Saving Lives: An Alternative Approach to Reducing Urban Gun Violence

• In Event: Roundtable: The Health Approach to Violence Prevention

Abstract

Advance Peace proposes to discuss an innovative and nontraditional public health approach to interrupting urban firearm assaults and associated injury/death. The approach referenced has/is making a noticeable impact in what was once one of the USA’s most violent communities. With unique and tailored strategies, the City of Richmond Office of Neighborhood Safety (ONS) and its Operation Peacemaker Fellowship, combines components of evidence-based practices with a community-oriented focus on relationships and mentoring to fill a gap in services and increase community safety. In an effort to highlight these unique strategies and provide a blueprint for other communities with violent crime problems, Advance Peace hope to clearly delineate how one community is moving forward with vanguard approaches to invest in the lives of young men who once were labeled the communities’ most violent, even the most deadly, youth and young adults. Richmond has experienced a 75% reduction in "gang" related homicides and a 66% reduction in firearm assaults between when the ONS was created in 2007 and 2015. Of 68 Fellows over the last five years, since becoming a Fellow, 94% are alive, 84% haven't been injured by a firearm, and 79% are not a suspect in a new firearm crime.

Author

• DeVone Boggan, Advance Peace