As a city, our divestment in education, job creation, and healthcare has resulted in some communities turning to law enforcement as a first and last resort—from providing student discipline to addressing addiction and mental illness. Reversing this trend by reinvesting in these areas will relieve our overburdened justice system, and ensure that law enforcement is able to focus on the most violent crimes.

Erica encourages law enforcement agencies to implement best practices in goal-oriented community policing, that build cultures of transparency, accountability, and respect. These include undergoing racial bias training and crisis de-escalation training; establishing internal accountability measures to track and review civilian complaints and address officer misconduct; and creating and empowering civilian review boards to independently monitor and audit policing cases.

Erica is committed to embarking on a series of innovative public safety strategies that focus on violent youth and illicit gun markets. Using a problem-solving approach, a broad coalition of Federal, State, and local governmental agencies, nonprofit community service organizations, businesses, religious leaders, parents, and resident key stakeholders will work in tandem to develop several programs to address the escalating number of juvenile homicides.

She supports access to and availability of after-school programs to create safe places for elementary and secondary school children. 

Erica is a strong advocate for enacting meaningful gun control legislation designed to limit children's access to firearms.