Perspectives of Those Impacted by Criminal Legal Approaches

In some instances, communities are too familiar with the harmful effects of policing centered responses to gun violence.^{Reference Bell32} Informed in large part by personal experiences with this issue, some members of these heavily policed neighborhoods have pursued violence reduction strategies that center positive interventions rather than criminal punishment.

The approaches Muhammad references stand in stark contrast to the policing centered strategies discussed above. These approaches center intentional investments in the wellbeing of perpetrators, victims, and the communities they come from;^{Reference Okeowo35} policing approaches seek to punish those involved in violence and leave communities to deal with the repercussions of this violence^{Reference Scottek36} on their own. In addition to these investments, violence prevention programs and police can maintain contrasting goals. In response to the deaths of Tony McDade, Breonna Taylor, and George Floyd and Ahmed Arbery in 2020, Javier Lopez, a violence interventionist and public health expert with the Red Hook Initiative³⁷ recently commented on this very distinction: “The brothers and sisters doing violence interruption work have an aversion to holding a firearm. That's because it's not war for us. It's peacekeeping.”^{Reference Barton38}

Several organizations implementing models centered on positive interventions like those supported by Muhammad are led by people of color — Black and Latinx individuals in particular — using a public health approach. The central tenants of a public health approach can roughly be described as those that treat violence as an epidemic similar to communicable diseases recognizing that both the victim and the perpetrator are impacted by violence because of their direct experiences with harm and attempts to provide resources to both groups to prevent future violence.^{Reference Slutkin39}

People of color across the country have created organizations focused on addressing gun violence through this lens. The Cure Violence model represents one example. Mostly led by Black and Latinx people from directly impacted communities, all Cure Violence organizations incorporate the same three core goals: “(1) to “detect and interrupt potentially violent conflicts”; (2) to provide personal support to the highest-risk individuals; and (3) to “[m]obilize the community to change norms.”⁴⁰ Chico Tillman, a current Ph.D. Candidate in criminology at the University of Illinois at Chicago, works with Cure Violence in Chicago. Tillman argues that the success of the program is grounded in the fact that it is led and implemented by directly impacted people of color like him.

Research has shown that in cities with 100,000 residents, the addition of every 10 organizations focusing on crime and community vitality results in a 9 percent reduction in the murder rate, a 6 percent reduction in the violent crime rate, and a 4 percent reduction in the property crime rate.^{Reference Sharkey, Torrats-Espinosa and Takyar42} And when the Chicago branch of Cure Violence — formerly known as Cease-Fire^{Reference Eversley43} — first began its operations in the West Garfield Park neighborhood in 2000, it experienced a 67 percent reduction in shootings.^{Reference Chamberlin44}

Despite this success, the support given to these programs is inconsistent and under frequent attack. Some of the obstacles to implementing these strategies stem directly from our overreliance on police. For example, regional Safe Streets Baltimore offices — another violence prevention program that relies on community intervenors to help prevent gun violence — have been repeatedly suspended, often the result of an office's refusal to give confidential information gained through violence-interruption work to the police.^{Reference George and Fenton45} And while the program has yielded shortterm reductions in violence, recent evaluations present mixed findings regarding its long-term success.^{Reference Webster, Buggs and Crifasi46} Researchers note, however, that cities like Chicago, Philadelphia, and New York — a city where local officials and foundations have provided significant support financially with services for high risk individuals engaged by outreach staff — have experienced positive long-term reductions in gun violence.⁴⁷ The experiences of these cities, and New York in particular, suggests that increased investment in programs like Safe Streets — resulting in changes such as higher and consistent salaries for community intervenors, more staff dedicated to a given region, and better collaboration with other community-based organizations — may produce meaningful reductions in gun violence in their communities.⁴⁸

Cities, states, and local governments continue to invest billions of dollars in policing while successful programs like these continuously fight to sustain their funding.^{Reference Anderson49} In some cities, per capita police spending ranges from $318 to as high as $772, with cities like Oakland dedicating as much as 41.2 percent of their general fund expenditures to police.⁵⁰

This reliance on police, however, is beginning to lose its stronghold. Fatimah Loren Muhammad, Executive Director of the Health Alliance for Violence Intervention, an organization focused on fostering hospital and community collaborations to advance equitable, trauma-informed care for violence intervention and prevention programs,^{Reference Fischer51} noted exactly this.

