First responders frequently respond to 911 calls where a person is so intoxicated that it would be unsafe to leave that person alone. In those situations, the first responder usually has two options—jail or an emergency room. Neither option is ideal. But, around the country, cities and counties are creating a third option: sobering centers.

This edition focuses on these Sobering Centers, which give people who are intoxicated a place to sober up until they are not a danger to themselves or others. They also provide a safe place to receive medically-assisted detox, mental health treatment, peer support,aftercare and connection to addiction treatment services.

First, we cover three new sobering centers that launched around the country in recent weeks. Then, we report the results from a national poll that help to put into context how and why the public views sobering centers as an effective public safety strategy.

This week’s edition reports results from two new polls—one national; one from Harris County, Texas—exploring public perception around Community Safety Departments. 

Voters Believe That Addiction Stabilization Units Make Communities Safer.

Police, Business Leaders Praise New Unarmed Community Safety Ambassador Programs. 

The Momentum Keeps Growing For Mobile Crisis Response Units. Dozens of localities have turned to mental health professionals to respond—often instead of law enforcement—to mental health-related calls for service.

New Polling Shows Robust Support For Cost-Free Narcan In Public Spaces. Quick Response Teams, like the newly launched team in Detroit, are only able to follow-up with people who survived an overdose because they survived. A major factor in why people survive an opioid overdose—or don’t—comes down to Narcan. Indeed, we mentioned above that Detroit firefighters “administered lifesaving naloxone 2,400 times” last year.  Cities across the country are making Narcan more accessible—not just to first responders and medical professionals, but to the general public through libraries, schools, bars and nightclubs, and even gas stations. 

In San Diego County, “Over 98% Of Mental Health Calls Have Been Diverted From Armed Law Enforcement, Resulting In A Trained Mobile Crisis Response Team Arriving Instead.”

If there is a shortlist of mayors in America who could be considered the architects of the effort to build a modern public safety infrastructure, that list certainly would include Ras Baraka, the Mayor of Newark, New Jersey (and a 2026 candidate for New Jersey Governor).

Safer Cities interviewed Mayor Baraka about Newark’s approach to public safety, what other local leaders can learn from Newark’s experience, and his vision for how these innovative approaches can scale from Newark to other cities across New Jersey—and the country. 

Safer Cities recently conducted a national survey of 2,400 registered voters to gauge public support for community violence intervention. Here are the results.

Safer Cities recently conducted a national survey of 2,400 registered voters. To gauge public support for safety ambassador programs, the survey asked respondents two questions—one aimed at measuring perceived effectiveness and the other aimed at grasping prioritization between hiring safety ambassadors and hiring additional police officers. 

Over the next few editions, we’ll report on the results of a new Safer Cities national survey of 2,400 registered voters. 

We start with a question that asks voters to tell us how they’d “prefer”  to “invest additional funding to make your city safer” when forced with the choice of “hiring more police officers to address public safety” or “spend[ing] the additional funds on comprehensive approaches to address public safety.”

This year, for the first time in our country’s history, U.S. Surgeon General Dr. Vivek H. Murthy declared that gun violence is a public health crisis. In a recently released 40 page advisory, Dr. Murthy urged policymakers to deploy tools from the public health toolkit to reduce gun violence “with the vigor used to reduce injuries from tobacco and motor vehicle crashes.”

Summer jobs programs for teenagers reduce violent crime, according to the results of gold-standard randomized controlled trials conducted in Boston, Chicago, and New York City.

Transit Safety Ambassadors In Los Angeles Have “Saved More Than 250 Lives.” In Los Angeles County, Transit Safety Ambassadors are “increasingly seen as a critical component of making public transit safer, cleaner, and more orderly.”

As Jessica Salinas reports for KRQE in Albuquerque, “The city has opened the doors on the first-of-its-kind headquarters” for Albuquerque Community Safety, the unarmed public safety department “dealing with homelessness, addiction, and mental health issues.”

In Northern California, the Bay Area Rapid Transit District—or BART—embraces “mounting requests from passengers for an increased safety presence in the [transit] system but with less reliance on armed officers.”

People living in rural areas often have to wait longer for first responders to arrive in an urgent situation like an overdose or acute mental health crisis. That’s why, in Florida, Manatee County and Tampa General Hospital have partnered to launch the nation’s first “program that uses drone technology to deliver life-saving emergency equipment to 911 callers [while] improving response times for health-related emergencies.”

In Virginia, The “Someone To Call, Someone To Respond And Somewhere To Go” Vision Takes Shape. 

“‘Trauma Recovery Centers’ Are Favored By Law-And-Order Officials And Progressive Activists Alike For One Big Reason: They Work.”