In July 2021, the American Friends Service Committee of Arizona (AFSC-AZ) was funded by the JRI Catalyst Grant Program to conduct a research study entitled Reimagining Community Safety (RCS), a Community Based Participatory Action Research project.

The present project is informed by the Barrio Centro Community Safety Participatory Project conducted in collaboration with the Flowers & Bullets collective in Tucson, Arizona.  According to the Barrio Centro study, community safety refers to the ability to thrive together in sustainable ways that are culturally relevant and self-determined.

In the Barrio Centro report, we made a distinction between community safety and carceral safety. Carceral safety relies on systems of punishment, retribution, and coercive control, including policing, prisons, incarceration, and detention as nearly the sole means of understanding, imagining, and practicing safety.

This survey builds upon the findings of the Barrio Centro Community Safety Participatory Project and will use collected data to tackle racial injustice and inequity for communities of color. We will use our findings to drive progress toward a more equitable justice system by organizing affected communities in Tucson, AZ to generate their own evidence of what constitutes safety in their neighborhoods.

We will be collecting surveys all over Tucson, focusing on Wards and specific neighborhoods over the next six months.

Want to be a part of this effort? Complete the survey today!

There are only two requirements to be eligible to complete the survey:

• Must live in Tucson, AZ
• Must be 18 years or older.