Calls for new approaches to violence in communities throughout the country continue to gain support. In response to the weeks of protests against police killings of numerous Black individuals in the first half of 2020, elected officials have begun to embrace the idea of cutting police budgets and reinvesting in community-based programs.^{Reference Kight and Hart53} Some have supported the dismantling of their city's police department in exchange for investments in community-led public safety initiatives.^{Reference Andone, Maxouris and Campbell54} As the movement to reduce police budgets continues to grow, stakeholders should look to the kinds of programs described here as targets for investment.

Federal Agencies and Institutions

Federal agencies should use their power to allocate adequate funding for public health focused community interventions on gun violence. Agencies should support federal allocation of funding for local strategies such as Advance Peace,⁵⁵ Hospital Based Violence Intervention,⁵⁶ and Cure Violence.⁵⁷ These programs have demonstrated their success and, consequently, receive some resources from local or state agencies. Yet, additional funding is necessary to expand and sustain their progress.

For fiscal year 2020, Congress allocated funds for gun violence research and other appropriations in the Commerce, Justice, Science appropriations bill. The allocation includes: $25 million for gun violence research at the Centers of Disease Control (“CDC”), the National Institutes of Health (“NIH”), and Community Investments, $8 million for community-based violence prevention grants, $17 million for place-based, data-driven, community-oriented, and cost-effective solutions to violent gun crime, and $8 million for the Children Exposed to Violence program, early intervention strategies that address and treat children's exposure to trauma and violence.⁵⁸ This allocation of funds is a first step in providing research and agency level support to evidence-based solutions in communities of color. But it is not enough to sustain the success of these programs.

In addition to supporting evidence-based solutions to reduce gun violence, Congress should also set forth a comprehensive agenda that provides consistent funding for research, data, and innovation addressing other forms of violence that impact communities of color. Annual CDC data also shows the rise of suicides by firearms,⁵⁹ but there is a dearth of research about suicide rates in communities of color. The same can be said for research regarding rates of interpersonal gun violence against people of color with intersecting^{Reference Crenshaw60} marginalized identities.^{Reference Crenshaw, Ocen and Nanda61} In Congress, the focus of funding opportunities for domestic violence and guns rely on punitive interventions.⁶² These carceral measures do not take into account the needs of evidence based prevention strategies that can help empower communities to prevent violence before it starts.

Additionally, there should be greater coordination among administrative offices, Congress, and heads of agencies should work together to pool resources from diversified pools of long-term funding. While traditional gun reform measures have been on legislative agendas for decades, the voices of communities of color have failed to be included.^{Reference Barton63}

State and Local Government Institutions

In states across the country, lawmakers are providing blueprints for change through legislation. For many of these states, their programs have not been defined as criminal justice reform yet are traditionally intertwined with legislative efforts to reduce crime, prison reform, and mass incarceration. It is important to note that while these issues intersect, having standalone legislation to address gun violence intervention and prevention — ensuring that resources and attention are directed to these programs specifically — is critical.

California Governor Gavin Newsom signed into law the California Violence Intervention and Prevention (CalVIP) grant program, which provides competitive matching grants for cities and community-based organizations to implement effective programs designed to interrupt entrenched cycles of shootings and retaliation.⁶⁴ The legislature is also supporting AB 1603, which authorizes the CalVIP grant program by statute and strengthens the program by removing low caps on grant awards, requiring prioritization of grants from communities with the highest rate and number of shootings and homicides, and requiring prioritization of programs targeted at individuals at highest risk of being victims or perpetrators of violence.⁶⁵ Sustained funding, however, would allow CalVIP to improve its current operations and expand to other areas in the state.

