Understanding Community Violence Intervention

The Annie E. Casey Foun­da­tion is com­mit­ted to address­ing the epi­dem­ic of gun vio­lence by sup­port­ing grass­roots, com­mu­ni­ty-led ini­tia­tives across the Unit­ed States. Through part­ner­ships with com­mu­ni­ty vio­lence inter­ven­tion (CVI) orga­ni­za­tions — like Oper­a­tion Good in Jack­son, Mis­sis­sip­pi — the Foun­da­tion backs efforts that employ trained, cred­i­ble mes­sen­gers to engage indi­vid­u­als at the high­est risk of gun vio­lence, break­ing cycles of vio­lence and retaliation.

In the fol­low­ing dis­cus­sion, com­mu­ni­ty safe­ty expert and Casey Foun­da­tion senior asso­ciate Tim­me­ka Perkins offers valu­able insights into the cur­rent state of CVI work and the essen­tial steps need­ed for com­mu­ni­ties to thrive.

Q: Who is most harmed by gun violence?

Perkins: In 2024, the U.S. Sur­geon Gen­er­al declared gun vio­lence a pub­lic health cri­sis, not­ing over half of adults report­ed that either they or a fam­i­ly mem­ber had expe­ri­enced a firearm-relat­ed inci­dent. Although gun vio­lence became the lead­ing cause of death for all chil­dren in 2020, it has been the lead­ing cause of death for Black chil­dren since 2006.

In 2022, Black chil­dren were over 18 times more like­ly to be killed in a gun homi­cide than white chil­dren. Among young Black men, gun vio­lence has been the lead­ing cause of death for over 50 years. In 2022, they were over 21 times more like­ly to be killed by gun homi­cide than their white peers.

Q: What are the root caus­es of gun violence?

Perkins: The root caus­es of gun vio­lence include, but are not lim­it­ed to: 

• pover­ty;
• lack of eco­nom­ic opportunities;
• lack of con­nec­tion to/​access to qual­i­ty edu­ca­tion­al programming;
• trau­ma; and
• lack of access to hous­ing and oth­er basic needs.

The Gif­fords Law Cen­ter to End Gun Vio­lence notes that ​“gun vio­lence in Black com­mu­ni­ties is a direct cause and con­se­quence of the sys­tem­at­ic, struc­tur­al dis­ad­van­tag­ing of these populations…including his­toric racial seg­re­ga­tion and disinvestment.”

The per­va­sive nature of these root caus­es is why CVI is most effec­tive when embed­ded with­in a larg­er, com­pre­hen­sive com­mu­ni­ty safe­ty ecosys­tem. This allows sys­tems, com­mu­ni­ty-based orga­ni­za­tions, youth, com­mu­ni­ty mem­bers and deci­sion mak­ers from diverse sec­tors to work togeth­er to inter­rupt the cycle of vio­lence, dis­man­tle sys­tems of inequity and invest in infrastructure.

Q: Are vio­lence pre­ven­tion strate­gies working?

Perkins: Sim­ply put, yes! With­in the last year, an influx of data have demon­strat­ed the effec­tive­ness of com­mu­ni­ty-led vio­lence inter­ven­tion strategies. 

• Accord­ing to a recent report from the Cen­ter for Amer­i­can Progress, gun homi­cides in the Unit­ed States decreased by 9% in 2023. This year, the U.S. has seen a 13% reduction. 
• Gun vio­lence is down in most major cities, with 70 of the 100 most pop­u­lous U.S. cities expe­ri­enc­ing the same num­ber of or few­er gun vio­lence vic­tim­iza­tions in 2024.
• One of those major cities — Bal­ti­more, Casey’s home­town — achieved these reduc­tions with no increase in over­all arrests or arrests for minor offenses.

While the data are promis­ing, it’s impor­tant for fun­ders and local lead­ers to rec­og­nize that these are only first steps toward safer communities.

Q: What chal­lenges do work­ers at the front­line of vio­lence inter­ven­tion face?

Perkins: Com­mu­ni­ty vio­lence pre­ven­tion staff and orga­ni­za­tions face sev­er­al major obsta­cles. These include:

• Lim­it­ed resources. Despite clear data demon­strat­ing the effec­tive­ness of com­mu­ni­ty-based pro­grams, fun­ders and deci­sion mak­ers may be hes­i­tant to fund com­mu­ni­ty safe­ty or vio­lence reduc­tion strate­gies giv­en the con­tro­ver­sial nature of the work. Pro­grams also lack the fund­ing, staff, infra­struc­ture and sup­port to work at the scale of the gun vio­lence problem.
• Employ­ee well-being. Front­line CVI staff are fre­quent­ly exposed to severe and repeat­ed trau­ma as friends, rel­a­tives and com­mu­ni­ty mem­bers are harmed or killed by gun vio­lence. They also work non­tra­di­tion­al and on-call hours in high-stress envi­ron­ments. At the same time, many lack access to fair wages, health insur­ance and men­tal health services.
• The deep roots of gun vio­lence. Because gun vio­lence is an issue that has exist­ed for decades, it can­not be solved overnight. Solu­tions will take time, effort and sus­tained sup­port over many years.

Q: How can fun­ders bet­ter sup­port this work?

Perkins: Ensur­ing com­mu­ni­ty vio­lence inter­ven­tion efforts are suc­cess­ful will require a long-term com­mit­ment to this work from pub­lic and pri­vate part­ners, includ­ing those that have not his­tor­i­cal­ly invest­ed in vio­lence reduc­tion or com­mu­ni­ty safe­ty measures.

When con­sid­er­ing the data from a pub­lic health approach, most phil­an­thropic mis­sions are aligned with at least one root cause of vio­lence or aspect of a thriv­ing com­mu­ni­ty safe­ty ecosys­tem. Addi­tion­al­ly, fun­ders’ oth­er pro­gram­mat­ic invest­ments will not reach their full poten­tial if peo­ple aren’t safe — or alive — to participate.

As we move for­ward, fun­ders and deci­sion mak­ers should work to:

• prop­er­ly resource and fund orga­ni­za­tions and enti­ties doing this life-sav­ing work;
• increase orga­ni­za­tions’ capac­i­ty while adjust­ing appli­ca­tion process­es and report­ing require­ments to ensure access to avail­able fund­ing and meet the needs of the field;
• equi­tably pay front­line CVI staff and give them access to the resources need­ed to be well and thrive;
• sup­port lead­ers and orga­ni­za­tions when small­er spikes in vio­lence occur through­out the year; and
• invest in young lead­ers and their capac­i­ty as part of a pipeline toward a sus­tain­able CVI workforce.

Dis­cov­er how the Com­mu­ni­ty Vio­lence Inter­ven­tion Lead­er­ship Acad­e­my is sup­port­ing front­line leaders