by DeVone Boggan, CEO of Advance Peace
Public policy is too often built on the assumption that violence and crime are inevitable, that the only option is to respond to crime instead of preventing it. We need to have a system where we don’t have to respond to gun violence. We can prevent violence now by equipping urban communities most impacted by gun violence with the necessary resources and emotional intelligence to thrive in peace.
Here are two things we can do right now to prevent and reduce future gun violence in the near term and achieve sustained outcomes for the long-term:
We must deploy our resources more narrowly to achieve greater effect – we should also recognize that active firearm offenders for the most part are not frightened by the consequences of jail and/or death.
1) Invest in the recruitment, training, development and deployment of 5,200 additional civilian violence interrupters in the 100 U.S. cities most impacted by gun violence.
2) Make developmental and healing centered investments in the 0.1% that represent the individuals at the center of firearm hostilities in urban neighborhoods.
I was the Neighborhood Safety Director for the City of Richmond California from 2007 to 2016 charged with reducing firearm assaults and associated injury and death. I learned firsthand that the realities that produce persistent gun violence in U.S. urban neighborhoods are not irreparable. We can create public and community-based infrastructure in our most impacted cities that will increase opportunity, advance harm reduction, diminish trauma, and strengthen public safety. We can do this right now.
Consider the following realities:
• The perpetration of gun-related assaults is often carried out by predictable people.
• In urban areas, a small number of recidivist violent offenders are typically responsible for the majority of gun violence.
• This small group of violent offenders are rarely prosecuted for the firearm crimes that they are suspected of having committed.
• This small group of violent offenders are rarely deterred by the threat of punishment and/or death.
• 10,258 murders in 2019 were committed by a firearm.
• 186,078 non-fatal injury producing firearm assaults occurred in 2019.
• 50 U.S. cities account for a significant level of firearm related murders.
Local capacity to effectively provide needed services and supports that can deliver optimal outcomes with violent offenders and the communities impacted by them is limited:
• This small group of violent offenders are rarely if ever engaged in a healthy and proactive way by any public or community-based system of care.
• Services, supports and opportunities deemed attractive, legitimate and credible by violent offenders are in short supply.
• The failure of the current system to adequately engage those at the center of firearm hostilities means they are likely to live with unaddressed trauma, which creates the potential for committing future crimes. Providing quality services, supports and opportunities for this population is not only an ethical necessity, but also a matter of public safety.
Violence often arises out of inequitable structures:
• Immediate, intentional and long-term investment in life-affirming opportunities within urban communities is necessary for any positive change to be sustained.
• Immediate and intentional investment in infrastructure that provides dedicated resources and focused attention on those at the center of firearm hostilities is critical for the health and well being of our most impacted neighborhoods.
• The person most likely harmed by violent crime is a 16-to-24 year old man of color. Yet they are virtually unrepresented among victim services and the voices of victims whose experiences shape our policy priorities.
The Costs of Gun Violence is exorbitant:
• Gun Violence costs the US $229 billion annually.
• Every murder cost tax-payers millions of dollars.
• The human costs of gun violence are beyond our ability to comprehend.
Invest in Violence Interrupters
There are proven, practical and cost-effective solutions to prevent gun violence in the U.S. As our cities experience a rise in shootings it underscores the urgency of moving resources to where they can be most effective in producing safety. Communities impacted by gun violence have indispensable expertise about what produces safety, what constitutes accountability, and what facilitates healing. We must act now on opportunities to invest in the wisdom, power, and engagement of the people whose lives and communities are most at stake. Community-driven gun violence prevention models are available and proven to work. These are essential and complimentary practices that will increase public safety.
During my tenure in Richmond, California, I was charged with building a non-law enforcement organization and team within city government that would help reduce the epidemic rates of firearm assaults the city was facing. One of the first things the city allowed me to do was hire formerly incarcerated residents with gun charges in their backgrounds as full-time fully vested city employees.
I have come to appreciate that unless and until law enforcement can remove violent actors from the streets, we must have infrastructure in place prepared to provide services and support to these individuals with the capability of helping them to change their destructive behaviors on their own.
It was important to our success that we identify former offenders who had invested in their own growth and development and could demonstrate personal transformation. We not only wanted these individuals to survive the rigidity and skepticism of government, but to thrive in it and perform at a high level. We also needed them to be both credible on the streets with violent offenders and also be a healthy model of transformation for them to follow. These individuals would be placed in a new city classification with the job title of “Neighborhood Change Agent” and charged with working in the neighborhoods within the city most impacted by cyclical and retaliatory gun violence.
These Violence Interrupters provide a constant and visible presence in our most vulnerable neighborhoods. They are trained conflict mediators, de-escalation experts and violence interventionists who prevent future shootings. They are the “credible messengers” that provide the legitimate authority and positive influence so often missing from the lives of violent offenders. Violence Interrupters are effective life coaches who provide the dedicated attention and focused engagement required to effectively develop trust and create protective relationships with a population resistant to change and chronically unresponsive to and skeptical of often sudden and unsolicited help and support directed there way.
