A national network of public safety organizers who can build power in poor, Black and Brown communities separate from gun control efforts is needed to expand community violence intervention (CVI) efforts nationwide.
So argues a new report issued by the Square One Project, a criminal justice reform effort based at Columbia University's Justice Lab. The report was written by Antonio Cediel of Live Free USA, a national organization seeking to end gun violence and mass incarceration
Cediel argues that, "there are already-established models for CVI organizing, but insufficient paid organizers to fill the need in the cities where gun violence is most rampant."
He contends that, "Starting in the 50 cities with the highest homicide rates, full-time organizers could be paired with CVI practitioners and technical assistance providers in order to help build powerful bases of support for the creation of full CVI ecosystems.
"This would not only shift local power in those cities, but would fuel state and national coalitions of grassroots advocates. Staffing two full-time organizers in 50 cities would cost about $10 million per year and could be the tip of the spear in unlocking billions of local, state, and federal dollars for CVI."
The report was issued as the Square One Project held a forum in Washington, D.C., on Wednesday discussing communtity violence programs.
At the event, Assistant Attorney General Amy Solomon of the Justice Department's Office of Justice Programs said that the Biden administration had allocated more than $200 million in community violence intervention aid to 76 cites, including some of the "hardest-hit neighborhoods."
Solomon said DOJ is awarding "microgrants" to small local organizations that ordinarily would not have the expertise to apply for major federal funding, grants that typically involve under $500,000.
Federal grants also are emphasizing the need for "racial justice" as part of a "fundamental reimagining of public safety," which aligns with the goals of the Square One Project, Solomon said.
In his report, Cediel contends that the current CVI model should get bipartisan support, because it "actually checks off most of the boxes for GOP policymakers."
He emphasized separating CVI from gun control, noting that many conservatives argue that gun restrictions "penalize law-abiding gun owners for the crimes of a small portion of irresponsible gun owners" and make "law-abiding citizens defenseless against general criminality and the heightened levels of violence that exist in our society."
"Without the political baggage of a gun control agenda, CVI neatly addresses all of these concerns," Cediel argues, pointing out that working "alongside law enforcement, CVI helps to significantly reduce community violence thereby making law-abiding citizens safer while simultaneously easing the load for an overly-extended police force."
His report says that many of the cities with the highest homicide rates are in the Midwest and the South where CVI is at some of its earliest stages of development: places like Detroit, Birmingham, and Jackson, Miss., have historically failed to make major public CVI investments."
Cediel concludes that, "Inner-city grassroots movements (and untethered from gun control groups) could potentially begin to unlock CVI dollars in Republican-led states or a Republican-dominated Congress. Currently, at least half the states in the country are Republican-led and have little chance of passing laws restricting firearms; that means that for much of the country, CVI is the only real statewide solution for dramatically reducing gun violence."
He says, "The nightmare scenario for many CVI practitioners and advocates is that, in the next few years, a poorly-funded and poorly-supported field will fail to produce results, and in turn, public officials will sour on the potential and promise of CVI. To avoid this fate, we must quickly re-orient the ways that we advocate for gun violence prevention so that public safety in our most impacted neighborhoods can truly become community-based and community-led."
The report says a central element of CVI is based on the idea that a small number of individuals in any given community are at highest risk for shooting others or being shot. Those people "require tailored outreach and engagement. Virtually every version of CVI includes direct street outreach and some versions include direct engagement by hospital-based or law enforcement staff. As the field has evolved, this has also included a widening range of wraparound services which—beyond interrupting imminent acts of violence—help ensure that potential shooters can gradually shift more permanently toward non-violent lifestyles."