Maryland: Isometric arrow formed by multiple merging colorful lines on white background. Coalition, partnership, merger, alliance, integration concept.

Opinion: Our Maryland Coalition Supports Evidence-based Programs For Black, Brown Communities

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Gun violence in Maryland disproportionately impacts young Black and brown men and, increasingly, women. It is important that gun violence prevention organizations look beyond traditional efforts to curb gun violence. In light of the murders of George Floyd, Breonna Taylor and many other individuals who have experienced police violence, advocates of violence prevention must address the growing concern of police violence and offer alternatives to community policing. 

Marylanders to Prevent Gun Violence has led the charge on that front, joining with The Community Justice Action Fund to create The Maryland Violence Prevention Coalition (MVPC). 

MVPC is a statewide coalition of organizations with the joint mission of reducing violence and improving living conditions in underserved Maryland communities. Using a community-led approach, we seek to empower the voices often neglected and educate elected officials and the public about urgent community needs. The coalition was initially formed in 2018 to coordinate education and advocacy efforts to support state Delegate Brooke Lierman’s legislation to establish the Maryland Violence Intervention and Prevention Program (VIPP).

California:Illustration in flat style of 3 young men from the waist up in black and rust shirts waving.

Opinion: Closing California’s State Youth Prisons is a Victory for Racial Justice

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In a long-awaited decision, California leaders have moved to close the state’s youth correctional institutions managed by the Division of Juvenile Justice (DJJ). Throughout its 80-year history, DJJ has come under harsh criticism for its prison-like conditions, rampant violence and dramatic racial disparities among youth behind its walls. 
Recently, the rapid spread of COVID-19 inside DJJ facilities sparked community outrage. Youth at DJJ were already exposed to traumatic conditions. Now, amid the COVID-19 pandemic, they experience further isolation from family and peers as well as a severe lack of rehabilitative programming. This public health crisis exposes DJJ’s inherent flaws and patterns of neglect. 

On Aug.

gun violence: Man and woman fasten seatbelts while sitting in car

Opinion: Gun Violence Can Be Reduced With Incremental Changes, As With Car Safety

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I remember when everyone knew a family that had been adversely affected by the loss or serious injury of a loved one in a motor vehicle accident. Initially, there was much hand-wringing and little action about automobile safety. After seat-belt laws were enacted, people railed against them as government interference, spreading fearful predictions that people would be trapped inside their cars. Then, something amazing happened: Seat belts worked. Fewer people died, and a disproportionate number of those who did die were not strapped in. 

Automobile manufacturers were not fans of improved safety measures for cars.

life sentence: Prison with light and shadow spelling out life through a barred window

Opinion: Policymakers, Time To End Juvenile Life Sentencing

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A viral video in August showed an 8-year-old boy being arrested at his elementary school in handcuffs that slid off his tiny wrists. A police officer can be heard telling the child, “You’re going to jail.” Sadly, this is just the latest disturbing example of the uniquely American phenomenon of vilifying and overpolicing our nation’s children. 

America incarcerates more people under 18 than any other nation and is the only country in the world to condemn its children to die behind bars, with no chance of freedom or hope for redemption. For these “juvenile lifers,” no matter their progress in treatment or rehabilitation, their home from the age of 15 — or whenever they were sentenced as a child — is a jail cell.    

This is not only a draconian approach at odds with undeniable science showing that youth who have committed even serious offenses can be successfully rehabilitated, it also perpetuates unconscionable racial inequities. The majority of kids we throw away through these juvenile life without parole (JLWOP) sentences are Black. Our system is sadly predisposed to see the humanity in white children more than children of color; approximately 70% of children sentenced to life without parole have been Black since 2012.

SAVE: 4 men, 1 woman, all smiling, pose in group, all wearing matching sweatshirts that say save east harlem

Opinion: For Community Policing to Work, We Need Investment, Stronger Partnerships

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Since COVID-19 hit, communities like New York City's East Harlem have been dealing with multiple diseases: a deadly virus, the ongoing effects of systemic racism and gun violence. 

