How can a legislator work to Build A Safer West Forsyth? As it turns out, in lots of ways our current State Representative is ignoring.
My 20 Strategies to Build a Safer West Forsyth: From a 20-Year Resident
1. Genuinely Help Local Victims of Crime.
Have you ever had your car broken into or had a phone, laptop or wallet stolen and were convinced no one cared? I have.
There is far too little support for victims of crime here. We can and must do better, and as our next State Representative, I will fight to raise awareness and focus on supporting victims.
Supporting families, small businesses and visitors looks like this: all victims should receive all possible social service support. Hiring smart, efficient criminal justice staffing, and hiring the best law enforcement available has an enormous potential for positive change and driving down the Forsyth County crime rate.
2. Fully Fund Our Schools, Offer More After-School Programs.
Under Jeff Zenger’s watch, juvenile crime is now completely out of control. Most non-violent and private property crime occurs immediately after the school day ends. Our kids need strong, one-on-one connections with adults who will show up for them, consistently, even after school. Proactive, old-school face time and personal engagement is how we should invest in our kids; not punishing them for the tough circumstances so many are facing at home. Mentors provide the guidance and comfort they may not receive anywhere else.
Improving education is its own crime-reducing category, but after raising two amazing sons in North Carolina public schools (Go, West!), I also know these county-run institutions can decrease crime outside of school.
As our next State Representative, I will help bring awareness to and financially support reducing food insecurity (because hungry kids are desperate kids and are not open to learning), humanizing discipline, and making sure our kids get to school and home safely. These three things benefit everyone – not just our kids – and create a safer and less crime-riddled community. These are easy and compassionate ways to decrease crime, and are being ignored by our current State Representative, Jeff Zenger.
3. More Mental Health and Wellness Professionals in Our Schools and in Our Community.
Professionals and folks on my Listening Tour know, and we’ve seen for ourselves, that our families, friends, communities, schools and small business owners are still struggling with the aftermath of Covid. We’ve lost relationships, jobs, finances and other resources. People were already struggling, and those who suffered during those years need more. Investing in everyone’s health helps our communities to be stronger and safer.
4. RAISE the AGE Laws and Address the Need for a Local Juvenile Facility.
Our NC criminal system continues to add to the systemic violence in our communities. NC was one of the last of 4 states (Texas, GA, Wisconsin) to allow 16- and 17-year-olds to be charged as the juveniles they are, and not as adults. Professionals agree that the age of maturity is 18, yet our most vulnerable kids were being punished as adults.
State-wide there are more juveniles in the system than ever. When Forsyth County closed its juvenile facility, it compounded the cycle of violence. Judge Lawrence Fine and many public defenders agree. They were alarmed and disgusted that families already under economic strain were even further separated and forced to drive over 2 hours to the closest facility to see their children. Most kids spent months alone, never seeing their parents. Neglect, fear and punishment doesn’t solve crimes, it contributes to the problem.
Many states have pretrial “stops & checks” for juveniles to allow non-violent offenders to work on situations/solutions with public defenders (through community programs and services) giving 16- and 17-year-old kids probation – time to reset and start over. When crimes follow children as part of their permanent record, finding jobs or credit becomes almost impossible. Thus the cycle repeats. I’m interested in solutions, not being part of the problem.
5. Substance Abuse Prevention & Help for Those Who Need It.
Substance abuse prevention programs help keep our entire community safe.
As a mom and a North Carolina public school volunteer, after decades of public pushing, I noticed that in the 1990s and 2000s our state treated substance-use disorders as a disease rather than a crime. This made sense since many statistics clocked addiction-based crimes at nearly 50% of overall crimes committed in our great state.
Political winds changed a decade ago, and treatment programs largely dried up. Many extremely useful ideas were piloted — trauma-informed care, motivational interviewing, treating withdrawal in prison — but few were ever taken fully to scale. Those foundations still exist in North Carolina, and to prevent future crimes we would be well-advised to be aware of them, utilize them AND build upon them.
As our next State Representative, I know addiction is the root cause of a large portion of the non-violent property crime our county is currently fighting, and I know addiction could be the root cause of future violent crimes if we keep ignoring it like State Representative Jeff Zenger does. I will use all of the resources available to my office to proactively address addiction so as to prevent future crimes.
6. Increase Our Use of “Second-Chance Court.”
I’m proud to support NC’s Second-Chance Courts (conditional deferment, 12 months without additional offense). First time offenders and non-violent and non-sexual felony offenders (for example, those possessing more than an ounce of marijuana) need a Treatment/Accountability Court that will give them a “Second Chance.” It moves us all forward when productive members in our community receive access to education, employment and purpose. Data show that offenders who are rehabilitated are far less likely to reoffend (recidivism), thus decreasing crime. This Treatment Court would also decrease the impact of the mental health crisis and court backlog. Investing in offenders’ rehabilitation (as opposed to putting resources in the prison system) costs taxpayers far less.
