City leaders in Louisville are hoping a comprehensive crime plan, focused on prevention, intervention and enforcement, will help the city reduce violent crime by 15% each year.
The five-year strategy, dubbed the Safe Louisville Plan, includes a lot of things the city is already focused on, like expanding employment opportunities for young people, addressing neighborhood blight and raising police officer pay. But it also includes changes to the Office of Safe and Healthy Neighborhoods, which is now called the Office of Violence Prevention to better align with its mission to provide non-police responses to gun violence.
Mayor Craig Greenberg also announced Wednesday that the city will establish a Community Safety Commission, bringing representatives from the criminal justice system, nonprofits, the business sector and other stakeholders together. The commission will receive regular reports and provide feedback on the city’s crime fighting strategies.
“We are not doing this work in silos,” Greenberg said. “We have all city departments, so many community organizations who are on board to increase educational and job opportunities, provide more affordable housing, reduce blight and invest in traditionally underserved communities.”
Greenberg said executing the Safe Louisville Plan will fall on Misty Wright, the city’s executive director of community safety. Wright was hired in January to coordinate Louisville Metro’s response to the higher levels of gun violence the city has seen since the COVID-19 pandemic.
Wright will oversee the new Office of Violence Prevention, formerly OSHN. The city announced Wednesday that Paul Callahan, the office’s former director, has left city government, and they’ll conduct a national search for a new leader.
Speaking at the press conference, Wright said reducing violent crime by 15% each year is an aggressive goal but one she feels is achievable. She noted that the plan also includes tackling people’s perceptions of crime.
“We will collect data and provide regular updates, including those updates on all of the successes that don’t necessarily make it onto primetime TV,” Wright said. “We want you to not only be safe, but feel safe as well.”
City officials say the Safe Louisville Plan is not meant to supersede the crime plan released earlier this year by the Louisville Metro Police Department, but to supplement its work.
Like the LMPD’s Crime Reduction Strategic Plan, the city’s plan also proposes putting additional resources toward improving trust between residents and the police and addressing vacant buildings, trash and broken streetlights in communities hit hardest by violent crime.
The Safe Louisville Plan calls on the city to continue investing in public libraries, parks and youth programming as a crime prevention strategy.
As part of protecting public order, Louisville Metro officials say they’ll continue to crack down on bars and restaurants that don’t do enough to prevent patrons from committing crimes. And they say they’ll continue citing and arresting people experiencing homelessness for sleeping on the street, while offering needs assessments and rides to shelters.
The entire plan is available online here.
