NEW POLL: Americans Support Spending American Rescue Act Funds on Community Violence Intervention, See Violence Interrupters As Key To Reducing Gun Violence
An overwhelming bipartisan majority of Americans (76%) support using money from the American Rescue Plan to fund community violence intervention programs.
Over three-quarters of Americans (77%) support the creation of an independent office of community violence intervention at the local level that works alongside but is separate from the police department.
A bare majority of Americans (51%) would prioritize investing in community violence intervention programs even over investing in hiring more police officers when it comes to strategies for reducing gun violence.
Cities across the country continue to build community violence intervention programs, a proven strategy for reducing gun violence which has contributed to “40-70 percent reductions in violence in the hardest hit communities in the U.S.” These programs rely on trained community experts to intervene in conflicts to prevent violence before it happens, leveraging the fact that gun violence often is contagious, spreading through cycles of retaliation often between groups of people within the same social network.
Earlier this summer, President Joe Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris endorsed the evidence-based community violence intervention strategy as a key pillar of the White House’s Comprehensive Strategy to Prevent and Respond to Gun Crime and Ensure Public Safety. Critically, the American Rescue Plan makes discretionary federal funding available to local governments to implement these programs to help combat gun violence.
To better understand public opinion around community violence intervention as a tool for reducing gun violence, Safer Cities conducted a survey of 1,153 likely voters nationally using web panel respondents on the Data for Progress infrastructure. The sample was weighted to be representative of likely voters by age, gender, education, race, and voting history. The survey was conducted in English. The margin of error is ±3 percentage points.
REACTIONS:
"Law enforcement is a critical component to reducing gun violence in our cities, but police can't do it alone and community violence interruption programs are a proven method to reduce gun violence," —Diane Goldstein, Executive Director of Law Enforcement Action Partnership and retired Lieutenant in the Redondo Beach Police Department (for attribution).
"You can't have public safety without the public. Police can't do this job by themselves. Community violence intervention complements law enforcement. They are both vital for public safety," —Aqeela Sherrills, advisor to the White House Community Violence Intervention Collaborative (for attribution).
KEY FINDINGS:
76% of Americans, including the overwhelming majority of both Democrats and Republicans, support their local public officials using dollars provided by the federal government through the American Rescue Plan to fund evidence-based community violence intervention programs.
77% of Americans, including the overwhelming majority of both Democrats and Republicans, support the creation of an independent office of community violence intervention to work alongside the police department, focusing on preventing gun violence by identifying and mediating conflicts that frequently result in shootings and murders.
After reading a brief explanation of what community violence intervention programs do, 51% of Americans would prioritize community violence intervention programs over hiring more police officers.
The same percentage of likely voters who agree that investing more in community violence intervention programs is important for reducing gun homicides (80%) as those likely voters who agree that hiring more police officers is important for reducing gun homicides (80%).
Most Americans, including the majority of both Republicans and Democrats, find the core tenets of community violence intervention programs convincing as a proposal to address gun related crimes:
66% of Americans find convincing the core premise of CVI programs, “by working with trained community leaders to identify situations that could turn deadly, violence intervention programs can effectively decrease gun violence.”
70% of Americans find convincing a core tenet of CVI programs, “providing after-school and mentoring programs for juveniles who are identified by community violence intervention experts as being at high risk of being either a perpetrator or victim of gun violence is an effective way to reduce gun violence.”
51% of Americans find convincing a core tenet of CVI programs, “finding a job for people who are identified by community violence intervention experts as being at high risk of being either a perpetrator or victim of gun violence is an effective way to reduce gun violence.”
CONCLUSIONS:
Community Violence Intervention programs are deeply popular across a broad cross-section of Americans, including both Republicans and Democrats.
Americans are not only supporters of the overall notion of community violence intervention, but also the central tenets and components of the program including mentoring programs and finding employment for those most at risk of being either a perpetrator or victim of gun violence.
Americans view community violence interruption not as a peripheral strategy for combating gun violence, but as a central solution just as important as--or even a bigger priority than--traditional policing.
There is deep and broad support among Americans for spending American Rescue Plan funds to launch and expand community violence intervention programs. Thus, local officials should feel comfortable prioritizing limited gun violence reduction dollars to scale these violence intervention programs as a mechanism for fully funding public safety as opposed to simply using available dollars to add additional police officers.
