By Melissa Young & Nia West-Bey

On January 4, 2022, the U.S. Department of Labor issued a Training and Employment Notice providing local workforce boards, American Job Centers (AJCs), workforce development partners, and grantees with information on supporting community violence intervention (CVI) strategies that include an employment or workforce component. In this brief, the Center for Law and Social Policy offers recommendations for supporting the design and implementation of community violence interventions based on research and practice evidence. Background on Community Violence Community violence (sometimes called group violence) is interpersonal and can include shootings, stabbings, and other aggravated assaults between individuals not involved in familial or intimate relationships. Community violence differs from other forms of violence where weapons may be used. It often includes young people and is frequently conducted in a public setting. Roughly half of all gun homicides in the United States occur in just 127 cities— comprising less than a quarter of the total U.S. population. Black and brown Americans make up less than a third of the total population, but account for nearly three-quarters of all gun homicide victims in the United States. Gun violence overwhelmingly harms people in communities that have been economically marginalized. Community violence should be understood in the context of a community or neighborhood ecosystem. Neighborhoods with high levels of violence routinely face multiple compounding challenges arising from, and exacerbated by, structural inequity and racist policies, such as segregation; limited availability or access to quality jobs; a lack of safe and affordable housing; lack of affordable, quality health and mental health services; and histories of divestment. Moreover, significant research on the interactions of place and violence, along with a robust body of evidence, demonstrates the connection between state-sponsored racial segregation and rates of violence today. For example, an analysis of historically red-lined areas has found that, even after adjusting for the socio-demographic factors, “the same places that were imagined to be areas unworthy of economic investment by virtue of the races, ethnicities, and religions of their residents are more likely to be the places where violence and violent injury are most common almost a century later.” Often today, these communities are over-policed. The overreach of the criminal legal system, particularly in Black and brown urban communities, results in many people being barred from education, employment, and housing (sometimes for life) as a result of the collateral consequences—sometimes called “permanent punishments”—that follow criminal legal system involvement. Behind every act of community violence there are families, friends, and communities left to grapple with the aftermath of trauma and, all too often, injury or loss of life. Exposure to violence and the ripple effects of trauma and grief puts enormous strain on families, children, schools, employers, hospitals, government systems, and entire communities. In particular, being a victim of violence in adolescence is associated with a “chain of adversity,” which can compromise academic performance, educational attainment, labor force participation, occupations, and earnings into adulthood

Washington DC: CLASP, 2022. 18P.