Reported crime of nearly every kind has declined this year amid the pandemic. The exception to that has been stark and puzzling: Shootings and homicides are up in cities around the country, perplexing experts who normally expect these patterns to trend together.
Author: dmuhammad
Newark to divert $11M from public safety to create violence prevention programs
Newark
Newark is slated to divert about $11.4 million from the city’s $228 million public safety budget toward violence prevention programs amid a growing push from activists to defund the police after George Floyd’s death.
City council on Wednesday passed a first reading of an ordinance supported by Mayor Ras Baraka to take 5% from the city’s public safety budget to create a new Office of Violence Prevention. The office will provide social services and be located in the city’s First Precinct, which would also be repurposed into a museum under the ordinance.
The mayor said Thursday he does not want to abolish the police department, an idea that has been gaining traction after Minneapolis moved ahead with eliminating its own police without another public safety plan. Baraka said eliminating the police entirely is a “bourgeois, liberal” approach that takes away attention from reforms.
“We have all our energy focused on police, as if once you get rid of the police, so goes away white supremacy, institutional racism, poverty, all the other issues that led to this,” he told reporters. “…All of America’s institutions have the same problem that the police department has. All of them. The police just have guns.”
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Amid pandemic, city’s Peacekeepers working to keep a lid on violence
Stockton
It may seem as though violent acts such as homicides and injury shootings are picking up, and they are. But compared with other cities around the nation during this pandemic, Stockton is looking good, according to the city’s Office of Violence Prevention.
Since mid-March when the response to the COVID-19 pandemic closed schools, businesses and gathering places and ordered people to stay home, “Stockton has actually had a significant reduction in injury shootings. We looked at it and we are one of the lowest in the nation for this time period,” said Daniel Muhammad, who became the OVP’s new manager last month.
The key to that was being ahead of the game, already having its proven Peacekeepers program in place along with established partnerships with the city’s Police Department and other community partners like San Joaquin General Hospital, the county’s Human Services Agency and private nonprofit agencies.
“When the pandemic hit, we had a jump on it. We already had engagements with the highest risk individuals who are either at the highest risk for being victims of gunshot violence or at the highest risk for being the perpetrators of gunshot violence,” Muhammad said.
Before travel was restricted, other cities including Washington, D.C., New York and Mexico City sent representatives to Stockton to see how its program works. Other cities including Oakland, Seattle and Portland, Oregon, were lined up to visit but had to postpone.
“That’s the ultimate compliment for them to come to us,” Muhammad said.
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After positive results, Minneapolis looks to expand anti-violence program
Minneapolis
The success of the city’s group violence intervention strategy has prompted Mayor Jacob Frey to propose growing the program so that it can address gang violence in south Minneapolis.
Ferome Brown had once been one of north Minneapolis’ most notorious gang members, but when he was wrapping up a 44-month stay in federal prison, he came to a simple conclusion: He needed to be a better dad.
By the time he had served out a prison term in Virginia for dealing cocaine, the 27-year-old Brown had read thousands of books and studied nonprofit management — even as his friends continued his drug business back home in the Midwest. “I was in a totally different state going in [to prison],” he recalled. “I learned who I was as a person; I learned about what I was doing by selling this poison to my people.”
So after his release in 2001, Brown returned to Minneapolis’ north side with an announcement for everyone in his social circle: He was changing his lifestyle for good. “I wanted my kids to see somebody that was not just a drug dealer or gang banger,” he said.
He started a new career path: advising young gang members. Brown’s background gave him credibility in north Minneapolis, where young men and boys in gangs are often suspicious of outsiders, and he eventually co-founded the Urban Youth Conservation, a nonprofit that teaches ways to resolve feuds without guns.
Minneapolis leaders took notice of his approach. In 2016, an aide to former Mayor Betsy Hodges contacted Brown about a future full-time job at the city: outreach coordinator for a new “Group Violence Intervention” initiative, or GVI.
The idea was to field calls from gang members, provide one-on-one mentorship and be among the first people at deadly gang shootings to help untangle what had happened. Brown eventually accepted the job, and ever since he and other GVI staff members have helped de-escalate tension between groups on the north side — often about money, girlfriends or social media flare-ups — without involving Minneapolis police.
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Minneapolis names Sasha Cotton new violence prevention director
Minneapolis officials did not have to look far to find a director for the fledgling Office of Violence Prevention, picking a veteran of the city’s efforts to curb violent crime.
Sasha Cotton, who has served as the city’s youth violence prevention coordinator since 2014, will head up the new office.
Her immediate priorities include developing a strategic plan with “measurable outcomes so we can hold ourselves accountable and be transparent with the community.”
“We’re working with Cities United, a national technical assistance program to help us develop a process for community input as the first step,” Cotton said Friday via text message.
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New Office of Violence Prevention opens in LA County
Los Angeles County
Los Angeles County opened its first Office of Violence Prevention at the Martin Luther King, Jr. Center for Public Health in Willowbrook.
County leaders say the office provides a safe place for a crime victim to seek help with the trauma they’ve experienced.
The office features a healing center, designed to provide a relaxing atmosphere, as well as other programs.
“Not everybody does well with the traditional speak therapy, talking therapy,” said Beatriz Navarro, an L.A. County public health nurse. “So we have other options like drumming circles, we have art.”
The city of L.A. is a partner in the Office of Violence Prevention. The grand opening took place during an especially violent week in the city. There have been nearly a dozen murders, including the shooting death of rapper Nipsey Hussle.
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Office of Violence Prevention sees big gains from Peacekeeper program
Stockton
As homicides and nonviolent shootings in Stockton have decreased over the past year, so has the potential for gang-related violence.
The Office of Violence Prevention presented the results of its efforts during the first half of 2018 to the Stockton City Council on Tuesday night.
Under the supervision of the City Manager’s Office, the OVP works to reduce violence through outreach and partnership programs with local clergy, businesses and nonprofit organizations.
Christian Clegg, deputy city manager, presented the OVP results, highlighting its Operation Ceasefire and Peacekeeper programs.
Operation Peacekeeper, which involves mentoring youngsters and young adults with the highest risk of gang involvement, currently has six outreach workers working with as many as 10 clients each at a time.
Clegg said of Stockton’s 320,000 population, about 18,000 are involved in criminal activity or the criminal justice system.
Of that 18,000, about 320 are high-risk offenders, he said.
“So you have less than 1 percent of the city’s population, or 1 percent of the criminal population doing 70 percent to 80 percent of the violence in the community,” he said.
Clegg said 89 percent of the OVP’s clients are considered high risk, and another 7 percent are known to be associated with high-risk potential offenders.
“We carry (the 7 percent) in the caseloads because they are on the borderline and we want to keep them from becoming high risk,” he said.
Clegg said 82 percent of OVP clients have been shot at, while 40 percent have actually suffered injuries related to gun violence.
In addition, 71 percent of clients are affiliated with gangs, he said.
A typical OVP client is 26 to 28 years old, a high school dropout and affiliated with gangs. They have also been shot at or shot, Clegg said.