PUBLIC SAFETY
4-30-25 SESSION
This conversation on public safety revealed a deeply personal and often contradictory relationship with the concept itself. Participants began by naming the first words that surfaced when they heard “public safety”—terms like “crime,” “police,” “media,” and “metrics”—many of which reflected surveillance, control, or fear rather than protection or peace. This disconnect pointed to an early insight: for many, the term "public safety" evokes institutions and statistics more than a lived sense of security. As the discussion expanded, notions of safety were repeatedly framed through absence—what’s missing, broken, or unequally distributed—rather than through shared, embodied experiences of feeling protected or held.
There was a tension between the systems meant to provide safety and the communities they serve. One participant described safety as a political football, passed and weaponized by parties seeking power. Others reflected on their own assumptions about law enforcement—whether all officers are cynical, whether public safety can exist without police, or whether their efforts can ever be neutral in a biased world. Religion and politics were both cited as spaces where public safety becomes distorted—used for control, stripped of empathy, and marred by contradictions. At the same time, participants shared personal memories that challenged singular narratives: the kindness of an officer during a tense moment, a funeral for a fallen officer, or a grassroots moment of protection within community play. These stories blurred the lines between enemy and ally, revealing the emotional elasticity needed to engage with this work.
Throughout the session, one paradox remained constant: the desire to believe in safety while recognizing the systems associated with it have caused harm. Some participants wrestled with whether they could even be friends with the idea of public safety as it currently stands. And yet, threads of hope emerged—in the power of language to reframe, in the role of community as co-protector, and in the quiet helpers who step forward during crises. The dialogue reminded everyone that safety is not static; it is shaped by experience, identity, memory, and aspiration. These conversations opened space to imagine a version of safety that centers healing, not hierarchy—connection, not control.
Key Themes:
Throughout the conversation, a few core tensions emerged again and again. These themes reflect the ongoing push and pull between self and community, silence and voice, harm and healing. They help us understand what it means to be fully seen, deeply valued, and part of a process where transformation is possible.
The Fragility and Unevenness of Safety
Safety was repeatedly described as both fragile and unevenly experienced. Participants acknowledged that what feels secure for one group can feel threatening to another. The illusion of uniform safety dissolves when viewed through the lens of race, identity, or lived history. Rather than a universal right, safety appeared as a patchwork—accessible to some, withheld from others—often shaped by power, perception, and proximity to institutions.
The Burden of Contradiction in Public Systems
A powerful thread in the conversation was the emotional dissonance created by public institutions that claim to protect while simultaneously causing harm. Participants wrestled with how to hold complex truths about policing, politics, and religion—systems that speak the language of care but are often deployed as instruments of control. This created a tension between what these systems profess to represent and the lived realities they often produce, especially for marginalized communities.
The Politics of Language and Definition
There was a shared recognition that language itself carries enormous weight in shaping perceptions of safety. Terms like “public safety,” “law enforcement,” or even “community safety” were scrutinized for their implications and histories. Participants explored how word choices reflect power structures, assumptions, and emotional charge, and questioned whether the current vocabulary can hold the future they hope to build. Naming, they suggested, is not neutral—it either reinforces or reimagines what is possible.
The Longing for Human-Centered Anchors
Amid stories of disconnection and systemic dysfunction, there emerged a longing for relational anchors—people, memories, or principles that represent what public safety could be. Whether it was a childhood memory of neighbors looking out for one another or an internal commitment to never being a bystander, participants surfaced personal touchstones that resist the abstraction of policy. These moments hinted at a deeper desire: to reclaim safety as something shaped through trust, responsibility, and shared humanity.
As you explore these visual symbols of our conversation, where do you recognize your own thoughts or those of others within its narrative?
What symbols within the artwork speak to you, and what stories do you think they're trying to tell?
In what ways does the art challenge or expand your current perspectives on belonging?
How do the contradictions and paradoxes illustrated in the art resonate with your understanding or experience with belonging?
