Background
Homicides and shootings have been on the rise for years in Richmond. 2023 saw an 8% increase in people killed compared to 2022. Already in 2024, there have been 33 homicides. The average age of a gun violence victim in our city is 27 years old, and this violence is committed by groups of individuals. According to National Network for Safe Communities, these groups typically make up around half a percent of a city’s population, but are involved in as much as 70 percent of its homicide and gun violence. RISC is working to address this crisis that has caused suffering and loss of life.
Our Solution
Group Violence Intervention (GVI) is our solution to this urgent issue. GVI was developed after researching successful gun violence prevention programs in other U.S. cities, specifically in New Haven, CT and Oakland, CA. It has been implemented in dozens of cities nationwide, and has been proven to cut homicides in half.
GVI is a three-pronged approach to anti violence, in which community members join together with law enforcement and social service providers to communicate with active street groups. Community members deliver a credible moral message against violence, and law enforcement administers notice of consequences involved in continuing group violence. Social service providers, such as social workers and faith leaders, make a genuine offer of help for those who want it. GVI creates a social pressure that deters violence and provides a supported path for those who want to change. Read more about Group Violence Intervention here.
Photos from our Gun Violence Press Conference in March 2022
Where We Are
We first presented GVI to Mayor Stoney on February 24, 2020, and asked him to move forward with implementing it in June of 2020. He said he needed more time to make his decision.
As soon as he was re-elected in November of 2020, Mayor Stoney refused to meet with RISC. He instead reported to us that he would be developing his own hybrid gun violence intervention framework. This framework came out a year and half later, and while there are many good elements to it (such as a prevention program for younger children, trauma response after shootings, etc), nothing resembles an actual intervention that can stop the ongoing violence.
We continued calling upon the city to implement GVI. We attempted to meet with Mayor Stoney by taking 115 people down to City Hall on February 25, 2022. However, he refused to meet with us, instead calling us bullies and accusing us of using gun violence victims as pawns.
We persisted (as we always do!). We met with allies and other stakeholders. Everyone, it appeared, wanted GVI to happen. In the summer of 2022, one of our allies, REAL LIFE, secured state and federal funding to implement GVI in Richmond. The city would not have needed to fund or administer the program. They took 6 months to give an answer, and ultimately said no. We also learned recently that the Attorney General's Office had offered the city $300,000 to implement GVI, in January of 2022. They declined this as well.
Mayor Stoney refused to attend our Nehemiah Action in 2023. We lamented his failure to implement GVI, a proven solution to this terrible crisis that continues to claim lives. At our Nehemiah Action 2024, with 1,750 people present (a RISC record), mayoral candidates attended and committed to attend our GVI Roundtable on May 20th, where we educated them about this proven solution. On August 29th, we will have a mayoral candidates forum. We intend to secure the commitment of all mayoral candidates, so that at our Nehemiah Action 2025, we are celebrating the successful implementation of GVI!
We are committed to continuing to ask the city to implement a proven evidence-based program, to address this crisis. The suffering and loss of life in this city must end.
A Win Along the Way
After the city refused to work with REAL LIFE to implement GVI, the city of Hopewell came forward and asked this organization to work with them. GVI was implemented in Hopewell in June of 2023, and has thus far led to a 45% reduction in shootings and homicides in Hopewell.
GUN VIOLENCE CAMPAIGN RESOURCES
Click here to read more about the GVI program, provided by the National Network for Safe Communities is the provider of GVI.
Read about the effectiveness of GVI in New Haven, CT and Oakland, CA.
Click here to learn more about the Focused Deterrence Strategies and Crime Control.
Click here to read about the Council on Criminal Justice.
Click here to watch a video we put together in June of 2021, documenting our Gun Violence Campaign.
Click here to watch our Gun Violence Roundtable in October 2021.
Our letter to Mayor Stoney, letting him know of our planned meeting. Read his “Open Letter to RISC,” and then read our response here.
Click here to watch the entire video footage of our Gun Violence Mini-Action, February 2022.
Click here to watch the Gun Violence portion of our Nehemiah Action 2023.
Click here to read about GVI being implemented in Hopewell, VA.
Click here to watch the Gun Violence portion of our Nehemiah Action 2024.