The CVI workers at York GVI had their ‘heads on a swivel’ for long-running tensions turning into fighting on an organized day trip for at-risk young people with a history of gun violence.
Organizers arranged bus seating to place the leaders of rival factions from warring neighborhoods next to each other. Tensions started high, but slowly diffused. Eventually they shared funny videos, talked and passed a vape between them, without the usual stern words from organizers.
A tentative peace was cemented when they shared cell phone numbers and new experiences. The streets have been quieter.
Knowing those most likely to engage is key to targeted outreach and stopping beefs before they take lives.
Shorthand for Community Violence Intervention, this approach uses relationships inside a neighborhood to interrupt the cycle of shooting and retaliation.
How do you know a shooting is coming?
That’s the question most people ask. The answer is simpler than it sounds. Gun homicides are concentrated among people and places. Just 1% of a City is responsible for 90% of gun homicides. And before a shooting happens, others often know there is conflict and danger.
The workers who do this job live in these communities. They know who is having conflict (‘a beef’). When an argument escalates, or someone gets shot, they hear about it fast. Or they are already working with that 1% of a community that is most likely to be involved in violence.
The programs have three key parts:
Focus on the people at highest risk: A small number of people are most likely to shoot someone or be shot. The work starts with them.
Prevent Conflict: Interrupters mediate current conflict, get ahead of the next one and work with people on conflict resolution and healing so the next argument doesn’t end the same way.
Change the conditions underneath: Connect people to housing, jobs, treatment and services, because the pressures that push someone toward a gun don’t resolve on their own.
The work takes different forms including:
Hospital base outreach to those injured in shootings, to prevent retaliation.
Street Outreach by trusted messengers in high-risk areas to intervene before a shooting
Reentry programs to provide alternatives to formerly incarcerated individuals
Mediation to prevent community conflicts from escalating to violence
Targeted workforce development that improves job prospects combined with conflict resolution skills
The people who do this work have the training and the lived experience to build trust quickly, in places and situations where trust is hard to come by.
