Safety in the 21st Century City: What is the relationship between fairness and safety?

It is a paradoxical moment for criminal justice in New York City. On the one hand, NYC has experienced two decades of declining crime and incarceration rates. At the same time, there is a growing sense that safety is more than the absence of crime and that further reductions can only be obtained by increasing fairness and reducing racial disparities.  

What is the future of criminal justice in NYC? How does NYC become even safer after the big declines? Join us for a series of panel events that will investigate what a safe city looks like and the role that actors outside of the criminal justice system can—and should—play in achieving this goal.

What is the relationship between fairness and safety?

Neighborhood safety problems often have their roots in history. Concentrated poverty and racial and socioeconomic segregation are the product of historical choices, including redlining by financial institutions and decisions by policymakers about where to place parks, where to build public housing, and how to police behavior. Can addressing patterns of inequality help promote safety at the neighborhood level? Is it possible to improve perceptions of fairness? And will this translate into increased law-abiding behavior? The panel will consider these questions through a number of different lenses, looking at environmental, behavioral, and structural practices, policies, and processes.

Moderator:

Stephen Robinson

Partner, Skadden, former SDNY judge

Panelists:

Issa Kohler-Hausmann

Associate Professor of Law and Associate Professor of Sociology at Yale University

Tracey Meares

Walton Hale Hamilton Professor of Law at Yale Law School and the Founding Director of The Justice Collaboratory

Amy Sananman

Director, Office of Neighborhood Safety, Mayor’s Office of Criminal Justice

Benjamin Tucker

First Deputy Commissioner, NYPD