“District 7 needs more roads, less crime, and affordable taxes.”

Community Safety Focus Area

Summary: “Less crime”

Keeping its citizens safe is one of the fundamental purposes of government. Unfortunately, Charlotte regularly appears on lists of the top ten most dangerous large cities in America (see here). Few things will harm the future of Charlotte more than our continued presence on such lists.

While the Charlotte-Mecklenburg Police Department works tirelessly for our safety, reducing crime is not a job of our police department alone. The North Carolina General Assembly continues to leave us to the criminals, whether systematically by under funding our District Attorney and our courts or specifically by failing to act on crucial anti-gang legislation. As with transportation, I support a targeted legislative agenda that highlights community safety.

See the City Council’s current community safety initiatives here.

While having specific targets is important to evaluating our success, when it comes to crime, it is not enough to compare Charlotte with itself. Our community safety initiatives should compare Charlotte with nationwide statistics to move us to being one of the safest large cities in America, not one of the most dangerous.