Virginia Gleason on Bringing Communities Together to Improve Law Enforcement and Public Safety

Virginia Gleason has spent her career working on improving law enforcement and public safety.  She comes to this work not out of a desire to put bad people behind bars or even simply to keep our streets safe, but rather as she says, “to impact the quality of people’s lives and reduce suffering.”  Virginia offers an optimistic take on the future of policing and public safety with an emphasis on improving the data collection and transparent dissemination of information related to police encounters with the community.  She also encourages the “democratization” of public safety, encouraging officers to get to know their constituents better – by engaging when times are good, not just when called to a scene – and for those of us who don’t work in law enforcement, to make efforts to understand their departments and the challenges they face.  Quoting her husband, a retired police officer, Virginia explains her belief that, “Everyone wants to be loved, everyone wants to be forgiven and everyone wants to be heard.  If you don’t know what else to do, fall back on those three things.”