Letter from the Editor: Street Outreach Workers and Violence Disruption
We introduce this LISC Spotlight with an overview of how street outreach workers can disrupt violence, and by acknowledging the critical role that community organizations can play in supporting them. These elements of community violence intervention are proven strategies, rooted in the lives and needs of the people most impacted. This letter is followed by two articles that go in depth on street outreach work and some of the community organizations that help deploy it.
The impact of overpolicing in communities of color has long propelled residents to advocate for alternative strategies to achieve safety and justice. These efforts have been amplified by mobilization around recent killings of Black people by the police, with many reformers looking to public health models to address violence, in contrast to the kinds of interventions that contribute to mass incarceration or police violence.
Community outreach programs, which deploy trusted members of the community to defuse conflict and/or connect individuals with different kinds of services, is one of those alternative approaches. On the side of diffusing conflict, outreach workers known as “violence interrupters” talk to young people to prevent fights from escalating, and to change the conversation about the need for violence to solve problems. This approach is embodied in elements of the Cure Violence model1, which began in Chicago and has been replicated throughout the country, and has been successful in reducing violent crimes and shootings in many communities
Other community outreach initiatives connect individuals who may be victims or perpetrators of violence to job training, mental health, income support, or advocacy programs, or provide safe passages such as “walking school buses” for children on their way to school. (The COVID pandemic has prompted some community outreach programs to focus on increasing awareness about the virus, and providing food and personal protection equipment to residents.2)
Community-based organizations are often well-positioned to launch and support community outreach initiatives to address violence, though the challenging nature of this work may require extensive training and support for program staff. Because they are attuned to local needs, community organizations in many cases can better identify and partner with “credible messengers”—people who speak from lived experience about gang or justice involvement, or are otherwise trusted. Equally important is the ability of community organizations to connect individuals previously excluded from effective services to quality housing, youth programming, and health programs.
As calls to defund the police would have resources directed toward alternative safety and justice approaches, community development practitioners may be interested to learn about how community outreach and violence interruption models, like those highlighted in this article, serve critical safety and justice functions. In this Spotlight, we are highlighting resources and tools to help practitioners explore these approaches.
[1] Slutkin, Gary. “Cure Violence.” https://Cvg.org/, Cure Violence Global, Oct. 2018, toolsofchange.com/userfiles/Cure%20ViolenceV3.pdf.
[2] Southall, Ashley. “Police Face Backlash Over Virus Rules. Enter 'Violence Interrupters'.” The New York Times, The New York Times, 22 May 2020, www.nytimes.com/2020/05/22/nyregion/Coronavirus-social-distancing-violence-interrupters.html.