A CLOSER LOOK AT SYMBOLOGY
As you move through the gallery, take your time with each image. Let it interrupt you, invite you, or stir something unexpected. Don’t just observe—listen to what shifts in you as you engage. Notice what feels familiar, what resists interpretation, what lingers. Though some images carry somber tones, they reflect the honest sentiments shared—an acknowledgment that understanding often begins in the shadows, especially when conversations emerge from struggle. These images are not just illustrations—they are symbolic reflections drawn from the voices, tensions, and truths shared in the conversation. Meaning lives in the space between what’s shown and what you’re willing to see.
The Circle of Unspoken Words
This image captures the moment before the conversation begins—the space where fear, hesitation, and moral tension accumulate in silence. The phrases floating above the empty table—“I didn’t know what to say,” “I was scared,” “I didn’t want to offend”—are not indictments. They are quiet truths. Honest, human. But their repetition over time becomes more than personal—they become structural. What is not said, not acknowledged, not addressed—becomes the silence others have to live inside.
The absence of speech from those with power, platform, or protection does not feel neutral to those without it. It registers as abandonment. As indifference. The empty chairs here don’t just represent missed opportunities for dialogue—they reflect why some communities stop expecting to be heard at all.
This is not a condemnation. It’s a portrait of moral pause. A visual reminder that public safety is not just the presence of protection—it’s the presence of listening. The Circle of Unspoken Words asks: Whose safety suffers when we withhold our voice? And what changes if we choose to speak—not perfectly, but bravely?
Not My Problem
This image captures a core moment from the public safety conversation—one that blurs the lines between innocence, authority, and responsibility. At its center is a young child on a tricycle, caught in the narrow light between two doorways. One is warmly lit, hinting at shelter or care. The other is shadowed, hard-edged, and cold. Behind the child, a police car sits idle, the word “PORLICE” subtly distorted, suggesting both familiarity and unease. Inside the vehicle, faceless figures remain distant and disengaged. A woman stands nearby, hands raised in an ambiguous gesture—resignation, protection, or helpless defiance. Looming large in red graffiti: NOT MY PROBLEM.
This scene embodies one of the session’s most haunting multarities: the desire for safety vs. the abdication of care. The child, representing the vulnerable or unseen, sits in full view of authority—but is no one’s responsibility. The system is present, but passive. This image asks a simple but piercing question: When everyone assumes someone else will act, who is left to protect the most exposed?
The power of this visual lies in what it refuses to resolve. It implicates all of us—community, institutions, individuals—in the quiet decisions we make to look away. And in doing so, it mirrors a recurring theme from the conversation: that public safety isn’t merely a system or slogan. It’s a choice, made again and again, to see, to care, and to act.
The Collapse of Words We Believed In
This image reflects a core tension in the conversation: how the very words we were taught to trust—SAFETY, TRUTH, ACCESS, TRUST—have lost coherence. The glass towers, once symbols of civic integrity, now stand fractured and hollow. Misspelled and splintered lettering signals not just technical failure, but emotional erosion. These are not accidental distortions—they reflect a deep dissonance between the values systems say they uphold and what people actually experience.
The bridge between the towers is thin, uneven—symbolizing the tenuous paths people must navigate between conflicting truths. Participants described working within systems that no longer feel like home, using language that no longer feels honest. This image doesn’t depict ruins, but something more unsettling: the ongoing collapse of terms we still rely on. And yet, people keep walking—across doubt, toward something not yet rebuilt.
The collapse here is not loud. It is quiet, bureaucratic, and slow. And that is what makes it so dangerous.
Checkmate Politics
This image captures a haunting metaphor for what public safety becomes when it’s positioned as a tool in a larger political game. At center stage stands a uniformed officer—stoic, silent, and seemingly in command. But their arms are bound by red strings, each one pulled taut by sharply dressed figures representing political power. Behind them, massive chess pieces flank the scene—red and blue pawns and royals locked in a cold standoff. The curtains and spotlight suggest this isn’t governance—it’s performance.
Checkmate Politics reflects what participants in the conversation described as the weaponization of public safety: not as a shared social contract, but as a partisan tactic. The officer is not the strategist—they’re the symbol. Used to signal strength, stability, or fear, depending on the narrative being spun. This visual forces us to confront how safety is no longer a neutral pursuit—it’s a contested space where agendas overshadow people.
