Queens nonprofit fights for safe summer
/
K. Bain (at podium), the founder of violence interruption program Community Capacity Development, called on the city to invest in programs like his as the summer months approach. Eagle photo by Jacob Kaye
By Jacob Kaye
As New York City approaches the summer, a time when shootings historically increase, a Queens-based violence interrupter, his organization and organizations throughout the city are calling on the city to invest in their work.
K. Bain, the founder of Community Capacity Development, gathered violence interruption workers from throughout the five boroughs in front of City Hall on Friday to demand local lawmakers put funds into violence interruption by way of the city’s budget, due at the end of June.
“This is where we proactively get ahead of what has historically been an uptick in shootings during summer months,” Bain said. “The community is the solution.”
Violence interruption work can look different from case to case, but it generally involves sending credible messengers, or people from the community, into neighborhoods with higher rates of violence.
Those messengers, most of whom are volunteers, are tasked with breaking up conflict as it occurs, de-escalating potential conflict and providing people with resources so that they don’t feel they have to resort to violence to meet their basic needs. Violence interruption programs also could provide job services, mental health and legal services.
The crime prevention strategy has become a fixture in the mayor’s office for the past decade.
The city first introduced the Crisis Management System in 2010 – the system provides for a network of credible messengers assigned to around two dozen areas in the city with high rates of gun violence.
From 2010 to 2019, shootings in areas where the Crisis Management System is deployed have seen a 40 percent reduction in shootings, compared with a 31 percent reduction in shootings in the 17 New York City neighborhoods with the highest rates of violence, according to city data.
Mayor Eric Adams, who has made combating gun violence the number one issue of his mayoralty, also touted the work of violence interrupters in his Blueprint to End Gun Violence, a multi-part plan presented at the start of his term.
“We are going to expand the successful anti-violence Crisis Management System and ensure they have the necessary resources to do their work,” Adams said at the introduction of the plan in January.
“Just as we utilize precision policing, we must utilize precision prevention – reaching young people long before they turn to guns and violence,” he added.
When Adams invited President Joe Biden to New York City in February to discuss anti-gun violence strategies, the mayor took the president to Queens, where they met with Bain and a number of his volunteers doing violence interruption in the World’s Borough.
Bain’s program is one of the most successful in the city. In 2016, Queensbridge, the largest public housing complex in the United States, didn’t see a single murder – it was the first full year of work for Community Capacity Development.
However, much of Adams’ gun violence strategy in the months following the introduction of his plan has revolved around policing.
Adams was not in attendance at Friday’s rally. Earlier in the morning, Adams hosted a ceremony honoring two police officers who had rescued a man with a visual impairment after he had fallen onto subway tracks. Nora Daniels, the chief of staff to the Mayor’s Office of Criminal Justice, appeared at the rally in the mayor’s stead.
Public Advocate Jumaane Williams, one of the Crisis Management System’s earliest supporters, said that while “our law enforcement partners have a role to play,” more investment is needed in community-based prevention strategies.
“When the pandemic hit all of us said with a loud bell that violence is going to go back up because the issues that we know are drivers of crime are getting worse,” Williams said. “We asked, ‘Please let us invest further in this.’ That didn't happen.”
“If we believe that we can have a safe summer, we should invest in the things that cause a safe summer,” he added. “New York City and New York State can lead the nation on how to deal with this crime and we can do that without the rhetoric of people saying we’re anti-police and pro-criminals.”
Though New York City has seen an increase in the number of shootings since the start of the pandemic when compared to the several years that preceded them, shootings in 2022 are down when compared to 2021.
The city has seen an 8 percent decrease in shooting incidents this year, according to NYPD data.
Queens City Councilmember Julie Won gave her commitment to fight for further investment in the programs.
“This is a prevention of violence, we are going to invest in the prevention of violence,” Won said. “This is how you prevent shootings.”
“These are the people that have been doing work on the street, these are the people who know the community, who know how to address the youth, who know those who are suffering from systemic poverty,” she added.
Adams has already showed a desire to invest in the programs.
His executive budget includes $9 million for the Department of Education to contract with community-based violence interruption programs “to make students feel safe and supported in their schools,” the Daily News reported.
