The Community Health Planning and Policy Development Section’s annual Day of Action examined police reform.
Photo by The Nation’s Health
Public health advocates are pushing to reframe the meaning of “safety” in urban areas through the lens of policing.
The movement is national, but the work is local. At APHA’s 2021 Annual Meeting and Expo, the Community Health Planning and Policy Development Section virtually convened public health and Denver-area advocates to redefine what safety means for their communities, particularly as it applies to law enforcement.
For the Section’s annual Day of Action event, CHPPD partnered with the Colorado Public Health Association to support, showcase and learn from local activists working in the Annual Meeting’s host city.
Beginning with a virtual tour of downtown Denver, event organizers asked attendees to confront how the policies and design of the city are at odds with factors that protect and uplift community health. The event featured three local organizations: the Denver Alliance for Street Health Response, the Denver Task Force to Reimagine Policing and Public Safety, and the Public Health Institute at Denver Health.
The Denver task force, a team of over 40 community organizations, recently redefined the meaning of “public safety,” noting “that all members of the community decide how to organize a social environment that provides the freedom to live and thrive with the protection and support of social, physical, mental and economic well-being.”
The Task Force to Reimaging Policing and Public Safety grew out of the May 2020 murder of George Floyd by a Minneapolis police officer and nationwide protests that called for transforming policing, including those that occurred in Denver.
Jason Vitello, MSW, CPHA president and behavioral health coordinator at Denver Public Health, said Americans are living in a time that will confound future generations.
“Our grandchildren will look at us and say, ‘Y’all did what?’” Vitello said. “‘You criminalized the most vulnerable people in our society? Those with mental illness, the unhoused, people who are victims of systemic racism?’”
Working with local political leaders and local police, the Denver task force has reported early success at energizing residents and keeping stakeholders — even those thought to be at odds the task force’s mission — at the table.
For example, earlier this year, Denver Public Safety Director Murphy Robinson formally withdrew from the task force due to disagreements over law enforcement’s role in the task force process. The agency re-entered discussions after recommendations were published, said Robert Davis, project coordinator for the task force.
The Day of Action shared policy recommendations from a Denver task force on ways to reimagine public safety
Illustration by The Nation’s Health
The Day of Action urged participants to follow the example and support the nearly 120 policy recommendations proposed by the Denver task force, which include calls to minimize unnecessary police interaction in communities, support reentry of formerly incarcerated people and heal harm created by policing and the criminal legal system.
For more information, visit www.denvertaskforce.org.
A version of this story was published on APHA’s Annual Meeting Blog.
- Copyright The Nation’s Health, American Public Health Association