Our Executive Director, shares his analysis of a 2023 report (here) presented by the Salem Police Department on November 20, 2023, at a special work session of the Marion Public Safety Coordinating Council. Please go to the Salem-Keizer Proletariat page (or click here). Salem-Keizer Proletariat is a great source for independent analysis of local news and issues.

The key point of the analysis is that, as presented, this report,

• Fails to address what impact, if any, the COVID-19 years and related closures had on community violence or data collection — for example, the COVID-19 years had the lowest rates of gun violence, but the report doesn’t directly address how it was achieved
• Focuses heavily on Latino juveniles, though they are only involved in only 17% of incidents, and most incidents actually involve adults over the age of 30
• lays out the justification for returning to 1990s era Zero Tolerance suppression tools that effectively criminalized youth of color in Salem-Keizer;
• justifies increasing the size of the local police force while at the same time local cities and school districts are being forced to reduce behavioral supports for youth;
• as with previous spikes in gun shootings, the report’s recommendations are such that could result in effective suppression, that is, reduction of gun shootings, without addressing long term root causes; this approach will almost guarantee another spike in violence in a few years