City Solutions Blog

Public safety is the largest and most important function of municipal governments. Safe communities are foundational to everything that makes our cities great places to live, work, and play. Ohio’s largest cities are committed to preventing, reducing, and solving crime, and dedicate the majority of their budgets to public safety expenses.

The City of Warren, in Trumbull County, is managing many of the same challenges all city police departments are facing: low morale, decreased community trust, and declining recruitment and retention among law enforcement officers. To address these issues, and work toward not just reacting to, but preventing, crime, Warren Mayor Doug Franklin devised and implemented the Warren Police and Community Trust Initiative (PCTI) in 2021. 

Please take a moment to watch this mini documentary about PCTI just released by the City of Warren.

The objective of the PCTI is to rebuild trust and strengthen the relationship between law enforcement and the citizens of Warren. The early data is encouraging: citizen complaints filed against the Warren Police Department have gone down consistently each year since the initiative’s start in 2021. The City and Mayor hope that most of the impacts, however, are long term: more partnership, better trust, improved relationships, and decreased crime rates. 

Most Ohio cities have seen steady declines in violent crime rates since COVID-19 spikes in crime rates in 2020. Investments in community policing initiatives like Warren’s, along with investments in investigative tools and technologies, increases in officer pay and police staffing rates, and partnerships with state and federal partners have all helped drive decreases in crime rates across the state. Local innovations drive change, and Ohio cities’ steady, ongoing commitment to public safety supports economic revitalization in Ohio’s core cities and the regions surrounding them.