Messaging on “safety:” Some positive examples
Recent Topos’ research confirms that a progressive take on “safety” is effective (and needed!). To counter efforts by conservatives to use anxieties about crime to put progressives on the defensive, a progressive take on “safety” acknowledges people’s concern, but puts the causes and solutions in terms of the well-being of regular people, including an aspirational vision of the kinds of neighborhoods that people want to live in.
Instead of playing into the “violent crime” framing, when we pivot to a focus on economic security, we both speak to people’s sense of instability and get the conversation on our terrain — families and communities that are strong and well, connected and with hope.
Check out these examples:
Op-Ed: To Fight Crime, Be Economically Progressive
New Yorkers get that safety isn’t just about law enforcement—it’s about neighborhoods that have the basics so that people have a sense of possibility, opportunities, and connections to each other. Neighborhoods are safer when they have better schools, when there are jobs, when rents aren’t so high they bankrupt people, when the streets and sidewalks are maintained, when people feel like they belong.