Neighborhood-Level Impact of Communities Partnering 4 Peace

By Center for Neighborhood Engaged Research & Science (CORNERS)

Communities Partnering 4 Peace (CP4P) is an innovative consortium of Chicago community violence intervention (CVI) organizations coordinating their activities towards a common goal: reducing gunshot victimization among individuals who are most likely to be involved in gun violence, neighborhood disputes, and group conflicts. CP4P launched in 2017 after a severe uptick in homicides in 2016. Since then, the collaboration has expanded to include 14 organizations covering 27 different community areas. CP4P’s model relies on street outreach workers to strengthen relationships throughout their respective communities and serve as front-line violence preventionists who mediate gang and interpersonal conflicts, monitor emergent activities and areas for community violence, and mentor those at highest risk of violence involvement. CP4P partner organizations also provide participants with direct services including legal advocacy, employment support, educational opportunities, housing assistance, and trauma-informed behavioral health counseling. Although CVI initiatives such as CP4P direct much of their programmatic efforts toward individuals, CVI organizations also intend to impact neighborhood levels of gun violence by penetrating social networks and group conflicts most involved [1], [2]. The need for both individual and neighborhood-level violence reduction efforts only increased during the startling surge in gun violence that emerged alongside the COVID-19 pandemic. CP4P’s innovative model was developed prior to these dual pandemics and was able to quickly respond and adapt its existing infrastructure in response to increased demand [3]. This research brief summarizes the results of a quasi-experimental evaluation of CP4P’s impact on neighborhood-level rates of homicides and nonfatal shootings from the start of the program to December 2021.

Evanston, IL: Corners (The Center for Neighborhood Engaged Research and Science), 2023. 7p