hello mesa each day your mesa police officers carry out their duties to protect and serve the citizens of mesa we strive for the highest level of professionalism and integrity we're proud to be part of this growing community and proud of the work we're doing mesa is now recognized as one of the safest large cities in america our part one crimes are at historic lows and our crime solving rates are above the national average those statistics are important but what's more important is whether or not we're meeting the needs and expectations of our community earlier this year the mesa police department enlisted asu's morrison institute for public policy to conduct an independent survey to let us know what you think of the work we're doing and to better understand what's important to the residents of mesa the results can also help our department define priorities and strategic objectives survey participants were asked about quality of life in mesa community policing mental health and homelessness response police contact and professionalism as well as use of force we think it's important to share the results of the survey with you here are a few highlights results of the entire survey have been posted on our website mesaazpolice.gov when it comes to quality of life in mesa on a scale of one to five almost eighty percent of respondents gave a high rating of four or five when asked to identify which of the following six issues was most concerning the largest share 56 percent identified homelessness as their top concern that was followed by human trafficking mental illness school safety crime and police use of force most respondents almost 70 percent would like mesa to address calls about mental health crisis with teams of police officers and non-police alternatives just over 58 percent indicated a preference for a joint response to homelessness however 30 percent clearly indicated they'd like to see a non-police alternative response to issues of homelessness just over 68 percent said it would help keep the community safe if police had real-time access to videos from businesses and it jumped to over 80 percent support when asked about real-time video for schools just over 93 percent believe all mesa police officers should have body worn cameras like to note here that mesa was one of the first departments in the u.s to equip all of our patrol officers with body-worn cameras almost one-quarter of respondents 22.4 percent said they had not had any experiences with the mesa police department officers for those that had contact with mesa officers 95 percent indicated that the officer sufficiently explained their actions respondents were also asked about their perceptions of officer use of force just over half respondents said mesa police officers only use the amount of force necessary to accomplish their tasks about one in five disagree when asked about overall satisfaction with the mesa police department over 68 percent expressed satisfaction or high satisfaction when it comes to priorities here's what you told us is at the top of your list the deployment of body cameras mental health response de-escalation training hiring more officers and the support of homelessness those are just some of the highlights from the survey and while there's a lot to be proud of we know there is more work to be done to be better and to serve better each and every member of this department is committed to making a positive difference in our community thank you for taking the time to watch this video and remember you can look at the entire survey on our website mesaazpolice.gov