Community violence intervention, a public health approach to preventing shootings, has been gaining traction. Last year, Everytown Community Safety Fund awarded over $2 million to 34 community-based violence intervention organizations. In 2021, The American Rescue Plan doled out $350 billion in emergency aid to cities and states to start or help support community violence intervention programs.
Community violence intervention involves working directly with at-risk communities and providing support and rehabilitation to victims and their families. The interventions generally fall into five categories: violent interrupters/street outreach, focused deterrence, cognitive behavioral support, violence reduction councils and changing risk factors in the environment.
Anti-violence strategies can inspire multiple evergreen stories. Organizations that handle these interventions can also provide journalists with additional insight into the detrimental impacts of gun violence on the community and connect them with survivors and their families.
Types of interventions
The Johns Hopkins Center for Gun Violence Solutions, a leading organization in gun violence research and prevention, breaks down community violence interventions into five categories:
- Violence interrupter programs or street outreach involve training credible community members to interrupt the cycle of retaliatory violence, connect high-risk people to social services and reshape norms around using guns. Cure Violence popularized this model. Their public health approach, according to their website, involves detecting and interrupting violent situations; identifying and changing the behavior of those most likely to engage in violence and changing group norms that support and perpetuate using violence. Hospital-based interventions also use the credible messenger approach to work with gun violence victims and their families to deter them from retaliation and connect them to social services.
- Cure Violence works nationally and internationally and is a valuable source of information on gun violence prevention.
- Press contact: cure@cvg.org
- Cure Violence works nationally and internationally and is a valuable source of information on gun violence prevention.
- Focused deterrence, or group violence intervention, involves law enforcement and community leaders partnering to identify chronic violent offenders and prevent them from engaging in future violence. Police warn people about legal action that follows an act of violence, while community leaders offer social services and support.
- Cognitive behavioral interventions with wraparound services focus on people impacted by gun violence and changing their life trajectories. Trained community leaders and criminal justice system partners both identify people who have been highly affected by gun violence. They offer cognitive behavior therapy and interventions. They also provide wraparound services like job placement, life coaching, and occasionally financial incentives. Examples include READI Chicago, Roca and Advance Peace.
- READI and Roca are both local groups. Advance Peace is a national group and a good source to contact about this violence prevention model.
- Press contact: info@advancepeace.org
- READI and Roca are both local groups. Advance Peace is a national group and a good source to contact about this violence prevention model.
- Violence reduction councils or homicide review commissions involve several stakeholders coming together to analyze firearm violence within their city. The stakeholders usually include law enforcement, community members and service providers. The council examines individual homicides and shootings to find larger system gaps and missed chances for intervention. These councils then develop policy recommendations that support people at risk of violence and address underlying risk factors.
- Changing environmental risk factors for violence involves going beyond the individual and determining which environmental factors contribute to violence. For example, large amounts of blight and vacant properties, high density of liquor stores, and poor street lighting can all contribute to gun violence; addressing them can help reduce violence.
Examples of how to cover intervention programs
- ProPublica wrote a great story about community violence intervention last year. This story does a good job of exploring the positives and the setbacks of this approach to prevention. People who manage these interventions often feel pressured to prove their worth. It’s a good reminder that no solution is perfect but is worthy of coverage and scrutiny.
- The ethos behind violence interventions is strengthening the community’s hardest hit by gunfire. Many of the stories done at The Trace cover this theme. This story from April on the Coalition to Advance Public Safety includes specific data on the success of anti-violence work.
- Also, check out this story from The Trace on how community violence programs rarely exist in rural communities, even though they’d also benefit from violence intervention. The article also presents a solution: use telehealth to help the people at risk. For example, virtual therapy appointments can help people at risk of harming themselves or others.
