Orange County Government spends $400 million on public safety programs for citizens, $150 million on corrections and jail operations, $185 million goes to the sheriff’s office and $150 million is allocated for the fire department. Together this amount accounts for $885 million of the $3.1 billion total budget for Orange County.

Keeping citizens safe is a fundamental function of government, and making the investment in people, training and proper equipment is essential for maintaining the public sense of safety.  For the past year, I’ve spent Friday mornings learning more about the departments within Orange County Government and its partners. I’ve had the opportunity to visit multiple agencies; but perhaps more importantly, I’ve heard directly from the leaders in charge that if we want to find real solutions then we must go to the core of the problem.

We spend $885 million on public safety in Orange County, yet what we spend on supporting programs and issues such as access to healthcare, homeless help, domestic and sexual violence programs, senior care and drug rehabilitation are such a very small piece of our $3.1 billion pie.

It’s the organizations that receive the smallest piece of the pie that I believe have the biggest potential impact on keeping the public safe. I recently spent some time at the Cherokee School near downtown Orlando and saw firsthand the important role this school plays in helping our at-risk youth (some as young as 6-years-old) work through what life has dealt them .  I’ve had several lengthy conversations with Corrections Officers and truly believe that if we can concentrate on the fundamental problems, we can have an impact.

The county jail also hosts a number of necessary programs to help those in need ranging from drug abuse treatment to domestic violence counseling and even technical and basic social skills training programs that that help inmates become productive pieces of the community upon re-entry.

Programs like these are critical in keeping our communities safe, because they address the root cause of the issues the inmates and students face. These programs help rehabilitate in an effort to keep the re-incarceration rate down. Despite repeat offenders, if the time between incarceration periods lengthens, that alone demonstrates the power of these programs and the need to maintain their funding.

The long term solution for keeping our communities safe is to focus additional energy on providing opportunities to end the cycle that gets people off track in the first place. We must continue to provide the necessary tools and outstretched hands to our fellow neighbors because if we don’t, there is nowhere to turn but the streets.

Article by Jennifer Thompson