Community Violence Intervention Works, with the Right Support. So Let’s Support It.

In the past 18 months, the public health crisis from COVID-19 has mercilessly exacerbated another public health crisis in America: gun violence. In the past year alone, the number of homicides and shootings with guns rose by at least 25 percent, and 2021 is on a similarly tragic course.

As a public health researcher and leader of the country’s largest community development organization, we urgently call for locally-led, anti-racist approaches to stop the shots that have raged through our communities for years.

Research – and real life – clearly shows that gun violence is a localized epidemic fueled by trauma, neglect, and deprivation, and, like COVID-19, hits some Americans far more severely than others. It is part of our country’s legacy of structural racism. It doesn’t flare up by accident. It focuses on very small social networks in demarcated geographic areas, almost all of them in places with a high poverty rate, where people of color are segregated and have limited access to basic livelihoods such as stable housing, good schools, adequate health care and living jobs.

One act of armed violence can easily lead to another and circulate within communities with devastating consequences. Just being part of a social network that has seen a gun murder increases the likelihood that a young person will become a victim of gun violence by 900 percent. Exposure to gun violence as a victim or witness doubles the likelihood that a person will commit an act of violence in the next two years. Traumas, especially childhood traumas, play an important role in this tragic dynamic.

Firearm homicides are the leading killer of black boys and men and the second leading cause of Latino boys and black women. This has been the case for at least three decades.

Yet at a crucial moment we find ourselves in the ability – and the will – of our country to do something about it.

Over the past two decades, a number of promising trauma-informed grassroots violence reduction strategies have emerged, collectively known as interventions against community violence. Their common denominator is that they are shaped and carried out by parishioners whose own life experiences give them trust and credibility with their neighbors. Recognizing the extraordinary potential of these models to be effective over the long term, the Biden administration has allocated US $ 5.2 billion to community violence intervention programs, a historic first.

Community violence intervention takes a curative, health-care approach to break the cycle of harm. People who are relatable and understand the problem firsthand intervene in high-risk situations in order to de-escalate conflicts and connect people with services such as psychosocial counseling, financial support, more stable living conditions, professional and qualification measures and employment opportunities.

They also provide mentoring and peer support, helping participants navigate life with trusted and caring counselors by their side. Programs range from small local groups started by parents of murdered children like Not Another Child and Mothers / Men Against Senseless Killings (MASK) to large, inclusive groups like LIFE Camp, Inc. and READI Chicago. These groups, and dozens of others like them, were born out of urgency, pain, and devotion to their neighbors and their communities.

Some outreach workers work in schools helping young people at risk of violence avoid the school-to-prison pipeline, which has disproportionately long-term consequences for children of color. They can also be found in hospital trauma units, where they work with injured victims and their families to treat mental wounds and stem the cycle of retribution.

The “credible messengers” of community violence intervention programs have helped to significantly and quantifyably reduce violent victimization in places that have adopted the strategy. And with its focus on local control, empowering the voice and leadership of those most affected by violence and closest to them, and harnessing community resources to address the root causes of violence, intervention by community Violence serves as a new paradigm for the prevention of all kinds of violence and victimization.

To build on that success – and fulfill hope for potentially transformative federal investment in community violence intervention – communities need to develop their own local initiatives, and partners like us need to support their leadership and development for maximum results. We need to collectively understand the particular ingredients that can make community violence intervention powerful enough to save lives.

What we have seen is that the most promising programs are those that are based on intensive, community-based planning and where community violence intervention workers such as dedicated life-saving professionals are appropriately rewarded, trained and supported.

Take Oakland, CA, once a city with one of the highest gun death rates in the country. A city-wide commitment to intervention strategies against community violence reduced the number of homicides with firearms by a dramatic 52 percent between 2012 and 2018. These increases were largely due to collaborative and community-centered planning. The program brought together a consortium of residents, credible messengers, life coaches, case managers, therapeutic specialists, community-based organizations specializing in specific needs and researchers, as well as police and other city authorities.

Boston, Chicago, Indianapolis, New Orleans and Stockton are among the other cities where gun violence has decreased by more than 30 percent as a result of intensive community violence intervention programs.

The violence intervention forces in the community are often people who have experienced their own trauma and involvement in the criminal justice system. They lead with love for their communities. It is a very demanding and sometimes dangerous job that deserves respect and support in the form of high quality training, fair pay, social benefits, organizational capacities and infrastructure as well as professional development and growth opportunities. In fact, we believe that the success of interventions against community violence depends on it. Still, the average annual wage for community-owned violence intervention workers is between $ 35,000 and $ 45,000 a year, and overtime is rarely included. Los Angeles just raised the starting salary for frontline workers to $ 42,000, an increase from previous salaries of $ 32,000 to $ 38,000 a year.

Against this background, the social and structural determinants of security essentially overlap with the well-understood social and structural determinants of health. Communities with easy access to quality housing, education, employment, safe public spaces, and affordable, accessible physical and mental health care have predictably lower rates of chronic illness. They are very unlikely to be tormented by regular gunfire. In order to suppress this deadly epidemic in the long term, a systemic change towards racial and economic justice is required.

An immediate step we can take is to use all the resources and expertise at our disposal to help communities that are determined to act immediately to stop the spread of violence and heal one another. Lives are at stake. There is no more time to waste.

Shani Buggs is an Assistant Professor in the Violence Prevention Research Program at the University of California, Davis.

Lisa Glover is the interim CEO of Local Initiatives Support Corp, one of the largest nonprofit nonprofits in the country.

https://nextcity.org/urbanist-news/entry/community-violence-intervention-works-with-right-support-so-lets-support-it