The image doesn’t ask who’s winning. It asks what’s being sacrificed. The person at the center—the one closest to the community, most visible in crisis—is immobilized by the very systems claiming to support them. And in the background, the game plays on. This piece reminds us that until we untangle power from performance, public safety will remain a stage—scripted, strategic, and increasingly disconnected from the public it’s meant to serve.
Held by Many, Broken by All
This image captures the central paradox of public safety voiced throughout the conversation: that it is everyone’s responsibility and no one’s alone to fix. A white mask labeled “PUBLIC SAFETY” hovers in the center—blank, hollow, and visibly cracking from the inside out. Its fractures don’t come from a single blow, but from accumulated strain. Surrounding it are human hands, each wrapped in colored threads—red, blue, gold—symbolizing political identity, racial history, and institutional roles. Some threads are taut, others slack. All are tangled.
Below, ordinary objects—a child’s bike, a police badge, a short staircase—remind us that what breaks in policy ripples out into real life. The bike evokes innocence; the badge, duty; the steps, movement toward something uncertain. These symbols suggest that when public safety falters, it is not just the system that suffers—it’s the communities who trusted it, the officers who serve within it, and the children growing up under its shadow.
Held by Many, Broken by All invites us to confront a painful truth: no one is blameless in the erosion of trust, and no one is exempt from the work of rebuilding it. Participants spoke of fear, exhaustion, betrayal—and yet also of courage, reflection, and the search for language to start again. This image doesn’t cast villains. It reveals entanglement. And it asks a question at once quiet and urgent: now that the mask is breaking, who will reach for the threads—not to tighten them, but to mend?
If You Build Them
This image invites us to reconsider how safety is shaped—not by force or inheritance, but by what we nurture and prepare. A young girl stands before a mural of uniformed figures: police officers, first responders, and essential workers. She gazes upward—not with fear, but with expectation. Behind her, a statement on the wall reads: “They will keep you safe if you build them.”
This phrase, drawn directly from the conversation, speaks to a bi-directional relationship. Safety is not something delivered by institutions to communities—it is co-created through the investment we make in people. When we pour care, education, trust, and belonging into children and future leaders, we aren’t just supporting them—we’re shaping the structures and values they will one day uphold. What we build into them, they will carry forward.
This image is not about glorifying authority. It’s about redefining it. The lineup of figures becomes part of a wider story—one where protection is earned through relationship, not assumed through position. The question left hanging in the air is as much about systems as it is about us: Are we preparing people to protect something we’ve never fully made safe to begin with?
What You See Isn’t Always What Is
This image slices the world of public safety in two—visually, emotionally, and ideologically. On the left, we see chaos: flames, cameras, a staged confrontation, and the aggressive framing of conflict. Police lights glow against the fire, and towering screens amplify a single narrative—one of violence and spectacle. On the right, a near-identical police car exists in a different atmosphere: calm, quiet, residential. A solitary man stands in shadow beneath the blue light of a porch lamp. The line between these two worlds is jagged and raw, as if torn by the contradictions embedded in public safety itself.
This piece speaks directly to one of the conversation’s most resonant multarities: the gap between what is seen and what is true. Participants noted that public safety lives not only in policies or patrols, but in how stories are told—who frames them, who consumes them, and who is left out. One speaker noted how media tends to magnify extremes: police as heroes or monsters, neighborhoods as safe or dangerous. But between those images live real people navigating daily complexities that rarely make headlines.
Perception reminds us that there is no single truth—only layers. What looks like order to one person may feel like occupation to another. What is broadcast may not match what is lived. And when policy is built on perception rather than proximity, safety becomes something symbolic—not embodied. This image asks us to interrogate the frame, not just the scene. To ask: Whose perception is this? And what (or who) does it leave out?
The Choice Before Us
In this image, a young child stands barefoot at the center of a vast, circular room surrounded by dozens of doors—each slightly ajar, dimly lit, or sealed tight. Overhead, a round skylight pours in soft light, framing the child in quiet clarity. A single key hangs in their hand—not yet used, not yet assigned. The child gazes upward, but the real question is below: Which door will they choose? And who built the options they have?
