Austin’s Chief of Police outlined a “100-day plan” on Nov. 14 centered around addressing Austin Police Department’s staffing recruitment and retention, community trust and crime prevention. 

“Every community deserves to feel safe to live, work, and thrive in our City,” Chief of Police Lisa Davis wrote in the plan. “To provide the highest level of police service, I am committed to empowering APD personnel to develop neighborhood-specific crime prevention plans.”

The first phase of Davis’s plan includes starting a listening campaign and hearing from Austinites about their experiences, concerns and ideas to improve public safety in Austin. Davis wrote in the plan that she is prioritizing collaboration when addressing solutions to existing challenges. 

Joell McNew, board president of SafeHorns, a nonprofit organization advocating for safety initiatives around the University and West Campus, said she wants APD to increase street lighting, implement security cameras to capture crime and decrease the number of repeat offenders. 

“We all know that the 9-1-1 response times have been slow, which I know that the city is focusing on,” McNew said. “When someone does take the time to call the police, report an incident, and then they see that individual back on the street that day or the next day, it’s very frustrating.”

McNew said it is important for students to understand they are a part of the community and they should let their representatives and officers know if they have any public safety concerns. 

“There’s a lot of things that we need to do proactively to improve the environment so that we aren’t reactive and then all freak out and act surprised when someone’s been injured or killed,” McNew said. “That’s just so infuriating to me. There’s so much crime that happens that (is) ignored and not addressed, and that needs to stop.”