Introduction

To determine what recommendations, out of the 200 calls to action produced, would sit at the core of the report, the Commissioners completed a prioritization process to based on three defining principles:

Transformative: Is the policy call to action innovative? Will it create an impact or cause positive change?
Urgent: Will this policy call to action address pressing issues?
Unflinching: Does the policy present cause-driven solutions that call out core issues in the region?

These priorities were carefully chosen with opportunities for Commissioners to suggest the addition of important calls to action to assure a broad level of impact. While the signature priorities will be at the center, all calls to action produced in the process will be included in the report.

Justice for All

The events in Ferguson shone a bright, national spotlight on law enforcement and the municipal courts, not just in Ferguson, but throughout the St. Louis region. The Commission identified priority calls to action for police reform, court reform, and consolidation of police departments and municipal courts. Police reform calls to action address use of force,…

Youth at the Center

It’s impossible to know how society will change in the next few generations, and our goal was not to plan for specific contingencies. Rather, our hope was to learn from our history and our current state, to examine our current structures and systems to see which hold children back and which build them up, and…

Opportunity to Thrive

Economic mobility is defined as the likelihood that a family will move up the income ladder from one generation to the next. Unfortunately, St. Louis ranks 42nd out of the 50 largest metro areas in the country in economic mobility (Chetty, 2014). St. Louis also has significant racial economic gaps, with stark differences between the White…

Racial Equity

Lens Assessment As the overarching theme in the report, racial equity is at the heart of many of our calls to action. The calls in this section address intentional investments and practices aimed to build infrastructure and connective tissue for racial equity for work in the St. Louis region. Signature Calls to Action Indicators Create…