An outreach worker trained to intervene in street conflicts was hospitalized after he and a colleague were arrested amid an altercation with the police.

by Maria Cramer and Hurubie Meko
New York Times
April 6, 2024

For years, New York City has employed a two-pronged approach to reducing gun violence, relying on the police and on the publicly funded conflict mediators known as violence interrupters, who try to defuse disputes before they escalate, including into gunfire.

… The violence-interrupter concept took its current form in New York in 2014, when Mayor Bill de Blasio and the City Council formed the crisis management system to organize interrupter groups. Such groups now operate in more than 30 areas of the city. Mr. Adams, a former police captain, announced $86 million in funding for the system in the 2024 fiscal year.

Cities like Baltimore, Chicago and St. Louis have made similar investments. In 2021, the Justice Department announced $444 million in grants for violence reduction, including intervention programs.

Overall, the interrupter model appears to be effective, according to a 2017 study by the John Jay College of Criminal Justice. In one Bronx neighborhood, the number of shooting victims fell 63 percent during a period when interrupters were active compared with rates before the program began, the study found.

The results show that the approach should be adopted in “any city trying to get a handle on gun violence,” said Jeffrey Butts, who worked on the study and is the director of the college’s Research and Evaluation Center.

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