Columbia gun violence analysis focuses on community intervention
COLUMBIA, Mo. (KMIZ)
Engaging more with people who are at risk of getting involved in gun violence is one of the main takeaways of a report released by the City of Columbia on Tueday.
The City of Columbia’s Office of Violence Prevention presented findings from a Community Violence Intervention Landscape Analysis on Tuesday morning. The report identified three areas of focus, starting with more community engagement.
According to the report, this could include expanding community violence intervention services to street outreach and violence interruption in schools and hospitals.
The report also found that a lack of funding has resulted in some services requiring fees, and those services should be available for free. The report also found that excessive paperwork for various agencies can also be a barrier, and that reporting requirements should be streamlined and shared.
The repot also asks Columbia’s community-based organizations to work on collaboration and coordination between organizations.
“Although many [community-based organizations] in Columbia have built strong relationships, work across the ecosystem as a whole remains segmented. A contributing factor to this disconnection has been a lack of trust between organizations,” the report found.
Columbia Missouri_LandscapeReport_V5_9.7.26Download“We all want to see a reduction in violence. We want to see safe neighborhoods, safe individuals, things of that nature,” Office of Violence Prevention administrator D’Markus Thomas-Brown said. “We can allow our differences and our expertise to flourish at the table and realize that we don’t need everybody trying to recreate the same thing.”
The report asks that the Office of Violence Prevention provide guidance to the organizations to help them collaborate, get to know one another, build trust and share similar values.
Thomas-Brown said the next steps for the city are to start strategizing how each organization can contribute.
“It’s developing a working rhythm and then a strategy to look at who’s going to do what,” he said.
After the meeting was an interactive workshop, guided by the National Institute for Criminal Justice Reform to allow community organizations to interact and see how each can fit in the “ecosystem.”
Julian Jackman is the executive director of P.E.A.C.E., which stands for People Embracing Another Choice Effectively, an organization that works with young people who have gotten out of prison and provides resources so they don’t go back. Jackman described his organization as boots on the ground, doing street outreach.
He agreed that collaboration is needed across the community organizations that work with people that have a high-risk for gun violence.
“Columbia lacks collaboration. We lack unity in the resources that we have. Columbia is very resource-rich, but these resources are coming together,” Jackman said. “We still have people that are working in silos.”
There were about 20 people in the meeting, representing many different organizations, including members from the Columbia City Council, Love Columbia, Moms Demand Action and many others. They were given a task to meet with each other, without the city, to discuss how they can work together.
Jackman said he wants to see consistency following this meeting.
“Now it’s about keeping us together. We got to talk. We got to bring it all together ourselves, and we have to do it without the city,” he said. “We have to do this ourselves and then bring back to them what we found. Hey, these are the resources that we have and this is everybody’s niche.”
The Community Violence Intervention Landscape Analysis was conducted with the National Institute for Criminal Justice Reform. The City of Columbia Office of Violence Prevention contracted with the institute in January to explore ways the city can curb violent crime.
In the following months, the Office of Violence Prevention met multiple times with community members, awaiting data from the institute to form a multi-year plan.
In June, the institute provided the city with an update as it works on two reports: a “Gun Violence Analysis Report” exploring the drivers of gun violence in the city and the Community Violence Intervention Landscape Analysis, which will be presented Tuesday.
The institute plans to deploy a multi-year plan that incorporates all of the research in an effort to boost violence reduction and intervention.
Check back for updates.
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