By Shani Buggs

This essay argues for increased recognition and support of community-based violence intervention (CVI) as an integral element of public safety strategies to reduce community violence. While the work of CVI has long been important to the communities in which they were created, the unprecedented rise in gun violence since 2020, coupled with growing recognition from community members, elected officials and law enforcement that violence reduction strategies rooted in community are necessary for community safety, make this work more vital than ever. Achieving sustained reductions in violence will require not just the incorporation of CVI into public safety plans, but also the intentional investment in an ecosystem of human capital development and community stability for the people and neighborhoods most impacted by violence.

New York: Arnold Ventures, 2022, 14p

By Shani Buggs, Mia Dawson & Asia Ivey

Community violence, or interpersonal violence between non-intimate partners that occurs in public places, is rooted in poverty and trauma, which, particularly in the United States, are undergirded by racial capitalism and white supremacy. Community-based outreach has been well documented as an integral strategy for reaching historically marginalized and disenfranchised populations in multiple fields. Community-based violence intervention (CVI) approaches that utilize outreach workers—professionals who identify and engage youth and adults who have a high risk of violence involvement—have the potential to quell violence in cities around the country. Indeed, the Biden-Harris Administration has not only highlighted CVI as an important element of community safety, but it has also committed federal dollars to CVI programs.

This amplification of CVI as a promising violence-reduction approach has also led to greater scrutiny of the various challenges these initiatives face in their implementation and operation, capacity, staffing needs, and the contexts for which they are employed. Without a more precise grasp of the elements that make these approaches effective and the challenges that must be mitigated for successful implementation and operation, outreach-based violence intervention programs, regardless of the intent or passion of the staff, may fail to achieve their goal of significantly reducing violence in their communities. However, if properly funded, supported, implemented, and evaluated, CVI has the potential to expand the paradigm of community safety without furthering over-reliance on law enforcement and the criminal legal system. This report seeks to fill gaps in our understanding of how best to implement, support, and sustain outreachbased CVI efforts by synthesizing existing literature and drawing on interviews with over a dozen CVI program leaders with deep expertise in the field.

Outreach-Based CVI Program Models and Their Needs

The majority of outreach-based CVI programs today are individualized interventions that operate as independent community-based organizations. They require identifying individuals who are most likely to engage in violence, through community contacts, law enforcement, research, or voluntary participation, and then getting proximate to these individuals, building relationships and relentlessly pursuing connection in order to link them to resources, such as case management, therapy, professional development, or substance abuse treatment that will allow them to make different choices.

Some of these organizations use the health care system, rather than the community, as an entry point to locate those who are most affected by violence and who may be caught in violent cycles. (continued)

New York: LISC 2022. 66p.

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.