Did You Create Safety Today?

Coalition building is essential to my professional safety creation process. I shepherd a dynamic where the protection and prevention wings of the community can assist, instead of argue with, each other. It's in this spirit of coalition building that I pose the following question,

" Did you create safety today? "

It's not meant as an allegation nor a gotcha question to favor one part of the coalition over another.

The question sets the stage to highlight the unique contributions each wing offers the community. I'll start with what the prevention wing does, since it's not my particular focus. I'm part and parcel of the community's protection wing but give credit where credit is due.

Urban mentors and violence interruptors have deep personal relationships with youth and adults who can easily commit violent crime and conversely, become victims of it due to unmediated disputes.

Mentors and violence interruptors are often the only outsiders who stand between rage becoming headline making tragedy. To say their work saves lives is an understatement.

Google MadDads and CeaseFire for industry standard mentoring and violence interruptor examples.

It is these sincere reformers that I welcome into my coalition because they risk life and limb to change mindsets which habitually  place life and limb at risk.

I hail from the protection wing of the community. Our contribution is urban mobilization and apprehension of suspects. We fill the void between conventional private security and traditional policing by getting stakeholders involved in safety creation instead of shrugging their shoulders and saying it's somebody else job to keep them safe.

I favor the citizen on patrol and grassroots safety consultant approaches because they often arise from the affected area and as such, have far more time to address problems than commuting outsiders.

Google National Association of Citizens on Patrol ( NACOP ) New York Ronin and the Home Defense Foundation for best practices for organizing community protectors.

If you are a member of either half of my coalition combining the protection and prevention wings of the community, the answer to my question, " Did you create safety today?, " is a resounding, " Yes! "

As a professional safety creator, I get to see both parts of my coalition in action on a routine basis.

#CapBlackUrbanSafetyist