes, there are issues happening in our communities, but the idea that because it is a law and it is therefore just, you have to rethink that and reconsider it. host: next is stephen in windham, connecticut, independent line. caller: thanks for taking my call. to my brother in manchester, people of color have lived under slavery, apartheid, for hundreds of years, so please, brother. my issues on aircraft and

policing and the policy side, we have seen an explosion -- i work in aircraft manufacturing, but my brothers and sisters in the airlines, they are gathering posses to take down people. one guy at american airlines tried to open up -- on the side of people of color to step in and help us out -- i do not believe in lifetime bans, but there should be some sort of policy we can use to send a message to people.

it has exploded. host: any thoughts? guest: not a lot of thoughts on airline safety. but as someone who occasionally flies, some of the solutions to these issues have been structured. it is a good example to pull apart. now alcohol is not served on planes they determined this was a contributing factor, those who are intoxicated or bringing their own alcohol. now they are not serving alcohol beverages, but they remind you that it is no longer permitted. they remind you repeatedly from the moment you walk into the airport that a mask is required. so there are structural downstream issues that are intended to ensure that there is not conflict. clearly, it is still happening, and i do not know that we have the numbers to see if solutions are effective. that the general idea is we are

picking upstream in this microcosm of public safety, but i do not know if it is comparable to the challenges communities face. but it is important that they address this problem. host: next up is denise in washington, democrats line. caller: good morning. do you think that there could -- this is for both of you -- do you think that there could be any correlation between the pandemic or the virus here in the united states and abroad and the uptake in criminal behavior? host: hans menos? guest: so i think it is a good question, because we are at a point now where we do not know what could be driving any criminality. if we are talking about uptake in behavior on the gun violence question, we do not know the answer to that.

i think that is really important. is it the pandemic? possibly, that is one theory. but it will show up on screens, on twitter, on facebook, people saying i know what is causing this, it is rhetoric around policing or some other issue related to criminal justice reform. i look to other evidence. it is not clear to me how anyone can conclusively say x is causing this, this is causing this. we are not there yet. i am sure there are scores of criminologists and social workers who are eager to provide an answer. i also know we really do not have a clear answer on the last time violence spiked in the 1990's. people are still suggesting that this is what caused that. so we may not know. i think it is a good thing to think about in our communities and immediate areas, wondering what might be impacting us, but no one can tell you conclusively. host: what role does america's

incarceration policies, federal and state, play in the crime across the country? guest: once again, folks suggest the idea that our efforts to decarcerate, which disproportionately impacted black and brown communities, are causing a spike in crime. eric adams has said this and other folks in other countries, that there are people now on the streets that are criminals. they were arrested and are now on the streets and they are creating more crimes. there is a stronger evidence to suggest that is not true, people who are let out on bail are not committing more crimes. there is a suggestion that it is true. but none of us really understand the true cause of this paired we can pick out a view things that suggest the narratives that are forming are not accurate. host: to alex, ashburn, virginia, republican line. caller: yes, hi, it was a

rape in philadelphia last year, and a homeless guy raped a woman in the subway, and 10 people were on the train and nobody intervened. so what can we do to avoid this situation, to make sure people do something in this situation? i am thinking for most people, this guy has image of victim, and this is wrong. i think everybody should intervene in this situation. and this is a shame for the whole society, that we are scared to intervene when crime occurs. thank you. host: hans menos, do you think that is a new phenomenon, where people have been reluctant to get engaged in reporting crimes like that?

