Doctor Mike Smith with the UTSA team says the next phase is an approach to the conditions where most crime happens, which includes heavy involvement from city departments, community organizations and other stakeholders, “to begin not only addressing the law enforcement concerns there, people who may be offending or planning to offend,” Smith says, “but also the conditions that make that particular place, among others, attractive to them.”
The third phase involves breaking the cycle of violence by focusing on what they say is the few people who are responsible for the most crime by giving them a chance to take a different path – or face prosecution if they don’t.
In King County, gun violence is treated as a public health emergency. King County Public Health made a presentation to a Seattle City Council committee, which included the goal of interrupting violence now and a similar call to focus on a small group of younger people numbers show are involved in most of the violence, concentrated in certain parts of the city and county.
Public Health’s Eleuthera Lisch says providing services to families includes a strategic approach and, Lisch says, “looking at younger siblings, who are often directly impacted by their elder siblings involvement in gun violence, and so we have a referral strategy to catch those young people and help support them so that perhaps we can prevent the next incident of violence.”
The difference is that the King County approach is led by community organizations, rather than law enforcement as it is in Tacoma. As they implement the plan, Lisch says they want to hear from people in the community – including the voices of youth – so they can learn from those most impacted by violence.