In 2019, the New Jersey legislature passed the Create and Fund the New Jersey Violence Intervention Program (NJVIP). This legislation addresses homicide reduction and interpersonal violence and is modeled after effective state grant programs in Massachusetts and New York. Through this program, the state will provide competitive multi-year grants to cities and non-profit organizations implementing effective, evidence-based violence intervention initiatives. In addition, the legislature created the Hospital-Based Violence Intervention Program Initiative to interrupt these cycles of violence by working with gunshot patients in and after their admission to the hospital. The program also requires the state's victim counseling service centers to create new partnerships with hospital trauma centers to connect gunshot patients with violence prevention programs.⁶⁶ Programs like these should be replicated in states throughout the country, and led by the organizations and organizers from the communities that are directly impacted.

In 2018, the Maryland legislature established the Maryland Violence Intervention and Prevention Program Fund (MDVIP) to invest and fund evidence-based public health approaches to gun violence prevention. MDVIP provides financial support to local governments and community-based organizations that use public health principles and demonstrate positive outcomes in preventing gun violence. It also established a council, anchored by the Director of the Governor's Office of Crime Control and Protection, to oversee the distribution of the funding and to review the efficacy of gun violence prevention programs.⁶⁷ Funding for MDVIP supported organizations that rely on the expertise of Black leaders on the frontlines of preventing gun violence utilizing HVIP and Cure Violence programs like ROCA and Safe Streets Baltimore. Again, these programs have been impactful, but are simply the first step towards meaningfully addressing gun violence in communities of color. Without funds from the state, these local organizations struggle to meet metrics and evaluations needed to help save lives.^{Reference Lierman and Winfield68}

State, county, and local governments should work with health departments, hospitals, schools, universities, and non-profits to (1) share data on all forms of violence, (2) identify protocols for screenings and referrals, (3) develop and enhance programs and policies to prevent and reduce violence in communities of color, and (4) use data to continuously increase the efficiency and effectiveness of these efforts. In cities like Louisville, where Breonna Taylor was shot and killed by law enforcement, Anthony Smith from Cities United is one of the voices calling for consistent funding into preventing violence versus policing: “We value and lean so much on law enforcement and, as a city, that hurt us,” Smith said. “We've not been as imaginative and understanding of what it really takes to keep a community safe.”^{Reference Loosemore69}

In June, New York City started to move in the direction with a $10 million additional allocation of city funds for place-based public health approaches, including support for evidence-based programs like Life Camp led by Erica Ford, that has consistently shown dramatic reductions in violence.^{Reference Hu70}

Philanthropic Institutions

While philanthropic partners have helped create support systems for advocates working on the issue of gun violence, they alone cannot stop the bleeding. Funders can take a multi-year approach to not only help support the leadership of people of color, but also help to fill gaps that direct government services cannot reach. While funding direct services is critical, helping to support other forms of civic engagement can help grow the field of advocates of color who are in positions of leadership working to reduce gun violence. Unfortunately, few organizations led by Black or Latinx organizational leaders are fully funded on the local level.”^{Reference Daniels71}

Refujio “Cuco” Rodriguez, Program Officer for the Hope and Heal Fund⁷² spoke about the necessity of funding gun violence prevention work through philanthropy.

However, in contrast to many philanthropic organizations focused on gun violence prevention, some foundations and companies are beginning to invest directly into Black and Latinx groups doing this work. In June, Google.org gave a $500,000 donation to the Marsha P. Johnson Institute, an organization focused on the exclusion of Black transgender women in social justice issues, including gun violence. Elle Hearn, head of the organization, noted how important contributions like these are. “The donation will strengthen our direct cash assistance program, which is empowering individuals to secure housing, healthcare, and other essential supports during this time. Black Trans women are too often forgotten by our society, and with Google.org's help we're giving them the support they need.”⁷⁴ The Langeloth Foundation provides yet another example. According to Scott Moyer, President of the foundation, their recent $10 million donation to people of color led organizations is a direct result of the need for policy change in communities of color.^{Reference Rojc75} Until more organizations follow similar approaches, the resources available to gun violence prevention programs led by communities of color will remain unstable.