Community Violence Intervention (CVI), an approach to quelling crime and supporting people who may be victims of, or likely to commit, violent crime (or both), emerged in America's urban neighborhoods. It is now practiced across rural America, too, sometimes in forms that vary distinctly from city-based CVI. LISC's Safety + Justice team, in tandem with Rural LISC, invest in capacity building for these groups working round the clock to make their communities safer, and to save lives.

By Mona Mangat, LISC Vice President, Safety & Justice

For the second year in a row, the Department of Justice, in partnership with LISC, brought together hundreds of community violence intervention practitioners from across the country to share their experiences and insights on the front lines of gun violence and trauma. Their stories and wisdom are reshaping narratives about victimhood and perpetrators, and helping implement solutions to create safer, healthier communities.

New Report: A Close Look at the Reality of Community Violence Interrupters

Dr. Kathryn Bocanegra and Dr. Shani Buggs, eminent researchers and experts on the work of community violence intervention, have published, together with LISC, Supporting the Frontline Through Community Healing: Advancing Science on Violence Intervention Outreach and Trauma Exposure. The study, focused on safety efforts in Kansas City, MO, is a deeply researched and compassionate look at the trauma CVI workers confront every day and how to support the field so that practitioners “are protected from the same harms they work to prevent.”

As part of its partnership with the Department of Justice, LISC s supports practitioners and policy makers with best practices and overcoming challenges facing community violence intervention (CVI) work in American communities. An article from the National Criminal Justice Association highlights the many voices represented during a recent webinar for nearly 1,000 attendees, led by on-the-ground experts in violence intervention, researchers and DOJ leaders. The webinar is now part of a robust online resource center hosted by LISC and the DOJ’s Community Violence Intervention and Prevention Initiative.

By Shani Buggs & Mona Mangat

In an opinion piece for Philanthropy News Digest, Mona Mangat, LISC’s vice president for Safety and Justice, and Dr. Shani Buggs, a an assistant professor with the Violence Prevention Research Program at UC Davis, a national expert on gun violence and a LISC partner, describe the efficacy of community violence intervention strategies and the acute need for more support for these proven solutions. “When we put our trust in community members, when we choose to listen rather than dictate and when we have people in power who understand and fund community-based work, we will begin to see progress,” they write.

Grassroots groups that address violence in their communities are lean and underfunded and provide crucial services to their neighborhoods. They're also increasingly recognized as indispensable to the safety and wellbeing of the places where they work. A new LISC program, the Community Justice Accelerator, hopes to help those groups become stronger organizations, poised to receive and deploy the funding they need. At a recent LISC gathering, participants in the first Accelerator pilot shared challenges and insights, and their hopes for the future of the work.

By Mona Mangat, LISC Vice President, Safety & Justice

For three days in February, community violence intervention practitioners, leaders at the highest levels of the Department of Justice, funders, researchers and intermediaries like LISC met in St. Louis to celebrate and advance community-based safety work. LISC’s vice president for Safety & Justice, Mona Mangat, describes how revelatory it felt to be there and see this historic perspective shift in action.

Shani Buggs, PhD, is a public health researcher at the University of California, Davis, and one of the nation’s leading experts on anti-racist methods for reducing gun violence in American communities. Here, Buggs answers our questions about outreach-based community violence intervention (CVI), a grassroots approach to quelling violence that is the subject of a comprehensive new research paper she and her colleagues authored in collaboration with LISC.

Community violence intervention or CVI has proven to be a humane, evidence-based alternative to over-policing and mass incarceration, and is finally getting more of the attention it deserves. LISC’s Safety & Justice team, longtime promoters of CVI in the communities where we work, has embarked on a series of webinars for the Department of Justice, offering CVI best practices from the people who know it best. Read on for highlights from the series launch.