A new report released by Austin Public Health’s Office of Violence Prevention examined Austin’s decline in violent crime between 2021 and 2025, using Austin Police Department data across 559 census block groups and mapping those trends against neighborhoods served by the city’s various CVI teams. Citywide, aggravated assault fell an average of 27% and homicide fell 12.1%, with the analysis finding the reductions were “widespread rather than isolated to a small number of areas” and no evidence that violence was simply displaced to neighboring communities. Most notably, researchers found that areas served by CVI programs experienced significantly steeper declines in both aggravated assault and homicide than areas outside their reach. The full report is worth your time, but here are some of the key findings:
- Nearly All Of Austin’s Steepest-Declining Areas Had A CVI Presence. “Of the [census] block groups with the steepest declines in crime … 97% of them had CVI programs and 93% of them were within 3 miles … of a CVI address.” Researchers also ran 1,000 simulations in which CVI presence was randomly assigned; “only 4.3%” produced a significant relationship between CVI and crime trends. The authors write that the observed pattern, “given all the spatial constraints of our datasets, cannot be explained by random chance alone,” and that their analyses provide “enough volume of signals to make this correlation worth pursuing.”
- Austin’s CVI Teams Stop Violence Before It Occurs. CVI “relies on trusted community members, often people directly impacted by violence themselves, to reach those at highest risk of committing or being harmed by it.” CVI responders “mediate conflicts before they escalate, prevent retaliation and re-victimization, and help high-risk individuals find stability through connections to counseling, housing, and employment.” In Austin, organizations have spent years “working with hundreds of at-risk youth and their families” and assisting residents with housing, employment and counseling — the kind of “durable, relationship-based work” that the report says forms “the foundation on which their crisis response capacity rests.”
- Austin Has Also Integrated CVI Teams Into Its Response To Major Shootings. After a March mass shooting killed three people and injured thirteen, outreach workers from multiple CVI teams “were called into the city’s victim’s assistance center… [which] appears to be among the first of its kind documented in the country.” The organizations “worked to tamp down unverified rumors circulating on the street, helped lower tensions, and began connecting with victims,” while the city’s Trauma Recovery Center provided crisis counseling and longer-term support. The report says the response showed how organizations could apply skills developed through years of neighborhood violence intervention “to a high-profile mass-casualty event.”
Momentum For CVI Programs Around The Country:
- New York City’s Cure Violence Programs Linked To Major Declines In Shootings And Serious Conflicts. For The Trace, Fairriona Magee reports on a study that estimated 1,300 shootings were avoided between 2012 and 2023 because of the Cure Violence model, while earlier research found gun injuries fell 37% in the Bronx and 50% in Brooklyn. Alaa Moussawi, a data scientist who co-authored the research, said the findings demonstrate that CVI programs “are something that we should be looking into and potentially investing more into.” The earlier research also found that shooting victimizations fell 63% around the Bronx’s Save Our Streets program, while areas with Cure Violence experienced a 33% decline in serious disputes, compared with 12% in areas without similar programs. John Jay College violence prevention researcher Sheyla Delgado said intervening in those lower-level conflicts can help programs “become more successful in avoiding more serious conflicts.”
- Lexington Reports 60% Drop In Gun Violence As ONE Lexington Expands Violence Prevention Efforts. NBC’s local affiliate in Lexington reports that the city is expanding its community violence intervention and prevention efforts following a 60% reduction in overall gun violence during the program’s four years of operation. Through the first seven months of 2026, the city recorded two gun-related homicides, compared with 12 during the same period last year and a four-year average of 13. City leaders credit its approach to CVI, which brings together public safety agencies, faith leaders, nonprofits, schools, survivors, businesses and community members to address violence. Representatives from Wilmington, Fort Wayne and Cincinnati have since met with the team “to learn more about Lexington’s violence prevention strategies and community violence intervention model.”
- Baltimore Safe Streets Site Passes 400 Days Without A Homicide As CVI Network Credited With Citywide Violence Declines. For WMAR 2 News, Travis Case reports Safe Streets Baltimore’s McElderry Park catchment area has gone 403 days without a homicide, the second time the site has surpassed one year without a homicide, as city leaders laud the city’s broader community violence intervention program for contributing to the success. Mayor Brandon Scott called the milestone “a testament to what is possible when we put those closest to the pain in our communities at the heart of our solutions,” adding that Safe Streets and Baltimore’s CVI ecosystem are “undoubtedly helping to drive the historic reductions in homicides and nonfatal shootings… ” The McElderry Park site recorded more than 358 successful mediations and 29 community events over the past year; across all 10 Safe Streets sites, violence interrupters intervened in more than 1,752 potentially violent conflicts last year and completed 780 successful mediations so far in 2026.
