What To Read This Week

1. New Safer Cities Polling On Community Violence Intervention Programs

To gauge public support for Community Violence Intervention programs as part of a city’s public safety infrastructure, Safer Cities recently conducted a national survey of 2,503 registered voters. 

First, we explained that “many people know less about community violence intervention programs than they do about police departments. Most shootings and murders are not random. Gun violence is contagious, it spreads through cycles of retaliation.” Community violence intervention programs, we explained, “use trained community leaders to intervene in conflicts and prevent cycles of violence before they start.”

We then provided participants with reasons for implementing community violence intervention programs as a public safety policy that a city might consider, and then asked them to tell us “how convincing, if at all” each of those reasons are. Here are the three most persuasive arguments:

• +51 Net Effective (73% to 22%): “Most gun violence isn’t random. Instead, it often spreads through small groups of people who know each other. Community violence intervention specialists focus on these small networks likely to be a victim or perpetrator and then work to identify and de-escalate conflicts before tension boils over into gun violence."

• +50 Net Effective (72% to 22%): “Whether it’s after-school tutoring and mentoring, or a stable job, community violence interruption works by preventing people at risk of being either a victim or perpetrator of gun violence from pulling the trigger in the first place.”

• +42 Net Effective (68% to 26%): “Police officers don’t get invited inside homes and other private spaces where conflicts boil over into violence. But community violence intervention specialists do because they live in and are members of the community. Community violence interrupters get access to information about conflicts before they boil over and are credible messengers who are able to diffuse conflicts before violence erupts.”

2. Momentum For CVI Programs Around The Country

• In Lansing, Michigan, “a 52 percent decline in fatal shootings.” For The Trace, Josiah Bates reports on the success of Advance Peace, a violence intervention program established in the city in 2022, that deploys trained experts who “identify known shooters, with support from the police, and enrolls them in an 18-month fellowship… [providing participants with] mentoring, conducting skills training, and job opportunities.” The city recently published the results of a study on the program, commissioned by the Michigan Public Health Institute and Michigan State University, which found “a 52 percent decline in fatal shootings and a 10 percent decline in nonfatal shootings.” 
  
  Lansing Police Chief Rob Backus, a vocal supporter of the program, recently explained to WKAR that the program plays a unique role in the public safety infrastructure of the city: “I don’t know if there’s anybody else that can pick up that space or can pick up that work because quite frankly, it involves a lot of time and a lot of effort and a lot of resources.” The full report is here and worth reading.

• In New York City, “Community Violence Intervention Programs Cut Gun Violence by 21%.” The BKReader reports on the city’s latest data revealing that “Community-led efforts to curb gun violence in New York City have shown significant success… that the city's Crisis Management System and its Community Violence Intervention programs have reduced shootings by 21% in areas where they operate.” As the city’s report concludes, “The data show that precincts with active CVI programs experience statistically significant reductions in shootings, demonstrating that these initiatives work.” 

• In Baltimore, “City Sees Fewest Number of Homicides in First Five Months of Any Year on Record.” For WMAR News in Baltimore, Dominick Philippe-Auguste reports on the milestone writing that “compared to 2024, the city has seen a 23.6% drop in homicides and a 23.4% drop in non-fatal shootings, the fewest number of homicides in the first five months of any year on record.” Baltimore launched Safe Streets in 2007, a CVI program that takes “a public health approach [to violence] that involves utilizing ‘trusted messengers’” who are trained to help de-escalate violence before it starts. Mayor Brandon Scott, a champion of the CVI program, explained that this success stems from the “dedicated work of our community violence intervention ecosystem, BPD, and partners across the criminal justice system, homicides and shootings continue to fall… For far too long, not just here in Baltimore, but across this country, we put the full weight of reducing violence on the backs of police officers. And that was wrong,” Mayor Scott said to CBS News.

• In Arkansas, “Pine Bluff Marks 500 Days Without Juvenile Homicide Due To Community Intervention Efforts.” For ABC7 News, Scott Solomon and Cayla Christian report on city leaders crediting the Group Violence Intervention team, a local CVI program in Pine Bluff launched last year, “for the turnaround in youth violence” in the city. The program “focuses on preventing gun-related violence before it happens… [and] prioritizes prevention and intervention over punishment, aiming to disrupt the cycles that often lead young people down the path of incarceration or death,” THV11 News reports, through “conducting custom in-person visits to individuals identified as high-risk for either perpetrating or becoming victims of violence.” Now, “just over a year later, the results are speaking volumes… more than 500 days have passed without a single juvenile homicide, a milestone for a city once plagued by gun violence,” ABC7 reports.