The City of Seattle has announced an online survey to determine residents’ public safety concerns in their neighborhoods, as well as on public transportation. The survey was created by a team of graduate students at the Evans School of Public Affairs at the University of Washington.
With this survey, the City hopes to have a snapshot of perceptions of the police and public safety at a neighborhood-by-neighborhood level. The survey also gives residents an opportunity to anonymously offer their opinions on the police and public safety in Seattle — a new option for this kind of survey.
The new survey asks residents their opinion of public safety conditions in Seattle’s urban villages, if there are any urban villages they avoid, and why. The survey also asks for opinions on the Seattle Police Department, focusing on community relations and behavior. These questions are similar to questions the City posed in its biannual survey over the past ten years.
In order to hear input from the entire city, Evans School students will have paper copies delivered to targeted locations, and will actively solicit responses from traditionally underrepresented communities. The City hopes to receive up to 15,000 responses to the survey questions.
Evans School students will do an analysis of initial responses by May and plan to present their analysis to the mayor’s Youth and Families Initiative subcabinet in mid-May.
