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Real Crime Prevention:
Building a Peaceful and Just Community

The recent wave of violence that has plagued our city - particularly in Eastern Districts 9, 10, and 11 - is a human and community-wide tragedy that challenges us to seek new solutions. No other issue demonstrates the harsh realities that lower-income communities and people of color face on a regular basis. As a life long social justice activist, Eric Quezada has worked for decades on the kinds of crime-prevention these communities need - projects that create opportunity and hope by combating the poverty and poor housing and environmental conditions that help fuel this violence.

We need a new comprehensive approach to violence reduction and crime prevention - one that addresses people's economic and social needs in a way that helps rebuild these communities. Eric’s campaign offers a unique crime-prevention program that includes housing, educational and employment opportunities, cultural and athletic activities - to not simply fight crime, but to realize the human potential of people in the communities hit by violence. The Quezada team's approach to violence prevention includes the following, which would form the basis of comprehensive anti-crime legislation once in office:

Prevention - As a community we must redouble our efforts on long-term prevention, especially for our younger folk. We must expand on proven models, such as conflict-resolution education, after-school programs for at-risk youth, job training and development for teens, and community-based leadership programs that offer new paths of economic and social engagement.

Building Trust - City and community leaders must work to build trust with marginalized communities, for whom discriminatory policing and lack of opportunities are all too common. Mayor Newsom's effort to roll back city sanctuary policies and the Municipal ID program actually endangers immigrant communities by making it less likely immigrants will report crimes or participate as witnesses to crime. The recent opening of a satellite office for the Office of Citizen Complaints at Arriba Juntos is a good step - but much more needs to be done.

Intervention - We must continue to work with our community's most vulnerable youth - through both in-school and out-of-school programs, and expanded community activities - to steer them away from a life of violence.

Partnerships - With smart, cooperative leadership, we can leverage partnerships among community leaders, police, small businesses and others who are impacted by violence, and who can help rebuild the community fabric.

Remediation - Preventing crime isn't enough. We must support those who enter the justice system to keep them from returning to gangs or violence. We can do this through community support programs that help ex-prisoners re-enter society and become productive, engaged members of the community.

Crisis Management - When violence strikes, we must go beyond policing, and engage the community to deal with crime's aftermath, and to prevent future violence. Crime is not just a policing issue, it's a community-wide concern that requires a community-wide solution.

Community Policing - Moving beyond traditional crime suppression, police should work closely with existing community-based organizations and organizers to identify problem spots - and to build trust and communication between community and police. This will help create the cooperative environment needed for peace to take hold.

Based on his decades of leadership and living in the District 9 community, Eric Quezada has found that the community itself holds the key to reducing crime and violence. Our violence-prevention efforts must engage those who are directly impacted by crime, as well as members and organizations that work in the community on a daily basis to increase the peace. These people and groups are the bridge between police and community. Eric’s innovative approach emphasizes the importance of the community fabric in combating crime. This fabric contains social, cultural and economic threads - all of which must be woven together for true peace to emerge. Because peace is more than the absence of violence: it is relationships based on cooperation and communication; it's neighbors getting to know one another; it's based on a community and city-wide culture that invests time and money in prevention programs that work; and a peaceful and just community is built on a foundation of social and economic justice that provides meaningful alternatives to violence for current and future generations.