Detroit’s Police Chief Signals Strong Support For Community Violence Intervention Programs.
As deputy mayor, Todd Bettison, Detroit’s new police chief, helped launch Shot Stoppers, a program funding local organizations to prevent violence in high-crime areas. Now, as police chief, he’s committed to expanding Community Violence Intervention: “Only a fool tries to fix what isn’t broken,” Deputy Mayor Bettison said to The Detroit News, reinforcing his focus on investing in CVI’s success in the city.
Detroit’s approach is showing results, and law enforcement leaders are making it clear they respect the role of CVI. Homicides are down, and city leaders cite Detroit’s much-lauded CVI program as a key factor. Dujuan Kennedy, a CVI leader in the city, told The Detroit Free Press that Deputy Mayor Bettison “has been building relationships with those on the ground working to prevent violent crime in Detroit for over a decade…You exemplify what an officer is. You exemplify what a chief should be.”
Related. In Cleveland, University Hospitals’ violence intervention program helps young gunshot victims build a “successful recovery and decrease the incidence of future violence and injury,” as Stephen Langel detailed for Ideastream Public Media. A recent study found that before the program began, 29% of young gunshot victims were violently reinjured within a year. However, among 600+ participants, that number dropped by 10 percentage points over five years.