Shortly after the general election earlier this month, the Journal of Business hosted Spokane Chief of Police Kevin Hall for its most recent Elevating The Conversation podcast. Two months into his tenure with the Spokane Police Department, Hall discussed public safety and community policing following a decisive victory for Proposition 1, which provides additional funding for law enforcement.

The Elevating The Conversation podcast is available on Apple Podcasts, Amazon Music, Spotify, and elsewhere. Search for it on any of those platforms or the Journal's website to hear the entire conversation, but for now, here are five takeaways—edited for space and clarity—from the episode, which runs just over 30 minutes.

1. Challenges are larger in bigger cities, but not always as visible as they are in Spokane.  I think it's scaled. The bigger the city, the bigger the challenges. But the impact seems to be felt harder here.  

One of the problems is Division Street, one of the gateways into the city from the freeway. You have a lot of people traveling through there, and a lot of these social issues that we're talking about are very, very visible right there.

So all of these people coming through, they're seeing this on a daily basis. And then when they're leaving along the same way, through the Browne Street viaduct, they're seeing the exact same thing. It's very much in your face, and I think that has an impact on people and their perceptions of safety.

It's that visibility that really causes people consternation.  And something that we discuss a lot at the city level is, where do these folks go? Where can we direct them to, whether it be housing services, substance use services, or behavioral health services. The need outweighs the capacity for treatment, and that's in just about every city, big or small. The capacity just isn't there to treat or impact the need that we see.

2. Visible changes downtown already are apparent—and more are coming. As far as visible change on the enforcement side, I think you've already seen it with the CORE (Crisis, Outreach, Response, and Engagement) initiative we implemented. We've already decided to extend that four-week pilot program a little bit. We're still going to do an evaluation on the four weeks as they come to a close to determine if there's a way to do that a little bit better.

There are other ways to address this, and we're looking at those as well, both with the Downtown Spokane Partnership and some of the business owners downtown who have stepped up and recognize that environment plays a big part in this. Weed abatement, sidewalk power washing, and painting some of the viaducts are all things that are on the books. We plan on doing that, because it's that visual sort of observation of dilapidated buildings, unkempt sidewalks, and garbage piled up that really impacts people's feeling of safety as well.

3. Cameras and technology will play a bigger role in law enforcement. There's enforcement. There's environment. And then, you know, we just have to figure out a way to sustain all of this. I can't ask business owners to make sure that they replace their windows with windows and not plywood, and then they just get broken over and over and over again. That wouldn't be fair. And I wouldn't ask that of them. So, we’ve got to figure out a way to make sure that when they do invest into their buildings, we can protect those buildings. 

One of those ways is technology. We're looking at a whole new investment in technology, quite frankly, cameras. 

Cameras are 24/7. They don't need a lunch break. They don't get sick. They don't take vacations. If we can network a series of cameras downtown, not only do I believe that will enhance safety, but it'll allow me to dedicate at least a smaller cadre of resources to monitor the cameras, watch the cameras, and then direct officers downtown to where they're seeing illegal activity.

There are some cameras in place now. They're not, as far as I can tell, networked very well, and they're not always in the places we want them to be.

The infrastructure has to be in place. Fiber optics need to be there. We need to make sure that they're all networked on the same video management system.

There are a lot of different ways we can leverage the camera system, and the technology has come a very long way, even in just the past five years, where you can network and tie all of those together. So if you're following an individual, you can just leapfrog from one camera and the system will automatically know where the next camera is, even if they're completely separate businesses.

4. The return of neighborhood resource officers could be a difference maker after the successful passage of Proposition 1. There are specific criteria that are associated with this proposition, and one of those that I'm excited about is bringing back neighborhood resource officers, or NROs. 

A patrol officer is looking at the calls for service all day long and getting dispatched to handle those calls. An NRO is not that. They are not going to be taking calls for service, unless it's specific to what they're doing.

Their primary duties and responsibilities will be engaging the community. For the downtown area, it'll be engaging the business owners and making determinations with them on how they can best leverage public safety, particularly police, to enhance the environment downtown.

One of the things that we have been discussing internally is how we allocate those NROs and what their duties and responsibilities will be, because we think it's going to change a little bit from what historically these positions have been responsible for doing. To that point, we would like to assign one NRO just to the downtown core area to engage business owners and people who travel to and work in the core. We'll work specifically on what we can do to enhance the perspective of public safety, as well as the actual safety of people who are down there. 

And then we'll work with the Downtown Spokane Partnership, the business owners, and all of the folks who inhabit and have investments down there to make sure that this area, which is vital to Spokane's financial health, remains safe and comes back to be even better than it was before.

5. Patience is requested. I don't even know if I have the right to ask this, but I would ask a little bit more patience as we move forward and we try new things and work in conjunction with the business owners on cleaning and painting the viaducts. Those are direct suggestions from business owners downtown who are donating the paint and other in-kind services. 

That's the kind of partnership where we, together, can start making some impact on these issues. If we continue to have those conversations and we work together, I think we can turn this around. I honestly do. I think we already are. But if we stop having those conversations and there's just accusations flying back and forth, that's not going to be helpful. I know there's a level of frustration out there and I know, you know, folks have been dealing with this here in Spokane for several years now. 

But just give us a little bit longer, and we're going to fix this. I know we are.