Why LA Needs Stronger Leadership in Public Safety

Los Angeles stands at a pivotal moment in its history, a moment defined not by a single crisis but by the intersection of several. Rising concerns about violent crime, the proliferation of fentanyl and synthetic drugs, unprecedented levels of untreated mental illness, homelessness at scale, and a justice system straining under decades of political neglect have created an atmosphere of uncertainty throughout the county. Public safety is no longer a conversation confined to policing. It extends into behavioral health, social services, the courts, schools, emergency medicine, community organizations, and every system that touches the life of an at-risk individual. The interconnectedness of these challenges demands a level of leadership that Los Angeles has not consistently demonstrated. The fragmented responses of the past are no longer enough. LA needs stronger leadership—leadership capable of coordinating complex systems, grounding decisions in evidence, elevating accountability, and restoring a sense of shared safety across its diverse communities.

The traditional model of public safety in Los Angeles relied heavily on reactive enforcement. The logic was simple: respond to crimes after they occur, increase presence in problematic neighborhoods, and rely on deterrence through the visible authority of uniformed personnel. That approach is no longer sufficient, not because law enforcement is unimportant, but because the problems driving today’s public-safety landscape are fundamentally different. Crime is now inseparable from mental-health instability, substance-abuse disorders, homelessness, and trauma that often begins in childhood and continues unaddressed into adulthood. Deputies are increasingly confronted with situations they were never originally trained to handle. The criminal justice system is often positioned as the default mental-health system. Hospitals cycle the same individuals through emergency holds, discharging them back to the streets within hours. These are not failures of intention; they are failures of leadership vision.

Stronger leadership in public safety begins with the recognition that the old silos must be dismantled. When a sheriff’s department, behavioral health agencies, prosecutors, courts, clinicians, and community partners each operate independently—even with good motives—the gaps between them become the places where people fall through. Those gaps are where crises escalate, where preventable tragedies occur, and where public trust erodes. Leadership must be capable of seeing not just the operations of one agency, but the architecture of the entire safety ecosystem. It must understand how a decision made in a command office affects the workload of clinicians, how a breakdown in communication between social services and law enforcement results in unnecessary arrests, and how the absence of a coordinated response drives up recidivism and destabilizes neighborhoods. Leadership must possess both the strategic vision to restructure systems and the operational discipline to ensure that reform is implemented consistently across a department as large as those in LA County.

Los Angeles also requires leadership willing to confront uncomfortable realities. It is not enough to talk about reform in abstract terms or rely on slogans that feel satisfying but do little to move the needle. Strong leadership means acknowledging where the system is failing and why. It means admitting that too many Angelenos interact with law enforcement because the county has not built a functional continuum of mental-health care. It means recognizing that deputies and officers often carry the emotional and operational burden of a collapsing behavioral-health infrastructure. It means challenging political inertia that has allowed outdated training models, inadequate staffing, and inconsistent accountability practices to persist for decades. And it requires elevating solutions rooted not in political expediency but in the lived realities of those working on the front lines.

Leadership must also bridge the divide between compassion and accountability. Public safety is not advanced by choosing one at the expense of the other. A justice system without compassion cycles individuals endlessly through courts and jails without ever addressing the causes of their instability. A system without accountability risks enabling criminal behavior that destabilizes communities and harms victims whose voices too often go unheard. Strong leadership understands that safety and humanity are not mutually exclusive. The evidence is clear: when mental-health interventions, treatment pathways, and diversion programs operate effectively and in coordination with law enforcement, communities experience decreases in repeat offenses, fewer emergency calls, and a more humane and cost-effective approach to public safety. That does not require eliminating enforcement. It requires integrating enforcement with treatment, aligning the goals of deputies and clinicians, and grounding decisions in what works, rather than in what has traditionally been done.

The rise of fentanyl has introduced an entirely new dimension to LA’s public-safety challenge. Leadership must understand not just the criminal networks behind drug trafficking, but the behavioral-health drivers that keep individuals trapped in cycles of addiction. Synthetic drugs are cheap, potent, and lethal. They interact with mental illness in ways that can produce extreme, destabilizing behavior. A deputy responding to a call involving a fentanyl-dependent individual experiencing psychosis needs more than tactical skills. They need training in crisis recognition, de-escalation, and the behavioral rhythms of addiction. They need coordinated support from clinicians and diversion teams who can intervene before a crisis becomes fatal. Leadership that recognizes these complexities can build systems that reduce harm, save lives, and restore safety without relying solely on enforcement.

Public safety leadership must also be transparent. Los Angeles residents deserve clarity about what is working, what is not, and how decisions are made. Trust is built when departments share data, articulate goals, and demonstrate respect for the communities they serve. It is strengthened when leaders explain why certain strategies are adopted and how their effectiveness will be measured. Transparency is not about criticism; it is about partnership. When communities understand the rationale behind decisions and see evidence of progress, they become allies rather than adversaries in the pursuit of safety.

Finally, Los Angeles needs leadership that is both courageous and collaborative. Public safety reform is not easy work. It requires confronting entrenched interests, challenging outdated norms, and embracing innovation in a system that has historically resisted it. It requires cultivating relationships across agencies that have not always communicated effectively. It demands patience, resilience, and a willingness to make decisions that may not yield political benefits in the short term but produce meaningful change over time. Strong leadership is not defined by titles or uniforms, but by the ability to build systems that work—systems that protect the public, support those in crisis, and create safer, healthier neighborhoods.

Los Angeles stands on the edge of what could be a transformative era in public safety. The opportunities for meaningful reform are immense. The expertise exists. The momentum is growing. What the county needs now is leadership with the strength, vision, and integrity to bring these pieces together. That is the promise of stronger leadership: a future where safety is not something communities hope for, but something they can rely on; a future where justice is both firm and compassionate; a future where public safety is built not on fragmentation but on unity, partnership, and purpose. LA can achieve this. It simply needs leaders ready to rise to the moment.