The first role of any government is to provide for the safety of its citizens.

What is good and possible in a society springs from the shared sense that we won’t be victims in our homes and on our streets.

If a city doesn’t feel safe, it can’t grow and prosper.

Right now, too many people in Dallas are scared that the city is slipping backward when it comes to crime. That includes petty crime like shoplifting and stealing from porches to the spike in murders that is haunting the city as it terrorizes the transgender community.

What we need now are reassurances from law enforcement leaders that they understand how crucial it is that victims will come first, that perpetrators will be served justice and that cops and prosecutors will be given the support and resources they need to do their jobs.

What’s worrisome is that this isn’t the tone we have heard from law enforcement leaders in recent months, even as residents from every corner of the city have worried publicly about their neighborhoods feeling less safe, about police not responding quickly to calls and about the sense that crime just isn’t something we take that seriously in Dallas anymore.

The district attorney, John Creuzot, is passionate about criminal justice reform and about reducing the numbers of incarcerated people in the county jail.

He has drawn headlines for his assurance that he won’t prosecute minor marijuana crimes or thefts of less than $750 for what he called items of necessity.

We appreciate Creuzot’s passion for seeing fewer people incarcerated. But we are concerned with reforms that place less burden for a crime on the person responsible than they do on society at large.

That is what was so disturbing about Police Chief U. Renee Hall’s misstatement during a news conference Monday about the increase in murders in the city.

Hall said, people in Dallas “who have returned from prison who can't find a job, who are not educated so in those instances” have been “forced to commit violent crimes.”

The chief quickly clarified her comment and promised justice for the killers. And she shouldn’t be condemned for a single extemporaneous statement under the camera lights.

But she also emphasized that the city “can’t arrest its way out of crime.”

This is a common phrase in criminal justice reform that has some validity insofar as a society has to build up opportunity for all people.

But the phrase also risks becoming a warped cliche that excuses law enforcement from its most important role. People who do bad things need to be held accountable, both as justice for society and victims and as a deterrence to potential criminals.

The irony here is that even as Dallas experienced a remarkable period of declining crime, we saw a correlating drop in jail population figures. In December 2017, the jail population fell to 4,893 inmates, its lowest level in decades.

In March of this year, the figure was even lower, at 4,805.

Enforcing the law and ensuring the city is safe does not mean we are just locking people up.

But it does mean our law enforcement leaders’ first focus and public priority is the delivery of justice to criminals.

That is the expectation of good governance, and the city can accept nothing less.