Center for Policing Equity Co-founder and CEO Dr. Phillip Atiba Solomon joined Dr. Jason Johnson on the last 2023 episode of MSNBC's All In with Chris Hayes to discuss the state of policing in America. Dr. Johnson asked for insights on a recently published Vox report on crime data. Dr. Solomon discussed the decline in police activity, the rise in crime narrative, and more.
Below is an excerpt from the interview's transcript:
Dr. Solomon: "After 2020, we had some agreement that the way we were trying to keep communities safe wasn't working. That we were, in part, asking police to do too much and that what they were doing, in the spaces where they couldn't possibly be qualified to do everything, we should get something else. [Instead] we failed to do anything like that. [...] By the way, we had a lot of Republicans calling and saying, 'Hey, we're on board with this' after 2020. We failed to do anything on that Federally.
We are doing something on a State level -- [In] Washington State, Connecticut [bills have been introduced] looking to get police out of the low-level traffic enforcement business. And we're doing a lot [...] on a local level. We're just not telling the stories. [For example] in St. Louis [and in] Culver City, where they are getting co-response models [and] standing up new infrastructures that put communities in charge of public safety. Because we're not telling those stories, it feels like we're not doing anything at all, and that's not the truth. Heading into 2024, we are going to need to find those stories and tell them."
Listen to the entire conversation on MSNBC's YouTube page.