Philly police have a new public safety plan in the works — this time with community input

Police Commissioner Kevin Bethel on Thursday said his staff is well on its way to drafting a five-year strategic plan shaped by input from community members — something he and the mayor dubbed as a first for the department — and that it should be completed shortly after the start of the new year.

Early workings of the plan, Bethel said, have been molded by conversations with more than 200 people so far, from police captains and administrators to community stakeholders and young people directly affected by the criminal justice system.

He said that while police commissioners have long developed public safety and crime-fighting plans, they’re often drafted by police and city leadership and then prescribed to the community — not influenced by everyday residents’ wants and needs.

“It must be built with trust,” Bethel said at a news conference Thursday alongside Mayor Cherelle L. Parker and other city officials. “How can you invest in a plan if you don’t see yourselves in that plan? How can you invest in this work if you don’t see yourself as part of that work?”

The commissioner stopped short of sharing any specific insight into the proposal, but said it would build off the 100-day public safety plan he developed at the request of Parker. Generally, he said, the department intends to expand officer training and wellness programs, and build out a clearer definition and model for “community policing.”

“I always tell people, is it policing the community, or community policing?” Bethel said. “We haven’t taken the time to really stop and say, ‘What does that look like?’”

David Zega, whom Bethel hired from the Philadelphia School District to lead the initiative and craft the plan, said he is still in the process of drafting its “framework,” and that specific investments or changes for the department aren’t yet firmed up.

Zega began convening stakeholders in May, and said that a draft of the plan should be finished by January. He encouraged residents to complete a survey in the meantime.

It’s common for police commissioners and mayors to work together to craft long-term public safety plans to guide their administrative goals. In 2012, then-Mayor Michael Nutter said the department would focus on confiscating illegal guns and ramp up overtime to put more cops on the street. And in 2019, former Mayor Jim Kenney unveiled a “road map to safer communities” just as the city’s gun violence crisis was on its way to ultimately reaching historic heights.

But Bethel’s plans come as the city faces an entirely different outlook. Philadelphia this year is expected to record the fewest homicides in 50 years. The homicide and nonfatal shootings clearance rates sit at 86% and nearly 40%, respectively, the highest in decades. And for the first time since 1979, Philadelphia is no longer the poorest big city in America.