Baltimore has joined a national initiative seeking to build and bolster community solutions to gun violence.
The Coalition to Advance Public Safety, a partnership among four nationally recognized, Black-led organizations committed to ending gun violence in communities, launched the initiative Wednesday, hoping to reduce gun violence by 20% over the next five years in 12 cities.
The partnership hopes to do that by building, strengthening and expanding “local community violence intervention ecosystems,” a term used to represent initiatives and strategies aimed at reducing violence in communities.
Community violence intervention strategies use trusted messengers who work directly with individuals most likely to commit gun violence, intervene in conflicts and connect people to social, economic and health-and-wellness services to reduce the likelihood of violence.
“We must re-imagine public safety as a shared strategy that includes the public as a paid partner in our new public safety ecosystem,” said Aqeela Sherrills, executive director of the Community Based Public Safety Collective, a coalition member based in East Orange, New Jersey.
Read the article from The Baltimore Sun.