Issue Position: Public Health and Safety

Issue Position

Violent crime and public safety issues have plagued our city long enough. Every day it's the same thing -- cars burglarized, businesses robbed, carjackings, robberies… the list goes on and on. And according to police reports, some of the culprits are barely teenagers.

For a better, safer New Orleans, we need to do better for our children. That is not a problem from which we can arrest our way out. We need to engage and educate our youth and their families to show them that there are better options than a life of crime on the street. We need to intervene and redirect non-violent offenders by forging meaningful relationships in the community that provide a pathway towards success and a good-paying, stable job. Here are my thoughts:

We have to offer programs that make gainful employment and quality education more attractive than pathways to crime;
We need "parent centers" within our public schools and daycare centers to help parents participate in and encourage their children's quality education, from the moment they are born;
We need more police walking and biking through neighborhoods in District 97;
We need quality and meaningful community restitution programs that allow low-level offenders to give back to the area they wronged;
We need to restore funding for the treatment of mental health and substance abuse disorders.

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