For the past two years, Tacoma Community College (TCC) and the University of Washington Tacoma (UW T) have been meeting with the City of Tacoma’s Office of Strategy team to develop an inclusive process to learn and address community safety issues. Following those conversations, we would like to form what we call the Tacoma Community Safety Collaborative (TCSC).
The Tacoma Community Safety Collaborative uses community safety data (including, but not limited to crime data) to look at patterns and geography — not people or arrests — to determine what trends exist in specific neighborhoods and how to change them. Having information about where crimes and community safety issues are occurring gives the community insight into how they can address and prevent them. The Collaborative will bring together local government, anchor institutions, and community groups to create collective impact well beyond the reach of any single organization.
By taking an approach of community safety and using data to inform decision-making, community leaders can place the focus of prevention on places and not people, and provide non-policing solutions to respond to public safety problems.
Modeled off the Newark Public Safety Collaborative, this is an evidence-based and proven partnership that has been successful.
The first Collaborative meeting will take place in November of 2025.
Community safety models have traditionally relied on police-centric responses to crime problems. In most cases, community safety efforts shared a common characteristic: the leading role of police agencies having control of the data that informs public safety priorities. These priorities, however, don’t necessarily meet community expectations.
To address this, the Collaborative will work with community organizations, local government, and police to identify public safety issues that tell the story of what Tacoma is facing, and together, determine priorities, resources, and solutions.