From 2007 to 2022, a violence intervention program called Safe Streets has been associated with a 23% reduction in nonfatal shootings and reductions in homicides in 11 Baltimore neighborhoods.
Let’s break down its success - and what the program needs moving forward.
Safe Streets uses messengers to mediate conflict and offer participants resources. But, considering the challenges these workers faced, the report on this program’s results state it’s “remarkable” that Safe Streets succeeded as well as it did.
Violence interrupters only get paid between $40,000 and $45,000 a year without cost of living raises and also don’t have solid job security. They must constantly deal with the stress of the program potentially losing its funding.
And like many in community violence intervention (CVI), Safe Streets workers also had to recover from the trauma of three of their coworkers’ murders in 2021 and 2022.
Some left the program. Others stayed but “engaged in criminal activities” to make enough money, putting their lives on the line to save others while still needing help themselves.
This isn’t an opportunity to proclaim CVI a failure. This is an opportunity to imagine what programs like Safe Streets can accomplish with better workers' protections, stable funding, and more resources and services to end cycles of violence.
23% is just the beginning of practicing what our liberated future could look like.