July 2017  |  CBS Pittsburgh  

Jason Lando is the commander of Zone 5 — once known as the Fighting 5th — the toughest police precinct in the city. But after years of community distrust culminating in the controversial arrest of student Jordan Miles — Lando has tried to set a new tone.

“It’s literally about winning people over one person at a time. You do that by treating people with respect, checking up with the guy on the corner, letting people know you care,” Lando says.

Tags: Pittsburgh National Initiative for Building Community Trust and Justice

July 2017  |  York Dispatch  

York City is off to a good start with its new Group Violence Intervention initiative. So says the national advisor for the organization that created the program on which it’s based, who notes the local stakeholders have “gone beyond lip service.”

"There are a couple pieces (to the initiative) that cities can get right — right out of the gate — that are really important," said Louisa Aviles, associate director of the National Network for Safe Communities' group-violence portfolio. "Some cities nail them, and other cities take longer to get them in place."

Tags: York Group Violence Intervention Support and Outreach

July 2017  |  WBEZ  

To tamp down Chicago’s gun violence, officials are trying things such as more youth mentoring and more cops. They are also talking about another approach: getting shooters employed.

“The best anti-crime program is a job,” Mayor Rahm Emanuel said last fall in a heavily hyped speech about the city’s violence. “It’s that simple.”

Tags: Chicago Group Violence Intervention Support and Outreach

June 2017  |  The Trace  

The tech giant’s philanthropic arm will grant $2 million to fund gun violence prevention programs in communities of color in 10 American cities. Most of the investment will go to programs that follow the model of Ceasefire, a violence-reduction strategy that coordinates law enforcement, community stakeholders, and social services to drive down shootings. The grants will also establish job-training programs for gunshot victims and perpetrators, and workshops for law enforcement on anti-bias policing.

Tags: ChicagoCincinnatiDallasGaryIndianapolisMilwaukeeNew York CityOakland Group Violence Intervention Support and Outreach

June 2017  |  The New York Review of Books  

"People of color in the United States, particularly young black men, are often assumed to be guilty and dangerous. In too many situations, black men are considered offenders incapable of being victims themselves. As a consequence of this country’s failure to address effectively its legacy of racial inequality, this presumption of guilt and the history that created it have significantly shaped every institution in American society, especially our criminal justice system."

Tags: Reconciliation

June 2017  |  The Trace  

David Kennedy: “Low clearance rates mean people have low confidence in the police, which leads to reluctance to cooperate, which leads to low clearance rates. At the same time, low clearance rates mean that there isn’t legal accountability for serious violence, which leads people to take things into their own hands, which leads to high levels of violence and low clearance rates. It’s a spiral of decline.”

Tags: Kansas City Group Violence Intervention