Public Safety includes law enforcement, fire mitigation, AND mental health.

Bob supports FUNDING law enforcement. One way to provide more resources to law enforcement is to return to a robust public mental health system. Jails have become mental health facilities of last resort, which doesn't help the police, average citizen nor the people who should be involuntarily committed before they are involuntarily incarcerated for issues stemming from mental health.

Oregon recently instituted an interesting law that allows those who would not have committed a crime "but for" a mental health condition to be committed to the state mental health authorities, rather than the state correctional institutions, for the maximum sentencing period that crime could have carried. That does not mean the individual is forced into a mental health institution, but that they are monitored as if on probation and required to follow the mental health care prescribed to them.

Bob additionally supports revoking personal recognizance bonds for auto theft which was recently put in place by Colorado's legislature in a recent criminal justice reform bill (most reforms were long overdue). Auto theft, however, is a skilled crime and those who engage in it likely have done it before to learn their craft and are likely to do it again.

Allowing those arrested for auto theft to return immediately to the streets without any bail or other conditions has likely contributed to Colorado's skyrocketing auto theft rates. Auto theft is a serious crime, especially for those without the resources to afford insurance or who have insufficient funds to quickly replace the transportation they rely upon for work, medical appointments, and to take care their families. Auto theft should be treated as the serious crime that it is as it is most devastating to the most vulnerable in our population.