Louisville
Mayor Greg Fischer and United States Attorney Russell Coleman joined community leaders, police, members of the city’s business and non-profit community, Metro Council and the state today to announce a new approach to violence prevention in Louisville that works by directly engaging those most intimately involved in and affected by violence.
Called Group Violence Intervention (GVI), the approach leverages an intentional collaboration among law enforcement, social service providers and community members, who collectively co-sign and deliver the anti-violence message.
A basic tenet of the model is that many neighborhoods have had long and negative experiences with harmful and unequal treatment by the criminal justice system. In these areas, residents don’t feel protected by law enforcement – rather, they feel historically overpoliced and under-protected. GVI is an explicit departure from this, starting with recognition that a community is fundamentally healthy and resilient, and a new approach is necessary to keep every member of the community alive and free.
Developed by Professor David M. Kennedy of the John Jay College of Criminal Justice in New York City, the success of GVI hinges on the partnership’s ability to correctly and effectively deliver the message that everyone needs and deserves to be safe; there is a very small number of people at extremely high risk for violent victimization and violent offending; and GVI is designed to keep them safe, alive, and free.
GVI puts together an intense focus to support those at-risk residents in their daily lives, communicate community norms in support of everyone’s safety and success, and when necessary, create swift, certain, and legitimate sanctions for violence.