Richmond has a crisis with gun violence—60 people were killed here last year and this past June 5 people lost their lives. The RISC study group was impressed with the approach proposed by Thomas Abt in his book, Bleeding Out: The Devastating Consequences Of Urban Violence—And A Bold New Plan For Peace In The Streets, click here for a short recap. Abt is a senior research fellow at the Harvard Kennedy School of Government, his Group Violence Intervention strategy has seen success in cities across the country. Louisa Aviles, Director of Group Violence Intervention at the National Network for Safe Communities (out of John Jay College of Criminal Justice in NY) provides training and conducts research on GVI. RISC met with Thomas Abt and Louisa Aviles, who shared her powerpoint and an implementation guide.
Several Impact Evaluations of other GVI Programs are available for review:
RISC is asking the city of Richmond to obtain training in the relatively low cost strategy proposed. The mayor was initially receptive, but there is a new chief of police and things are in turmoil. Hearing from hundreds of invested RISC members should lend some urgency to attempting GVI with its proven track record.
For more information on RISC’s website, please go here.