This image reflects a recurring truth from the public safety conversation: that the systems we inherit shape the futures we imagine, and that every individual—especially the most vulnerable—navigates options they didn’t create. The doors symbolize the various constructs discussed in the session: control, community, reform, trauma, access, fear, protection, hope. Some options are illuminated. Others are not. Some are labeled clearly. Others carry the weight of history in their silence.
Participants repeatedly asked: What are we actually offering the [next generation]? The image doesn't answer that question. Instead, it poses a more uncomfortable one: If safety is meant to be built, not imposed, why are so many doors still locked? The child stands not in ignorance, but in uncertainty—aware that the future will be shaped not only by what lies behind each door, but by who holds the key, and who decides which doors even exist.
This is not a scene of despair—it’s a portrait of possibility. But possibility demands responsibility. The image reminds us that while the child carries the key, we carry the blueprint.
What We Place on the Scale
This image centers a scale—ancient, symbolic, and visibly strained. On one side: a judge’s gavel, heavy with centuries of institutional weight. On the other: a single child’s sneaker, worn but vibrant. Around the scale, masked officers and community members stand at a tense distance, divided by role, aligned by uncertainty. Protest signs fade into the fog, and the cracked pavement beneath the scale suggests that what we’re weighing isn’t just symbolic—it’s seismic.
What We Place on the Scale invites us to consider not just the imbalance of justice, but the deeper question: what are we choosing to weigh? Participants in the conversation spoke about false equivalencies—how harm is often reduced to headlines, how innocence is judged through bias, how systems can flatten human complexity. The gavel may represent law, but the sneaker represents life: tender, unprotected, still becoming. When these are held in opposition, what assumptions are we revealing about whose experience counts?
The cracks beneath the scale remind us that the foundation itself is compromised. Justice isn't broken because of what we weigh—it fractures because of what we exclude, devalue, or never even place on the scale. This image, like the conversation, challenges us to confront the deeper architecture of public safety: Are we measuring what matters, or are we reinforcing what’s familiar? Until we answer that honestly, balance will always be an illusion.
The Weight We Carry
This image embodies the quiet burden voiced throughout the public safety conversation—the emotional, moral, and historical weight borne by individuals trying to hold systems that were never meant to hold everyone. The kneeling figure in the center is not a symbol of defeat but of endurance. Above them, suspended in a fragile orb, are the unresolved layers of our shared reality: a child’s scream, a grieving community, a uniformed officer, an empty chair. These aren’t just images—they are echoes of everything unhealed, unspoken, and unfinished.
The figure does not carry these alone by choice—but often by default. Those who step into the intersection of harm and responsibility often do so with no roadmap, only resolve. The surrounding onlookers reflect another truth: many are watching, some are willing, but most are unsure how to step in.
The Weight We Carry asks more than “How did we get here?” It quietly invites the deeper question: What are we willing to carry together—and what happens if we don’t?
The Archive of Unheard Stories
This is not simply a place of record-keeping—it’s a metaphor for everything we’ve chosen not to confront.
The archive stands in for the accumulation of stories unspoken, truths sidelined, and grief quietly filed away by systems not built to hold complexity. These aren’t just the things we forgot. They’re the things we learned to step around.
What’s stored in silence doesn’t stay dormant. It shapes how trust is built—or lost. It colors how people show up in their roles, in their neighborhoods, and in moments of conflict or crisis. And it reminds us that institutions are not neutral containers. They carry emotional weight, often without acknowledging it.
In the distance, a drawer glows faintly—labeled What Was Never Said. It stands as a quiet challenge. Not everything needs to be read aloud, but nothing should be denied its place. The deeper invitation here is to consider: What stories haven’t I made room for? What truths haven’t we, as a collective, been ready to hear? Before anything can be repaired, it must first be remembered.
What We Choose to Bury
This image visualizes one of the most emotionally vulnerable insights from the public safety conversation: that real transformation often begins when we confront not only what we carry, but what we’re afraid to lay down. The gravestones read like quiet truths spoken aloud in the session—fear of failure, fear of offending both sides, not being seen as one of us. These weren’t abstract ideas; they were revelations. Shared by people navigating institutional loyalty and personal conscience, each was named not as weakness, but as weight.
