Photo credit: http://ccpoa.org/reform

Readers, we need to have a talk. Although we at SafeKidZone are viewed by many as experts in family safety I don’t think it takes an expert to crunch these numbers.  Less police + shorter prison terms = high risk to families.

The California Correctional Peace Officers Association has put up the following website: California Prison Reform Now to address awareness of this issue. The issue is that due to budget cuts and overcrowding, 40,000 convicted felons are being released early from their sentences in California State prisons. What’s worse is that those same budget cuts are seeing to it that our police forces are becoming smaller as good cops are laid off and new candidates are not getting the job.

I don’t know about you, but considering that the reported recidivism (chance that a released inmate will re-offend) rate is about 70%, I would say that having less police presence is just scary.  Overcrowding prisons is just one issue, but consider that a lot of crime is prevented in the first place because of the sheer presence of police.  The problem now is that with less police on the streets they will be spread thin across the breadth and variety of calls that 911 receives from solving a minor domestic dispute to stopping a felony in progress, for example a kidnapping.

I say firstly to support prison reform if you’re as concerned as I am. However I also think that our 911 heroes could use the help in keeping the streets safe. Because of budget cuts to the police system you can also bet that 911 dispatch will be busier than ever. Think about how many less than emergency calls are made per day that could take up the time of a dispatcher that would otherwise be helping somone in serious trouble. How do we filter them out?

I put forth SafeKidZone as a way to address this problem. Because SafeKidZone gives you and your community a way to coordinate action as is needed with our own call center when the panic button is pressed it’s usually easy to get the information to 911 should the need arise.  Also, since all information about the victim is sent to 911, including their Satellite GPS location from SafeKidZone’s web app, that means that we save you a lot of breath on the phone with 911 and ultimately save time and save lives.

As for the lack of police, since SafeKidZone is a way to practice “community policing” it gives you the ability to partner with local police and notify them when something serious is afoot. Crime data and Sex Offender data is already loaded for you in the SafeKidZone web app so you can know in real time what’s going in your neighborhood while also giving police a leg up on the situation so they can triage (prioritize) their duties as needed. Often a potential emergency can be avoided altogether with just a bit of prevention, and that’s what SafeKidZone is all about: prevention.

I recommend you get involved where you can do address this issue and I strongly recommend you download and try out our service. It’s free so what are you waiting for? Click here to join us!