KANSAS CITY, Mo. — In another effort to reduce crime, the Kansas City, Missouri, City Council on Thursday approved a new Department of Community Safety.
The department, according to a news release from the city, will create a "coordinated, prevention-focused approach designed to strengthen public safety, improve accountability, and support long-term positive outcomes for residents."
Diana Knapp, who is running the city's corrections and rehabilitation efforts, will lead the new department.
"Kansas City has made real progress on public safety, but our efforts have too often operated in silos,” Mayor Quinton Lucas said in a statement from the city. “The Department of Community Safety brings together violence prevention, reentry services, and community accountability into one unified structure to support safer neighborhoods for all of Kansas City."
Among the services the new department will provide:
- Reentry and support services, including employment outreach, housing coordination, legal aid, and victim services;
- Oversight of corrections and rehabilitation operations;
- Strengthening and institutionalizing the Multidisciplinary Public Safety Task Force;
- Centralized data tracking, reporting, and performance measurement.
In addition, the Department of Community Safety will oversee custody operations at the new city detention center under construction in the city's East Bottoms neighborhood.
The news release states the department has a budget for 148 jobs. Of those, 120 new jobs will be available.
Those jobs include corrections and rehabilitation positions, community engagement and intervention staff and data and analytics specialists.
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If you have any information about a crime, you may contact your local police department directly. But if you want or need to remain anonymous, you should contact the Greater Kansas City Crime Stoppers Tips Hotline by calling 816-474-TIPS (8477), submitting the tip online or through the free mobile app at P3Tips.com. Depending on your tip, Crime Stoppers could offer you a cash reward.
Annual homicide details and data for the Kansas City area are available through the KSHB 41 News Homicide Tracker, which was launched in 2015. Read the KSHB 41 News Mug Shot Policy.