The scene invites us to consider what gets buried by choice, and what gets buried by exhaustion or grief. Some beliefs, habits, and narratives deserve to be laid to rest. Others—like hope, courage, or community—risk being buried too early, alongside our dashed dreams. This image becomes a quiet invitation to sort through what no longer serves, and to protect what still gives life.
From the transcript, we heard stories of exhaustion, hesitation, moral compromise—and also, the quiet determination to keep going. One participant spoke of “the fear of offending both sides.” Another reflected on not feeling like they belonged to either community or institution. Another described the emotional paralysis that followed the murder of George Floyd, and how it nearly made them leave the work altogether. This image holds space for all of that complexity and gently asks: What becomes possible when we name what holds us back—and let it rest, so something else can grow?
Margins of the System
This image rests at the intersection of structure and sorrow. An open book reveals two forms of record-keeping: on the left, institutional language—formal, factual, impersonal; on the right, lived reality—messy, emotional, human. The hands holding the ledger are not flipping pages—they are holding a tension. One that asks: Whose story gets preserved? Whose pain gets processed?
The left page tracks policy, budgets, incidents. The right page pleads: “Please come back, Daddy.” It contains grief that doesn’t fit in a report. A memorial sketch that wouldn’t appear in court documents. These are the entries that don’t shape legislation—but shape lives.
This Ledger of Impact reminds us that systems remember what they are designed to record. If healing is to happen, it will begin not just by rewriting the policies—but by learning to read both sides of the book.
In Light of What Was Said
The glowing handprints across the wall are not just marks of presence—they are the imprint of stories finally spoken, truths released into a space that can hold them. Each phrase glows softly, not to shine for attention, but to stay visible—a gentle defiance against forgetting. This wall is not sacred because of what it represents, but because of what it receives: pain, reflection, memory, survival, and the quiet bravery of those who chose to speak.
The people standing before it are not passive observers. They are witnesses. Their stillness is active. Each face turned toward the wall is part of an unspoken agreement: to stop editing the past long enough to learn from it. The hand reaching forward to add a new print is not performing—it’s joining a lineage.
In the Light of What Was Said reminds us that healing begins not with new declarations, but with the decision to carry what’s already been shared—honestly, without interruption, and in the light.
Surprising Discoveries:
Public safety, we discovered, is not merely the mending of broken systems; it unsettles familiar narratives and invites us to re-examine how we see, listen, and stand with one another, so each personal story reshapes our sense of what it means both to feel safe and to create safety.
Discomfort With the Language of “Public Safety”
A key realization was how deeply unsettling the phrase “public safety” actually felt to many in the group. Although it is commonly used in professional and civic contexts, participants expressed that the term often evokes control, surveillance, and systemic inequity more than care or protection. The conversation surfaced a desire to reimagine the language itself—to find words that more accurately reflect shared responsibility, healing, and true security.
Holding Trauma and Commitment at the Same Time
The dialogue revealed a powerful paradox: individuals who had been harmed by public safety systems were also those most invested in reforming them. Stories of personal trauma—including violations by law enforcement—were shared alongside ongoing commitments to build, repair, and transform the very structures that caused harm. This layered complexity illustrated the emotional weight carried by those doing the work of change from within.
The Absence of “Community” in First Associations
Despite their commitments to community-based work, several participants were surprised that the word “community” did not immediately come to mind when prompted with “public safety.” These initial associations focused on institutions, crime, and authority—revealing how dominant narratives and power structures have shaped default responses. This absence led to meaningful reflection on what’s been culturally and cognitively sidelined in conversations about safety.
Reimagining Safety Through Personification
When invited to imagine public safety as a person and consider whether they’d want to be its friend, participants uncovered deep emotional truths. This simple shift—from concept to character—unlocked nuanced perspectives, such as loyalty, betrayal, and cautious hope. It allowed people to voice their inner conflicts and unspoken judgments in a way that conventional discussion might not have reached, making the conversation both more vulnerable and more revealing.
THE MULTARITIES OF
PUBLIC SAFETY
When we allow ourselves to see not just opposing sides, but the layered, coexisting truths within a single issue, something powerful happens. We move beyond argument into understanding—where complexity becomes a source of insight, not confusion. This is the richness of perceiving multarities: the ability to hold tension without rushing to resolution, and to recognize that contradictory experiences can both be true.
