TAMPA, Fla. — Dozens of community leaders gathered Wednesday, trying to figure out ways to tackle the root causes behind a recent spike in violent crime and drug abuse.
The meeting was part of a series of summits taking place across the state, and the one at the Hillsborough Community College Dale Mabry campus was considered one of the largest.
An overriding theme of the summit is that many of the crimes occurring in our neighborhoods are preventable but that it will take work to bring about some of what the panelists consider to be necessary changes. There is no question that crime and drug abuse are both on the rise, but by addressing them in a different way — other than just putting people in jail — authorities have found a lot of what’s been seen locally and across the nation could be reduced.
Unfortunately, they say, our current justice system isn’t set up to do that.
So, a large part of the discussion during the summit aimed to confront those underlying issues and then retool police departments and our court system to address the problems before crimes occur.
For example, they found that 80% of all crimes committed are tied to drugs or alcohol.
Think about the impact it could have, suggested panel members, if more resources were proactively directed toward addiction treatment.
“Community diversion works,” said Asha Pereyra, CEO at ACTS Behavioral Health. “Diversions at intercept point one and two work. By the time they’re hitting the jail system at three or prison at four and five it gets more difficult and costly for us as a community. So, it makes sense to have services at the very front end of the system.”
Also, more than a third of people behind bars, they say, have been diagnosed with a mental disorder. Meeting the needs of those people could have a drastic impact on reducing future crime in our neighborhoods.
The task force has been conducting these meetings in Florida looking for solutions and is chaired by Hillsborough County State Attorney Andrew Warren.
“The research shows it, and so does common sense,” Warren said. “The root causes behind so many crimes can be traced back to substance abuse or mental illness.”
“The good news,” Warren continued, “is that these issues are typically treatable and preventable. The bad news is that our justice system simply isn’t set up to handle these challenges, and our communities all suffer because of that.”
Some of the suggested solutions include preventing crime through early treatment and better coordinating existing resources which sometimes fail to communicate with each other.
Through treatment and training, panel members say communities can try to break the cycle that often leads people to become repeat offenders.
“We are all tired of the revolving door of the criminal justice system. What we want is for some people who go through that door to never come out because they are threats to our community. But there are a lot of other people who might never go through that door in the first place because we can achieve better outcomes much cheaper — by addressing their needs outside of the criminal justice system,” Warren said.
Over the past two years, stemming from demonstrations following the death of George Floyd, several law enforcement agencies in the Tampa Bay region have started to adopt the idea of incorporating mental health professionals into their incident responses.
These summits are aimed at finding more of those proactive solutions.
“The purpose of the task force is to spread really good ideas that are in place in places from Key West and Pensacola, but around the state. We wanna make sure that we’re taking some of the things that are being done right now in our state and to share them so that they’re being done in all corners of the state,” Warren said.
The task force is also discussing ways to better meet the needs of law enforcement officers and their mental health since research shows that profession has a higher risk of suicide than any other.