Of the four initial Neighborhood Change Agent hires in early 2008, three remain with the city today and one became the next director of the organization (2020). During my tenure as Neighborhood Safety Director, these city employed Violence Interrupters helped the community reduce gun violence by nearly 70%. Those reductions have increased and are being sustained to date (2019).
Like most things that generate any level of success, it’s often fundamentally about the quality of the people involved. I believe we often leave untapped a large pool of quality human resources within our society that can play a significant role in delivering legitimate authority to those at the center of a community’s firearm hostilities. Legitimate authority can change behaviors. Residents with a common lived experience with those they are working to help change, who are also committed to the mission of ending gun violence within a community have proven to deliver amazing results.
Formerly incarcerated community members and former military personnel know what it’s like to live and work in a warzone. They understand harm and trauma in ways that very few do. With the appropriate training and development, these are community assets ripe for serving as violence interrupters and making intentional contributions that produce sustained reductions in gun violence in our most impacted neighborhoods. Recent studies by the Vera Institute and the New York Times found that in several large cities, less than 2% of all 911 police calls for service are related to serious violent crimes. The move to expand investment towards increasing the “boots-on-the-ground” in this space, this way is timely and crucial. I am frequently reminded that those closest to the problems are often closest to the solutions but also farthest from required power and resources.
All violence is local. Local policymakers must delicately struggle against proclivities that would place limits on investing in solutions that could perhaps effectively tackle the city’s most difficult challenge. In Richmond, we got it right.
Gun violence costs the US $229 billion annually. By investing a small fraction of that amount, we could deploy nearly 5,200 robustly trained and high functioning gun violence interruption experts into our most impacted neighborhoods. Doing so now would save thousands of lives and increase the health, safety and economies of these important communities. In Sacramento, California, for example, for every dollar the city invested this way to increase public safety an estimated $18 to $41 “peace dividend” was returned to the city.
Focus on Offenders
Make developmental and healing centered investments in the 0.1% that represent the individuals at the center of firearm hostilities in the 100 U.S. cities most impacted by cyclical and retaliatory gun violence.
There is often a gap between “anti-violence” programming and those most affected by gun violence (victims, perpetrators, and potential perpetrators). Not appreciating and responding adequately to this gap can mean that high rates of gun violence persist at unacceptable levels. Rather than treating symptoms of gun violence, we must do a better job at going straight to its cause: suspected “active firearm offenders.” Many anti-violence programs offer some combination of services, community shaming, and even threats of prosecution to a broader group of gang affiliates. In contrast, we must deploy our resources more narrowly to achieve greater effect – we should also recognize that active firearm offenders for the most part are not frightened by the consequences of jail and/or death.
At Advance Peace we help interested cities provide a dedicated system of personalized and persistent support focused on an established number of high-risk individuals at the center of gun violence. I have visited many cities impacted by cyclical and retaliatory gun violence. What most of them have in common beyond being impacted by rates of gun violence 5-10 times the national average is a reality that many of the violent actors thought to be involved have not been and quite possibly will never be prosecuted for their suspected acts of gun violence. Many of these same violent actors will shoot, injure and/or kill multiple times before they come to their own tragic demise, often at the hands of another who is on a similar violent path.
Another reality I’ve experienced firsthand in cities where Advance Peace has launched its Peacemaker Fellowship® is that most violent offenders are not being engaged and/or helped by any other public or community-based system of care. This is also true for 97 percent of those enrolled in the Peacemaker Fellowship®.
I have come to appreciate that unless and until law enforcement can remove violent actors from the streets, we must have infrastructure in place prepared to provide services and support to these individuals with the capability of helping them to change their destructive behaviors on their own. By providing positive, healthy and responsive supports and opportunities to violent actors who otherwise avoid law enforcement’s reach, we can save lives and reduce the life altering trauma experienced by people living in these communities and by the service providers who support them (including law enforcement).
In the face of persistent and extremely high rates of gun violence, trauma and neighborhood chaos, a real opportunity lies in facilitating assistive and corroborative self-transformation. I am convinced that we cannot successfully reduce/end gun violence in impacted communities without directly engaging and helping violent offenders to stop offending. Unless we effectively utilize proven approaches that can touch and transform the heart and soul deeply of those at the center of firearm hostilities, they will continue to fade away. Improving the wellbeing of these “hardened” and very vulnerable individuals will birth powerful transformation within their communities. We must rethink our positions about crime and safety in urban neighborhoods impacted by gun violence and employ innovative strategies that can better secure healthier, safer and more just results. Community health and safety is most likely to be improved when the focus of change starts with a willingness to directly engage those who are most at-risk for either committing or suffering from the harm we want to prevent.
The work I speak of delivers hope and can inspire in one who has lost his way a stronger desire to live. With this desire, healthier decisions can be made that can change one’s life and thereby create the conditions that help to transform a city.
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DeVone Boggan is Chief Executive Officer at Advance Peace. Advance Peace works to provide transformative opportunities to likely offenders and/or victims of cyclical and retaliatory gun violence in U.S. urban neighborhoods. Advance Peace equips urban neighborhoods most impacted by gun violence with the emotional intelligence necessary to thrive in peace.
