City Council calls for better violence interruption program oversight
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Councilmember Nantasha Williams introduced a new bill to further the efforts of the city’s violence interruption programs last week. Photo via Emil Cohen/NYC Council Media Unit
By Rachel Vick
The City Council Committee on Public Safety met Friday to discuss the best ways to support violence interruption and crime prevention programs working under the city’s recently expanded Crisis Management System.
Committee members spoke with providers and representatives from the mayor’s office about the programs to reduce violence through community-based violence interruption and two bills to expand oversight and support of the expanding network.
“I believe that there is more that the city can be doing to help service providers doing anti violence work,” said City Councilmember and chair of the committee Kamillah Hanks. “As CMS grows, the city must provide the support resources and funding that is necessary to deliver high quality services.”
The Crisis Management System has expanded over the years to serve as the city’s main community-based violence interruption and prevention tool. Former Mayor Bill de Blasio highlighted the program in 2020, as calls to shift the role of traditional police work rang out in the streets. Mayor Eric Adams, who has attempted to increase NYPD presence in New York City, has also cited the work of the CMS and violence prevention in general as a key to the city’s public safety strategy.
As the violence interruption program grows, legislators are looking at ways to maximize the efficiency of a citywide program whose function is dependent on its ability to serve varying communities.
A bill introduced by Queens City Councilmember Nantasha Williams would require the Mayor’s Office of Criminal Justice to evaluate the effectiveness of criminal justice programs that receive funding from the city.
Among the resources provided through the CMS are school conflict mediation, employment programs and mental health services. It is currently administered with a focus on 31 sites across communities with the highest rates of violence.
“I'm personally well aware of the importance of protecting our communities, as they say an ounce of prevention is worth more than a pound of cure and these groups are providing vital preventative solutions to the community,” Williams said. “Because crisis management organizations are integral to our communities, it is necessary to ensure that they are operating at their optimal capacity.”
Wiliams’ bill would require reports on the amount of funding each group receives, the number of individuals the groups serve, a brief description of the services provided and recidivism and compliance rates.
The scope of the CMS’ work from certain providers was redacted from the report sent to Council.
Mayor's Office of Criminal Justice Chief of Staff Nora Daniel acknowledged a lack of a cohesive direction across providers and said there is a need to strike a balance between meeting community needs and organization.
“It is our thoughts and our hopes that the work can be standardized, so that there is a model that sort of fits across the board and allow for the flexibility for organizations that might need to tweak things to fit their community, but there should be a base level standard,” Daniel said.
Shooting victimization fell by 20 percent in the two years after the CMS’ 2017 launch compared to the 24 months prior, according to a study from John Jay, which MOCJ said evaluates the programs to maintain objectivity.
Hanks’ bill would require uniform training and support for providers from the city, while their services currently differ from organization to organization.
Queens is home to one of the most-recognized violence interruption programs, Community Capacity Development.
CCD Executive Director K. Bain underscored the inherent difficulties of creating a baseline for what is designed to be a hyper-local project. The key to operating the programs successfully is flexibility for providers who truly understand the community’s needs, he said.
“We try to really make sure that we keep our eye on the prize, and that requires flexibility,” he said. “That requires a level of respect from the powers that be… but we work very diligently to establish that room, that space for autonomy, and to be treated and respected as co-producers of public safety.”
He said the best metric for the success of violence interruption programs is not a decrease in crime rates but an increase in “human rights, the level of consciousness and awareness in a community, how resources get into the hands of those directly impacted.”
Central to that success is working with participants without dehumanizing them, Bain added, noting the success they saw in Queensbridge — which went without a shooting for a full year — after asking residents which forms of support they most wanted.
Another important component he highlighted during a conversation with the Eagle is making sure that partners going into the communities understand the layers to the lives of those at risk of justice system involvement and to come without judgment.
“Look at the way that we have shifted the paradigm in the community, and increased intergenerational communication, and have begun to develop and implement programming that is people centered and generated from need assessments done in the community,” Bain said. “All of these things, the fact that we engaged in ways that historically people in the housing development said had never happened.”
“We know that a holistic approach to dealing with communities and individuals in these communities,” he added. “We know that we have to look at systems and the way that they intersect.”
Despite criticism about the programs’ transparency and efficiency in distributing resources, elected officials and advocates agree that CMS has a positive impact on communities.
“Mayor [Eric] Adams and I sometimes disagree on the most impactful ways to address crime and violence in our city but I applaud and support of alternatives solutions to violence, including violence interrupters and crisis management system,” said Public Advocate Jumaane Williams, who worked with Bain as a councilmember to adapt the Cure Violence program from Chicago to New York City.