This conversation surfaced a striking set of multarities—contrasting truths that coexist and create tension without easy resolution. Unlike debates that seek right or wrong answers, this dialogue revealed how participants held multiple truths about public safety at once: reverence and grief, anger and compassion, clarity and confusion. These multarities weren’t just intellectual—they were lived, felt, and embodied in stories, silences, and realizations. Together, they painted a portrait of public safety not as a fixed concept but as a moving, fractured, and emotionally charged terrain where power, trust, identity, and belonging are constantly negotiated.
Protection vs. Control
Public safety was experienced both as a source of protection and as a mechanism of control. For some, it symbolized necessary order and intervention; for others, it embodied systemic overreach, racial bias, and coercion. These opposing views often lived within the same individuals, revealing how easily the line between safety and domination can blur depending on who holds the power and who bears the consequences.
Hope vs. Disillusionment
Participants expressed a longing for systems that work and people within them who care, yet many also confessed to feeling disillusioned—by past traumas, by failed reforms, or by the persistence of harm. Hope was not framed as naïve optimism, but as a choice to stay engaged, even while acknowledging deep mistrust and grief.
Systemic Blame vs. Individual Goodness
A recurring tension emerged between condemning the system and believing in the goodness of individuals within it. Participants spoke of officers they trusted and moments of genuine protection, even as they critiqued structural failures. This created a dual awareness: that individual actors can hold integrity even within deeply flawed institutions.
Silence vs. Visibility
Many stories centered around what goes unseen or unsaid—trauma ignored, bias unacknowledged, pain silenced. Yet the process itself brought those experiences to light, creating visibility for emotions and truths that often remain hidden. The conversation highlighted how silence can be both protective and harmful, and how breaking that silence can be equally healing and exposing.
Justice vs. Efficiency
The group questioned whether public safety systems were designed to deliver justice or simply to process bodies through bureaucratic efficiency. Policing was described as the “dam at the end of the stream,” catching what education and social care systems failed to address. This tension exposed how often quick fixes replace deeper investments in equity and care.
Bystander vs. Helper
The metaphor of the “helper” emerged as a counterpoint to the passive bystander. Participants wrestled with the role of inaction—both personally and systemically—and emphasized the moral responsibility to intervene, protect, and repair. This multarity revealed how safety often depends not just on institutions, but on whether individuals choose to see and act.
Belonging vs. Outsiderness
There was an underlying struggle around identity—about who gets to belong within systems of public safety and who remains perpetually on the outside. Participants who had worked closely within law enforcement spaces still felt questioned or distrusted. At the same time, they recognized their own distance from communities most harmed by those systems. Belonging, it seemed, was both a desired outcome and a source of tension.
OVERFLOW
We invite you to click on the images below to view them larger. As you explore these additional images, consider the conversations that may have shaped them. What moments, insights, or tensions do you recognize? Where do you find traces of yourself and your own story within them?
First Impressions
What drew your attention first when looking at these piece?
How might this symbology connect to something you’ve experienced during the session?
Exploring Meaning & Symbolism
What symbols or metaphors stand out to you? What meanings might they hold?
How might this symbology connect to something you’ve experienced during the session or the conversation today?
How does this piece help us think differently or more deeply about the theme we're exploring?
Personal Resonance & Reflection
Which emotions does this symbology evoke for you?
Does this symbology/art shift your perspective on the issue we’re discussing? How?
How do you see yourself or your experiences reflected in the piece?
Dialogue & Group Reflection
How might someone from a completely different perspective interpret this artwork?
Where do you see points of unity or tension within this piece?
If this artwork could speak, what might it be asking or telling us as a community?
Moving Beyond Polarization
What symbols or elements in this piece illustrate the complexity of our issue?
How could reflecting on this symbology/art help us build greater empathy or understanding across divides?
In what ways might this symbology/art represent a Multarity—multiple truths existing simultaneously?
Towards Collective Insight
What new questions does this piece invite us to consider together?
How can the insights we gain from these symbols inform our next steps or actions as a group?
What wisdom do these symbols offer us about finding common ground or deeper connection?