guest: i want to give a little history, and i will address that. there was a story about a woman in queens who was supposedly attacked while her neighbors watched, and the police commissioner at the time commented on a social apathy, that folks no longer care about their neighbors. that story carried the day and was discussed widely and was ultimately disproven, proven to be completely false. neighbors were calling 911 and were attempting to assist her, left their homes, and they tried really hard, and there was actually a police response. that certainly fed into a narrative that people just do not care and we do not know our neighbors anymore. unfortunately, it happened again here in philadelphia in 2021 were a story about a woman getting raped in front of a bunch of other passengers, and

it was again folks don't care about their neighbors and will not get involved, and that was also, by the prosecuting attorney, proven to be untrue. so i do not know if folks care more or less about the community now. i have trouble believing in philadelphia that that is true. and in new york, i saw a lot of love and care in that city, too. but i can tell you these two stories used to suggest this are false, and that is from the people directly involved. i encourage anyone to do deep diving on the stories, fascinating. and it will also tell you about what the prosecuting attorney for the cases had to say about the residents at the city who were impacted. host: break in clarksville, tennessee. independent line. -- rick in cooksville,

tennessee. caller: if you legalize all drugs, coke, heroin, that would cut down on police brutality, murdering unarmed black man, unarmed white men. you should not have to worry about cops breathing down your neck because you want to get high sometimes. host: we had a former police officer calling us earlier who spent 30 years on the force and suggested the same thing, came to the conclusion that that could be a major solution to crime in the u.s., to legalize drugs across the board. guest: earlier i mentioned the idea of enforcing low-level traffic and the idea of, what is the public safety effort there? what is making the city or states more safe if i pull you over for a low-level traffic offense? the idea is that the context can be problematic for communities, and it relates to other areas.

on a case-by-case basis, if you think about what we're doing to increase public safety, and is something that is happening, is an enforcement action, drugs or anything else, actually increasing public safety? this general idea may impact some communities significantly more than other communities. so someone in the suburbs right say, sure, let's legalize drugs, and the impact on them may be minimal. someone in the city might have a different feeling about what it looks like to legalize drugs and what that might do to their immediate surroundings. all these decisions, while thoughtful and creative, the thinking in terms of big picture and how we decrease contact and how we think strategically about public safety, the reason why it is important in new york is because they bring in the community to discuss that and how it will affect community members, making them part of the

decision-making process. legalizing drugs may work for certain areas of the country. but we have to make sure the folks who will be most impacted have a significant seat at the table as the change is discussed. host: a you on that from twitter says we cannot describe causation from many correlations, but i think we know the war on drugs has an impact on violence in the u.s.. martin is next in maryland, republican line. caller: wow, i got to follow that call. i think a lot of the responses have been simplistic in how to manage crime. i think that we need more community policing, and i know that that phrase gets a lot of pushback from cops. but there are situations that do not necessarily need a god and a badge and a -- do not need a gun and badge at billy club all the

time. i think police need to be more community focused and the neighborhoods need to be more community focused, and if we can find opportunities to reduce the broken glass situations that are a part of our everyday living, i think we can have police do the things we need them to do on a larger scale and not just be there to enforce laws and things that are not necessarily needed for the police to do. so i just hope that we can find a way to reduce crime, small petty crimes, without having to always call upon the police to do those things for us. host: ok. hans menos? guest: i appreciate that call, the idea that we should really try and serve communities at a deeper level. i do not know that it always needs to be the police department. i do think that if we extend the idea of public safety, we can

have other folks throughout the system understand what it looks like to engage community at a deeper level. we talk often, and on this program you discuss this, the idea of the nypd budget decreased last year. but we do not talk about how at the same time period, there were proportionately larger cuts to the department of youth and community development and parks and recreation. so we think about this idea that we defund the police in new york city, no one is referencing defund parks and recreation defund the youth. so think about those agencies, parks and recreation and youth and community and public safety, and say that we are going to send not community policing officers but other folks who work in those two areas of the city to ensure the community is actively engaged and their

problems are being dealt with by folks with skills and expertise in those areas. we are rethinking public safety in that way. so i agree with the caller, but i wonder that as we reimagine public safety, do we want to continue to shoehorn the public into policing? host: i heard talk about this recently and the idea of modernizing the nation's 911 system and to be able to do that , it could be emergency fire, medical, police, some sort of emergency, some other type of call, are there efforts being made to do that? guest: oh, yes. i think most folks recognize around the country that when there is a fire, someone calls 911 and they sent a fire truck, when there is a medical emergency, they sent an ambulance, and for virtually everything else, they send the police. in philadelphia, we had a problem where the police were shooting way too many k-9 --

