Justin knows we can do better to provide a safer community for our families.

As crime continues to rise and economic distress grows, Justin is committed to working with community members, health professionals, and law enforcement to find solutions.

It is time to shift the responsibility of mental health care away from law enforcement and toward public health professionals. Cities like Santa Fe and Albuquerque have shown that innovative solutions focused on specialized mobile units to assist in non-violent and behavioral health calls, can be successful if fully funded. It’s time to let our officers focus on actual crimes being committed and end the practice of using our jails as inpatient mental health care.

We know if we want to recruit and retain the best officers, then we need to pay our deputies properly to compete with other cities and our high cost of living. It costs the county over $600 per month to allow a deputy to commute when we should be paying them that amount as a bonus to live within our community. This will help them afford our higher housing cost, provide closer relationships with our neighborhoods, and help retain them as trusted and supported community members.