RSS

>> national partners

CeaseFire in Action: National Partners

Violence is a leading cause of death for persons under 34 years of age…

We live with murder rates of more than twice the national average in many of the largest U.S. cities. These rates are 5 to 20 times the rates of most other industrialized countries. Everyone is entitled to a safe and healthy community. Sadly, this is not the reality for all Americans. In communities disproportionately afflicted by violence the number of killings rivals those of some of the world’s most violent countries.

…but it doesn’t have to be.

CeaseFire is a new approach to violence prevention. It views violence as a public health issue addressed through disease control methods. A decade ago it was launched in West Garfield Park, one of the most violent communities in Chicago at the time, producing a 67% reduction in shootings by the end of its first year. Since those initial results, the Department of Justice has demonstrated its success for reducing shootings and killings and expanded into a nationwide program. Check out some of our featured partners below.

NATIONAL PARTNERS

Baltimore, MD

“We have seen that Safe Streets works,” Baltimore Mayor Stephanie Rawlings-Blake said in January 2012 of the longest running national CeaseFire replication. The Baltimore City Health Department launched Safe Streets, the first CeaseFire replication site outside of Illinois, in 2007. Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health demonstrated the program’s success in January 2012 presenting the results of the first rigorous evaluation of a CeaseFire replication. The evaluation demonstrated a reduction in violence in all four neighborhoods where it was implemented.   Dr. Daniel Webster, lead author of the study and deputy director of the Johns Hopkins Center for the Prevention of Youth Violence, presented the three year study of four historically violent neighborhoods—McElderry Park, Elwood Park, Madison-Eastend, Cherry Hill—showing a statistically significant decline in either homicides or nonfatal shootings or both in each of the communities.

In one neighborhood killings were reduced by 56% and shootings by 34%, in another neighborhood killings were reduced by 53%, and in the two

other neighborhoods, shootings were reduced by 34 and 43%.

Two other findings were extremely interesting and important to our work. First, the positive effects (less shootings and/or killings or both) diffused into the neighboring communities as well as people not even involved in the program directly. In other words, high-risk people in the neighborhoods where the CeaseFire model is being implemented were changing their thinking and attitudes toward violence even if we weren’t directly working with them.

LEARN MORE:

Kansas City, MO

Aim 4 Peace

Aim 4 Peace was launched in Kansas City in 2007. Implemented in the East Patrol Division area it operates as part of the city’s Public Safety plan helping to reduce homicides in the target area from 63 in 2008 to 37 in 2010.

New Orleans, LA

CeaseFire- New Orleans
Solutions Not Shootings (SNS)*

Providing a proactive approach to violent crime, SNS NOLA, a New Orleans-based CeaseFire replication is being implemented in Central City and Saint Roch. Eight “Violence Interrupters,” evenly divided between each community, have been hired. Crime Commissioner, James Carter, has said, “The CeaseFire model fits in New Orleans.”


*Dorionne Huntington, 14-year-old NOLA resident, chose the name SNS through a contest sponsored by New Orleans Saints’ player Malcolm Jenkins.

New York

Born of tragic shootings in Buffalo, Harlem, Queens, Westchester and elsewhere Operation SNUG, the first statewide implementation of the CeaseFire model, started in 2009. Launched with $4 million allocated from the New York State Legislature these New York-based CeaseFire replications have had some exceptional early success. Today, four sites operate in New York City and an additional three sites throughout the state.

New York City

Brooklyn – Save Our Streets (S.O.S.) Crown Heights

Crown Heights Mediation Center has been working in Brooklyn for over a decade. From a storefront office on Kingston Avenue they manage to impact the lives of young men and women—the youth at highest-risk to shoot or be shot—providing alternatives to redirect them from the fast-track to prison or an early grave. Young men like Christopher Dehaney, who started off as a high-risk participant in the S.O.S. Program and became an office regular, eventually learning to complete a resume and land a job at JFK airport. Last year, Crown Heights helped 79 youth just like Christopher redirect their lives. Crown Heights’ staff intervened in close to 70 conflicts that kept tensions from escalating to bloodshed and went nearly 90 days without a shooting. By December 2011, Crown Heights efforts had helped contribute to a 43 percent reduction in gang violence over the preceding year.

 

LEARN MORE:

Brooklyn – CeaseFire East New York

CeaseFire ENY is “a gun violence initiative that really works” in Brooklyn. These peacemakers managed to lead their community into more than 100 consecutive days without a shooting. “Everybody was looking to get the number of days of peace up as high as it could possibly go,” said A.T. Mitchell, founder of Man Up Inc! on the successful streak and the behavior change precedent it set. In spite of funding cuts, this site worked with 90 high-risk individuals last year and managed 77 cases.  Watch this segment from local news station NY1 on CeaseFire ENY’s work to prevent violence and check out the PSA below:

Harlem

Harlem SNUG is supported by the NYC Mission Society, a long-time community organization working to improve the lives of New Yorkers since 1812. Listen to this piece by Uptown Radio on Dedrick Hammond (A.K.A. “Beloved”) one of the violence interrupters for Operation SNUG in Harlem.

Queens

Operation SNUG came to Queens in October 2009, following a series of deadly shootings there. Officials inaugurated the program in honor of Kevin Miller, one 14-year-old who was shot and killed by a stray bullet.

New York State

Albany

Albany SNUG is organized by the Trinity Alliance and works in the Arbor Hill and West Hill neighborhoods of the city. Watch a segment about Albany SNUG from the local CBS news station.

Buffalo/Niagara Falls

Operation SNUG was brought to Buffalo and Niagara Falls in Fall 2010, with the help of State Senator Antoine Thompson. Outreach workers in Buffalo work out of the Community Action Organization of Erie County and focus on the MLK, Central Park, Black Rock, and Riverside neighborhoods.
In this video, CAO outreach worker supervisor Zack Waller talks about his past violent behavior and how he helps to prevent others from following in his path.

Yonkers

Yonkers YMCA operates in Westchester County, NY through the Yonkers YMCA.

Oakland, CA

CeaseFire has begun partnering with Measure Y in Oakland to implement the model there.

Philadelphia, PA

Philadelphia CeaseFire  received funding to implement a one-year pilot in the city’s 22nd police district, an historically violent community.  Operated out of Temple University Medical School’s Center for Bioethics, Urban Health and Policy, seeks to reduce the number of homicides and shootings in North Philadelphia (read more).

Phoenix, AZ

Chicanos Por La Causa, a 42-year-old community organization, runs TRUCE, a CeaseFire partner organization in the Hermoso Park neighborhood in South Mountain.

PLANNED PARTNERSHIPS

Columbus, OH

Members of the Youth Violence Prevention Advisory Board at Ohio State University have been working to launch the Columbus Violence Prevention Collaborative. Based on the CeaseFire model, CVPC hopes to begin in the Near East Side and Driving Park, where there were 74 shootings and 20 homicides in 2009 alone.