Curing Violence

In Harlem this morning, New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio, flanked by an array of leaders from the city council and various city agencies, announced an ambitious new effort to prevent gun violence by expanding the Cure Violence model across the five boroughs. The Mayor highlighted SOS Crown Heights as "the exemplar" of the public health approach to violence reduction in New York.  He also cited the strength of the city's "partnership with the Center for Court Innovation" as a key building block going forward.  In addition, our study, "Testing a Public Health Approach to Gun Violence" was cited several times.

But best of all, our own Ife Charles (pictured above) was one of the featured speakers at the announcement. I've written about Ife before so it came as no surprise to me that she was arguably the most powerful and persuasive speaker at the event.  Ife talked eloquently about the importance of collaboration in combating violence; she argued that to address a problem as multi-faceted and as well-entrenched as violence requires the work of multiple city agencies (including both criminal justice agencies and social service agencies) and dozens of local actors, including clergy and community groups.

Inter-agency collaboration is difficult of course.  Our own research suggests that it is one of the leading causes of failure in criminal justice reform.  While it remains to be seen how effective the Cure Violence replications will be at reducing shootings in New York, the good news from today is that there is a genuine commitment on the part of multiple partners to tackling a problem that has festered for too long.