dogs, and the issue was really that the 911 dispatcher did not have many other people to send, so there was a dangerous dog, which is a problem in many cities, and the person dispatched is a police officer, and what is their weapon? a gun. that problem is when pulled apart, resources are not available, and it is significant. we look at other areas like portland, oregon, they understand that mental health calls are a significant portion of 911 calls. so now they can be dispatched by 911 to go handle a mental health call, and they had the best training and expertise for that. as i mentioned already, that is coming to new york. when someone calls and says someone broke into my car and no one is here right now but someone broke into my car, so i have a problem that is a non-emergency but need someone to come.

they can dispatch soon a person that is not an armed police officer. so there are other areas doing similar initiatives, mental health, addiction, focusing on homelessness, but it is nowhere near enough to solve or address the problems that exist. host: ned is next up in idaho. hey there. caller: hi, i love your program. i love your initiative. they had it working in oakland, california, some years ago they had their murder rate drop to almost nothing. i think what we do not address in this country though is the influence of transnational criminal organizations, tco's, the drug cartels linked to the gangs. five different drug cartels from

mexico and central america have influence in the united states with the drug trade, in cities with the most competition between those five drug cartels, you see the biggest crime rate and homicides. that is why chicago is that way. you have five different ones competing there. it is something we really need to address, and that would be part of border security. it goes all the way through central america. it is a regional issue. also, mental health. in the 1980's, the federal government ran the mental health in the country. you called -- just a bunch of federal, you know, kind of repositories for people throughout the country. they were really bad, and a lot of that did not happen, so reagan shut them all down, and

states were supposed to adopt their own mental health programs. they never did. host: we will let you go there as the phone is breaking up a little bit. hans menos? guest: absolutely, just to kind of go to that point, when we talk about reimagining public safety, if we take something away, we take the police response which was not necessarily always a response, we have to keep that promise and send the right responder. otherwise communities will bear the brunt. it is significant, when we take away our systems of care, take away our mental health systems, something is going to fill that void. guess what it was back then and through the 2000's, our local jails and prisons. so mass incarceration became the highest in the world because of these issues or it at least was

a contributing factor. we know this because our county jails, l.a. county, new york city, chicago, were simultaneously the biggest jails in the nation and the biggest mental health providers in the nation because of the comorbidity existing. a lot of people were homeless and mentally ill and had encounters with law enforcement and found themselves in these places. when we talk about systems of care and reimagining public safety, it is taking that kind of problem and saying we have have a better solution. we cannot continue to incarcerate people for the crime of being mentally ill. we have to be better as a city and nation and see these problems and address them not how we have typically addressed them, we cannot go back to the old way of doing them. we have to reimagine. host: a call from southern california, oceanside, this is richard on the democrats line. caller: hello, my question today

, i do not know if anybody will appreciate it, but it seems to me that things have gotten much worse on the crime scene over the last five years. i am just curious, there was a fellow on here, a guy elected for president about five years ago, and he made the statement publicly that he was so excited, he could go out in the public and shoot somebody and nobody could do anything to him. and i wonder if you think that may have had an impact on certain kinds of imbalanced people's minds and they think now they can -- just yesterday 13 people were assaulted at gunpoint here in san diego in a nice area, robbed on the street, money taken. we had host: ok, richard, we're we're

about to go here. hans. guest: how the leaders can lead us and impact our daily living and certainly the former's president's behavior, actions made us pause and wonder how that was impacting things like hate crimes and the willing inns for violence. i would say generally as we think about reimagining public safety, i'll even try and say this -- my thinking on the president's responsibility there. and i want to make sure we're focusing on the data. we're focusing on what communities are saying. because that's important and we shouldn't let go of that. we can't underscore the communities' input and the lever for social change. host: at policing equity. hanshosted by the library of

congress, this runs one hour.