About: As tragic as Hurricane Katrina’s impact on our city, it has also given us a unique opportunity for meaningful change. As we work to rebuild our city we must build a public safety system that focuses on real reforms, not “ law and order” rhetoric. To that end, Safe Streets envisions a system that:

• Keeps people safe from all forms of violence and crime including street violence, domestic violence, and law enforcement violence;
• Is transparent, democratic, fair and accountable to the community it serves; and
• Supports community-driven responses to crime that are based in best practices.

Programs: Grassroots Organizing and Community Empowerment

Building a strong and informed membership base from communities most impacted is the foundation of our work. We accomplish this through several strategies:

Outreach & Recruitment

Safe Streets engages in door to door survey gathering on law enforcement issues to identify what communities identify as issues and to recruit them to join. We use monthly general membership meetings to further increase interest in Safe Streets’ programs and campaigns. As potential leaders emerge, we invite them to join our campaign and organizing committees where we work to deepen our understanding of systems, explore reforms and identify new issues of focus.

Leadership Development and Peer Advocacy

Safe Streets offers monthly trainings to educate and build leadership skills. For example, we offer Advocacy Trainings for family members of prisoners, Know Your Rights Trainings for young people to help develop their deescalating skills so they can better handle confrontations with police, Organizing & Outreach Trainings for our members to develop organizing skills and analysis.

Coalition Building

Safe Streets uses its own coalition as well as our leadership in other coalitions to disseminate information on best practices, coordinate media, policy and direct action strategies, garner resources and build allies.

Direct Actions and Policy Advocacy

Safe Streets uses direct actions, events and public hearings to release survey results and reports that expose the abuses low-income communities of color endure as a result of a failed public safety system. Safe Streets combines direct actions with policy advocacy to achieve reforms and illuminate patterns of injustice within the criminal justice systems.

Safe Streets builds relationships with the city council, mayor’s office and law enforcement agencies and brokers relationships between best practices institutes, foundations and city leaders so that they have access to accurate information and resources with which to implement ideas that best serve our community.

Speakers Bureau & Media Advocacy

Safe Streets has established a Speakers Bureau of people who have lost loved ones to violence or who come from communities most targeted by law enforcement to give the issues the human face and facts necessary to counter law enforcement myths. In addition, Safe Streets reaches out media to educate New Orleans residents and to raise the public’s consciousness about the issue of criminal justice reform. We write Op-ed pieces, meet with editorial boards, and release reports that highlight best practices and re-focus and center the debate on the impact on communities of color.

Safe Streets/Strong Communities works to transform the New Orleans Criminal Justice System through three major campaigns: Orleans Parish Prison Reform, Policing Reform, and Indigent Defense Reform.