7. Prison Prevention Programs.
I’m proud to support our Prison Prevention Program which allows middle and high schoolers to meet those who have been involved in the criminal justice system. This program is successful in breaking the school-to-prison pipeline.
8. Creating a “Judicial Efficiency Committee.”
Our Forsyth County court system is overwhelmed, partly due to population growth. There are ways to prevent backlogged cases and adjudicate faster. As a 20-year West Forsyth resident, mom of two boys and small business owner, I want our legislature to provide more oversight and support. Justice delayed is justice denied.
9. Helping Reduce Demand on our Forsyth Law Enforcement.
On my Listening Tour, Sheriff Kimbrough shared how much pressure Forsyth police, firefighters, EMTs and sheriff’s deputies are under: they are understaffed and too busy all the time. They are called on by incumbent politicians like Jeff Zenger to be all things, to all people, in all circumstances. Not on my watch.
As someone who pays attention to crime prevention in our communities, the root causes of crime, and the consequences of crime to my kids, my home and my small business, I know firsthand that the central reason law enforcement can’t prevent more crime is that they are too busy doing other things.
Together, we can fix that.
I will work with our judicial officials to help create an investigative and reporting environment where law enforcement are called less often for only the most productive reasons, so that together we can help tackle both under-policing AND over-policing.
As our next State Representative, I will help create a legal environment that helps our law enforcement members be more efficient at taking on the real tasks they are charged with: keeping our communities safe.
10. I’ll Focus on Fixing Both Crime Magnets AND Crime Creators.
Some of you know I’m a HUGE architecture and history nerd.
But did you know there is a wide school of study within both architecture and criminal justice that shows that places poison people more routinely than people poison places? Crime does not result from “areas” of the “inner city” being high risk, but rather from a few very small, very bad places. It’s genuinely fascinating.
As our next State Representative I’ll focus on where crimes happen as much as the people allegedly committing the crimes and put judicial efforts into improving these “crime creator” places so that together, we can Build A Safer Forsyth.
11. I’ll Help Make Crime Magnets Less Appealing to Criminals.
We all know certain places seem to attract and generate both violent crimes and property crimes — schools, abandoned houses, empty lots, and bars being at the top of the list.
As our next State Representative, I know that careful planning and situational crime prevention can reduce or eliminate the crime magnets that plague our communities. I’ll work with our city managers, school administrators, law enforcement officers and neighborhoods to address existing problems, and help prevent them for a brighter future for all Forsyth residents.
12. Helping Improve Law Enforcement Job Markets.
There is a direct correlation between jobs and our crime rate in Forsyth.
That’s why as our next State Representative I will fully support integrating social and emotional skills training into any and all employment training for our young people. I will also fully support employment planning for people returning from prison and transitional jobs for high-risk people returning to our community. More jobs = less crime. Let’s help the people wanting help to become more employable.
13. I Will Support Our Neighborhood Non-Profits.
In case you haven’t already read “Uneasy Peace” by Professor Patrick Sharkey, he reports on a genuinely fascinating study that found for every 10 non-profits in a given community, the violent crime rate was reduced by a staggering 14%.
As someone who has studied how to prevent crime in our community and worked with many non-profits, it comes as no surprise that access to more and better community services has positive effects. But I am buoyed by the scientific facts that each of us can directly drive down local violent crime by supporting non-profits. As our next State Representative, I will continue to help aid the development of local nonprofits whenever possible through funding and/or support for hyper-local community projects, and will continue to personally support many non-profits locally, and I hope you will, too.
14. I Will Work to Make Jails and Prison Less Criminogenic.
We have unfortunately and overwhelmingly designed jails and prisons to prevent people from gaining the skills to work and maintain their sobriety when they go home, and cut them off from their most crime-reducing assets, their family and friends. In my research in the criminal and legal field here in Forsyth, I have found (and I believe academic research supports) small investments in humanity yield large returns when jails and prisons are not designed to produce more crime.
As our next State Representative I will work closely with law enforcement and our esteemed judges to keep families together when possible, keep inmates close to their support systems, when possible, and encourage and support visitation whenever possible. I will enthusiastically vote for and fight to fund continued and adult education classes, religious studies, and GED and college degree programs while incarcerated.
15. Formerly Incarcerated Persons Need A Plan, Not A Wish.
People returning from prison need short but very specific support to facilitate a successful transition – did you know a staggering 82% of people released from prison are rearrested within 10 years? And the solutions are shockingly simple: leave correctional facilities with an ID, any psychological or medical prescriptions you need to be stable and ready for job interviews, a place to stay, and a way to get started. With focusing on these four doable things we can prevent up to 82% of future crimes.
