Should Birmingham Alabama City Create a Crime Czar Position? Mayor Open to Idea

In 2025, AL.com’s “Beyond the Violence” project, in partnership with The Birmingham Times, examines whether Birmingham can grow beyond its crime problem and become safer, healthier and happier.

It’s a word that appears three times in the Birmingham Crime Commission’s report — a word that has come to encapsulate sweeping power, and is sometimes associated with insulation from the ups and downs of politics.

Czar.

Other cities that have created such positions to oversee their public safety services show the benefits and occasional perils of the approach.

A Birmingham Crime Commission’s report in January recommended that the city create what it referred to as “a Public Safety Czar or Coordinator.” That person, according to the report, would “drive strategy, integration and execution on behalf of the Mayor regarding the police department, other departments, and external partners.”

The position also would make sure all city departments associated with public safety were working together toward a common strategy. And the coordinator should be insulated from political leadership.

Birmingham Mayor Randall Woodfin, speaking with AL.com, shied away from using the word “czar,” saying, “Titles are different.” Nevertheless, he said conversations are already going on within city departments about creating a public safety director’s position.

What would a crime czar do?

Woodfin said the office would not “be over” the police department, but would serve as a liaison between police, fire, 911, city court and other entities in and outside city government, such as how offenders reenter society.

But before anyone could be named to the post, Woodfin said he has had conversations with other cities, with an eye toward determining what that director position might look like within Birmingham’s leadership structure. Woodfin said the city is “looking all over the nation for best practices.”

“What’s the structure? What’s the job description?” Woodfin said. “All that’s in play. Once all that’s fleshed out, we go back to those departments and say, hey, tell us what this looks like, get their input.”

Examples from other cities

One model Woodfin mentioned was the City of Mobile, which has had a director of public safety for more than 30 years.

The position is currently filled by Rob Lasky and is an executive position that reports directly to Mayor Sandy Stimpson.

James Barber, currently the city’s chief of staff, has an interesting perspective on the post, as he previously served as Mobile’s police chief. He said the public safety director acts as a liaison between the city’s elected officials, departments and their department heads.

At the same time, the position oversees police and fire — the largest departments in the city — the Gulf Coast Technology Center, a digital forensic lab, and works with the city’s Office of Resilience and the Homeless Coordinator, as well as the U.S. Attorney and District Attorney’s offices.

Lasky does have supervisory authority over the police and fire chiefs, providing guidance and oversight. While the chiefs are the public faces of the departments, the public safety director takes care of administrative needs.

“The operational side is handled by the police and fire chiefs,” Barber said. “The public safety director handles budgeting and getting resources for the departments to get the job done.”

A recent example can be found in Mobile’s preparations for Mardi Gras. The public safety director ensured that law enforcement had crowd control measures, such as portable bollards, to protect the city’s entertainment district. Such measures were of particular interest after the New Orleans Bourbon Street attack on New Year’s Day, where 14 people were killed, and at least 35 people injured.

“Prevention is a big part of the job,” Barber said.

The advantages of the position, he said, is that it frees the police chief to focus on the day-to-day tactical needs of the department, relieving them of occasional political obligations while the public safety director represents the department in administrative duties.

“If you look at the departments, the police chief spends a lot of time on operations,” he said. “They’ve got homicides going on, gangs, and they’re constantly having to deal with that. The public safety director can be more strategic in getting resources, initiatives, crime prevention. You have someone in the mayor’s cabinet that can keep them apprised of high-profile cases without pulling them out of operations to come and do a briefing.”

But Lasky’s time in the post also illustrates the potential political problems of the position. Lasky got into a public spat last year with former Police Chief Paul Prine, who accused him of making derogatory comments about him in front of a subordinate police officer.

Another example employed by the Crime Commission report was St. Louis, which has had a public safety department since the 1930s. The public safety director there oversees police and fire, 911 center, jail and other departments.

“The City of St. Louis emphasized that insulating their public safety offices from political influence is a top priority,” the report stated. “Their office is actively implementing reforms to preserve continuity, regardless of changes in administration.”

However, politics finds a way of getting into the conversation, which explains the stress on “credibility” placed by the commission.

Last week, the Missouri Legislature approved a Republican-backed plan to place the St. Louis Metropolitan Police Force under state control. Republican Gov. Mike Kehoe was granted the power to appoint four city residents to be voting members of a new board to oversee the department.

Supporters say the move was in response to rising crime rates, while detractors say it was a power play by the GOP against the city’s Democratic leadership.

When Charles Coyle, a veteran deputy fire chief and fire marshal was named to the post of public safety director in 2023, he took over at a time when nearly every department under his watch was facing some kind of controversy.

According to KSDK, St. Louis' City Justice Center had just seen a rash of inmate deaths, while the city’s 911 dispatch was dealing with an employee shortage and complaints of long wait times.

Then, in December of last year, a Department of Public Safety director filed a complaint against Coyle, alleging that he made unwanted sexual advances toward her and then subjected her to unfair scrutiny after she rebuffed him.

Other cities have turned to the positions, sometimes known as “crime czars,” to tackle persistent administrative and logistical challenges with curbing violent crime.

Last year, Daniel Lurie ran for mayor of San Francisco promising a restructuring that would bring more accountability to city government. Part of that was the creation of a chief of public safety, reporting directly to the mayor.

The role was created to coordinate city departments, prioritizing community and neighborhood safety, street behavior, emergency preparedness and response. The office involves oversight of everything from adult probation and police accountability, to victim and witness rights. The public safety chief also serves as a point of contact with the sheriff’s office, district attorney and the city’s public defender.

Lurie named Paul Yep, a former commander and a 28-year veteran with the San Francisco Police Department, to the post. Yep was almost immediately hit with controversy upon being tapped for the post, as it was reported that he was named in a 2018 civil suit, accusing him of abusing his authority and intimidating a man whom he rear-ended in a traffic collision.

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