On November 18, 2025, the City Council was presented with a Community Safety Action Strategy developed by the City of Tacoma’s Center for Strategic Priorities. The strategy, once finalized and adopted, will guide the City’s comprehensive, long-term approach to improving safety—and perceptions of safety—for all community members.
The strategy goes beyond traditional policing and enforcement, identifying the many factors that impact how safe people feel and outlining how the City can work to address them. It organizes City actions around four key goals, with objectives and actions for the near and long term.
A cornerstone of the strategy is its foundation in significant community input, developed through visioning workshops, community meetings, interactive art, and interviews with individuals who have shared their lived experiences. This collaborative process resulted in a broad, community-developed definition of safety organized around four key goals: safe PLACES, supporting PEOPLE, effective RESPONSE, and community REPAIR.
- Safe PLACES and Neighborhoods – This goal focuses on supporting environmental conditions that make Tacoma neighborhoods feel safe for everyone. Near-term actions include using every transportation project as an opportunity to improve safety, equitably distributing lighting, and keeping the city clean through focused waste management. Long-term, the City will plan strong, vibrant neighborhoods by incorporating development practices that prioritize safety and connection.
- PEOPLE Receive the Right Services at the Right Time – This goal supports focused approaches for individuals with specific needs. Actions include helping people access behavioral health support, connecting people with shelter and services, and supporting youth with resources to reduce violence.
- Effective RESPONSE with Respect and Care – This goal is focused on responding effectively to all community safety needs with respect and care. While it includes actions to provide effective response to violent and property crime, it also strongly emphasizes providing alternative responses to connect people to the right services. This goal also prioritizes police transparency and accountability through the continued use of body and dash cams and the implementation of other recommendations.
- Promote Healing and REPAIR – This goal focuses on supporting individuals, families, and neighborhoods to overcome trauma and rebuild relationships. Key actions include enhancing police community engagement through positive, non-enforcement events, creating spaces for dialogue between the community and police, and supporting the mental and physical health of City personnel who assist during emergencies.
Details on the Community Safety Action Strategy – including ways to engage in the process – are available here.