A goal without a plan is a wish —and Forsyth County formerly incarcerated persons should leave prison with a plan. As our next State Representative, I will fight to ensure that they are encouraged to create and implement that plan.
16. Use All Available Technology to Reduce Violent Crime in Forsyth.
Professor Graham Farrell (and a large percentage of our fantastic local Forsyth County law enforcement community) persuasively argues that increases in security technology such as engine immobilizers and cameras in the 1990s were the only universal explanation for the universal decline in crime.
There is so much more that can be done using current low-dollar technology without imposing on our incredibly important personal freedoms: text message reminders for court and probation appearances, databases to maintain records on police officers with histories of abuse and anti-crime features on ordinary consumer products are just the start.
As our next North Carolina State Representative, I will help work with our local law enforcement, attorneys, and judges to create a criminal justice system that uses all available technology to help those who appear in our courtrooms and jails be more successful in both their court experience and in returning to society afterward.
17. Help Tackle the Causes and Consequences of Poverty.
If you’ve done any extensive service in the legal field you know first-hand that poverty drives crime and violence in hundreds of small ways – far beyond a simple lack of income.
A number of important legislative policies have been successfully piloted in other states, but not fully implemented by our state and local government. That needs to change.
These are admittedly larger-ticket items – bigger child poverty tax credits, more whole-school anti-bullying programs, and of course expanding Medicaid – and not all of them are under the jurisdiction of the North Carolina legislature. Nevertheless, they do have the biggest crime reduction benefits and it’s important we come together and work on them.
As our next State Representative, I think it’s important to let the family, friends and neighbors who travel through our criminal justice system on their best and worst days know up front that we recognize that these benefits outweigh the costs and to work with our fellow elected officials to be outspoken public supporters of reducing crime through all avenues available to us. I will fight for bigger child tax credits, more anti-bullying programs and expanding Medicaid to help prevent the root causes of crime.
18. Finally Tackle Forsyth’s Long-Standing Problems.
We live in the best county in North Carolina. But if you ask my luxury home developer opponent what our biggest problems are, he’s known for saying things like “too much local control over growth.” We have all seen firsthand that in campaign years, small problems that are easily fixed rise to the top while bigger problems often persist because they have high costs, a lack of immediacy and declining political constituency.
As our next State Representative, I want to make sure we are tackling the big, long-term, systemic problems, not only in an election year but when the cameras get turned off as well. As someone with experience in parenting, non-profits, and small-business ownership, I have seen too many times that these perpetual problems are often the key risk condition causing violent and property crime to persist.
If we are sincere about wanting to prevent the skyrocketing crime wave in other communities from reaching our doors – and I believe we all are – then we have to be willing to invest ourselves, our financial resources and our long-term attention on problems that might take a generation to fix. Let’s START by telling the politically unpopular truth about what we need to fix so we can have honest conversations about what it’s going to take to fix those big problems.
19. Tackling Our Giant Housing Problem.
Like education, housing is its own category beyond the scope of just one well-meaning State Representative. But as a Mom, a public school parent volunteer, a successful small business owner, and Clemmons homeowner with 20 years of experience building a better Forsyth for all of us, it is important that we as a community know, acknowledge and talk about the fact that there are housing solutions with specific, crime-reducing benefits: permanent, supportive housing prevents crimes; transitional housing for young people prevents crimes; leaving homelessness prevents crimes; and housing programs specifically for people who cycle through emergency services prevents crimes.
We cannot as a county arrest our way out of the skyrocketing Winston-Salem crime that is headed our way. We must collectively come together to create community consensus around ways we can prevent it. As our next Forsyth County NC State Representative, I am extremely interested in partnering with public and private leaders and stakeholders to help make Western Forsyth county as safe and affordable as possible.
20. Protect Legal Gun Owners, Stop the Proliferation of Illegal Firearms.
As the mother to two nearly-grown sons, a homeowner, and Lewisville-Clemmons resident, I know that the proven link between firearms and violence is undeniable. The more guns a county has, the more crime that county has. These are not politically motivated, partisan statements. These are facts.
While I am personally a huge supporter of the Second Amendment and our right as American citizens to own guns, evidence shows that the significantly higher gun ownership rate here in the US explains much of the difference in rates of violence between us and peer nations.
Trying to curtail future crime sprees in Forsyth without talking about the proliferation of illegal guns in our county (which is to say, working collectively to ensure fewer potentially dangerous people have easy access to weapons) is embracing half-measures. I do VERY LITTLE half-way.
Frankly, our families and businesses deserve better than the normal left-wing demands to close gun show loopholes. And while I, like 84% of my North Carolina neighbors, support closing gun show loopholes, what we really need is a meaningful conversation among stakeholders – parents, specifically – about how we stem the tide of guns into our currently peaceful communities.