The Coalition to Advance Public Safety (CAPS)—which includes the Health Alliance for Violence Intervention, National Institute for Criminal Justice Reform, Community Based Public Safety Collective, and Cities United—has officially launched an initiative to reduce gun violence in 12 cities, starting with Baltimore, Baton Rouge, Indianapolis, and Newark.
As previously reported, the CAPS organizations will work with the cities’ mayors, local community-based organizations, and hospitals to reduce gun homicides and non-fatal shootings by 20 percent over the next five years. Launched in 2022 with an $18 million grant from Ballmer Group and additional support from the Charles and Lynn Schusterman Family Philanthropies, the coalition comprises Black-led organizations committed to ending gun violence in Communities, and its members served as the training and technical assistance providers for the 2021-22 White House Community Violence Intervention Collaborative.
With the goal of strengthening local community violence intervention (CVI) ecosystems, CAPS will support community-based efforts tailored to each city, with recommendations ranging from training for service providers of gun violence reduction strategies, to multiyear investments in CVI organizations to measure the impact in the selected neighborhoods, to improving cognitive behavioral therapy groups and securing funding for hospital-based violence intervention programs. In addition, the coalition has established the CAPS Local Capacity Building Fund, which will award up to $500,000 per jurisdiction in mini-grants to bolster existing community violence prevention strategies and boost technical capacity.
CAPS also announced the launch of the CVI Ecosystem microsite, which provides customized CVI profiles for 50 U.S. cities with high homicide rates—including the estimated number of individuals at the highest risk for CVI; recommended number of CVI staff, with job descriptions; recommended annual budget to implement a comprehensive CVI ecosystem; and a budget calculator.