FOR YOUR CONISDERATION
First, thank you—for your stories, your reflections, your honesty, and your trust. The vulnerability and wisdom shared in this space are not taken lightly, and we are deeply honored to have held this conversation with you.
As our conversation about public safety made clear, complexity is not the obstacle—it’s the invitation. What follows are two paths forward: one, ways 21CP might deepen this work in partnership with The Multarity Project; the other, ways to carry these insights forward independently. Both are grounded in what emerged during this session: the need for deeper listening, shared language, and structures that honor human truth.
Ways to Partner with The Multarity Project
We offer the following opportunities to extend this work through creative collaboration, symbolic strategy, and facilitated engagement.
1. Facilitate a Multarity Session with a Broader Cross-Section of Stakeholders
Invite officers, community leaders, policy makers, youth, and those directly impacted by public safety systems to participate in a facilitated session using the Multarity framework. This can surface deeper layers of understanding across divergent roles and lived realities—and uncover where shared ground might emerge.
2. Develop a Visual Listening Report or Public Exhibit
Translate this work into a public-facing artifact: a curated set of images, quotes, and interpretive text from the session. This can be used internally for reflection or externally to build transparency and empathy in the broader conversation around safety and reform.
3. Co-create a Symbol-Based Training Module for Officers or Facilitators
Use the symbols developed in this session—like The Wall That Listens, The Archive of Unheard Stories, or The Ledger of Impact—to create training materials that invite emotional literacy and reflective leadership. These could be short modules designed for roll call briefings, onboarding, or community co-learning.
4. Partner on Narrative Research or Story-Based Data Collection
Work with The Multarity Project to collect and interpret qualitative insights (stories, metaphors, memory fragments) from both officers and community members. This can build a fuller picture of how safety is experienced across boundaries and help reimagine how impact is measured.
5. Design a Long-Term Cultural Strategy for Holding Multarities in Public Safety
Collaborate to build out a long-view roadmap: not just about engagement tactics, but about embedding complexity-honoring practices across your leadership structure, communications, and reform work. This might include thought partnership, symbolic campaigns, and embedded facilitation during high-stakes transitions or crises.
6. Customized Process
Our team can customize a Multarity journey for your distinct audience(s).
Ways to Carry the Work Forward Internally
These are steps 21CP can explore and implement independently, drawn from the insights surfaced in this conversation.
1. Reframe Listening as a Strategic Practice
Consider embedding intentional listening sessions—not just as outreach, but as part of your core methodology. Community trust is often built not through statements, but through sustained, quiet presence. Make room for story before strategy.
2. Acknowledge the Emotional Weight Carried by Practitioners
Support officers, reformers, and community members in processing the emotional toll of navigating contradiction. Create spaces for grief, reflection, and shared meaning-making, not just technical debriefs.
3. Integrate Lived Experience into Policy Feedback Loops
Use insights like those symbolized in The Ledger of Impact to ensure that institutional memory reflects both procedural data and personal consequence. Consider co-authoring feedback reports with community members.
4. Use Symbolic Tools to Sustain Dialogue Beyond the Room
Bring visual metaphors—like The Wall That Listens or The Archive of Unheard Stories—into workshops and training environments. These symbols hold complexity in ways data often cannot, and they can open space for conversations that otherwise stall.
5. Redefine Safety in Language and Practice
Invite your internal and external stakeholders to co-define what “safety” means today—and what it needs to mean moving forward. This includes clarifying the difference between feeling safe and being safe, and recognizing the multiple, sometimes conflicting truths that coexist in any public space.
In our experience, when organizations are willing to hold and explore the complexities of community trust and institutional change—even in the face of seemingly intractable challenges—something powerful happens. By staying with the tension, they create conditions for deeper insight, stronger connection, and more lasting impact. It begins with care, curiosity, and the courage to keep listening.
What might shift—between us, within us, around us—if listening became not just our starting point, but a shared practice of surfacing truth in ways that make us all feel seen, heard, and ready to move forward—together?
Would you like to have a follow-up conversation?
We’d be delighted to talk more with you about Public Safety or any other direction you think you’d like to go. Please complete the form to schedule a meeting.