Stand Against Violence East Harlem (SAVE), a Cure Violence program run by Getting Out and Staying Out (GOSO), has worked to address gun violence in its East Harlem neighborhood for many years. We have viewed gun violence as a public health issue, one that must be treated in order to change community norms. 

When you look beyond the headlines about gun violence in New York City and actually spend some time in neighborhoods like East Harlem, it is clear that what our community doesn’t need is increased policing and incarceration — what we need is more basic resources and opportunities. 

According to a recent study by the Center for Court Innovation — and as we see at GOSO — an overwhelming number of 16- to 24-year-olds who carry guns have been subject to trauma and violence themselves. This history, along with arrests for minor, nonviolent offenses, far too many of which lead to needless incarceration, can start a cycle that eventually escalates. This is why we must focus on treatment and investment, not just law enforcement. The Cure Violence model works to change attitudes and connect at-risk individuals to resources, with staff living in the communities where they work.

philanthropy: Two black men talking outside

Opinion: We Know What Truly Works for Gun Violence Prevention and Invest In It

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More than 115,000 Americans will be shot and 40,000 will die from gun violence this year alone — just like the year before and the year before that one. Gun violence in our country is considered one of the greatest public health crises of our lifetime, disproportionately impacting and traumatizing communities and people of color. 

Far too often we see the disproportionate rates at which marginalized people in our country are the targets of hate, violence and injustice. COVID-19 and the recent peaceful protests are bringing to light the inequities that exist in our broken systems — but it shouldn’t take a pandemic and a nine-minute video of a man being murdered by police for systemic change. The data on these inequities has existed for decades. 

As the only state-based donor collaborative investing in gun violence prevention in California, Hope and Heal Fund takes a public health, community-based approach through a racial equity framework to end gun violence. It harnesses the collective power of philanthropy, government, advocates, experts, researchers, community partners and individuals to invest in proven solutions and emerging strategies to intervene, interrupt and prevent trauma, injuries and deaths as a result of gun violence in the homes and communities in California. 

We don’t just look at the gun violence making national headlines, like mass shootings.

firearm injuries: Hands opening digital lock on safe

Opinion: Public Health Approach Can Help Prevent Firearm Injury, Death In Youth

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September usually marks the return to school, with teachers setting up classrooms and youth headed off on a new year of learning and growth. But 2020 has been anything but usual. In many parts of the country, learning has moved online as teachers set up virtual classrooms and youth engage from their bedrooms, kitchens and living rooms. 

Parents are faced with balancing work and oversight of home learning; for some, this means new child care demands, while teleworking parents struggle with divided attention. Outside the home, other stressors include coronavirus, the upcoming election, economic uncertainty and protests for racial justice; Americans are grieving, frustrated and frightened.    
For more information on Youth Gun Violence Prevention, go to JJIE Resource Hub | Youth Gun Violence Prevention
Add the 2020 surge in gun sales — with an estimated 40% being first-time owners — and there’s the perfect recipe for a spike in youth firearm injuries and deaths.

gun rests on platform outdoors

Opinion: Gun Industry Must Be Held Accountable for Gun Violence

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The national debate about gun violence in the United States generally falls into familiar patterns. We express shock and horror at acts of unspeakable violence, grieve for victims and their families and ask questions about the individual who pulled the trigger and what could have been done to intervene with them to prevent the tragedy. But there is one crucial actor who is largely absent from these conversations: the industry responsible for putting guns into our communities in the first place. For more information on Youth Gun Violence Prevention, go to JJIE Resource Hub | Youth Gun Violence Prevention
The gun industry in this country is massive. From 2014 to 2018, nearly 47 million guns were manufactured domestically and another 21 million were imported, totaling 68 million new guns for sale in American communities.

partnership: Older and younger people working together around a table

Opinion: Here’s How to Make Youth-adult Partnership Work

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How different would today look if people most affected by decisions held equal power in making those decisions? 

If public health decision-makers included Black, Indigenous and Latinx patients who are disproportionately affected by COVID-19 and suffer the effects of racially biased health care? If police accountability review boards, prosecutor’s offices and elected city leaders had actual power over law enforcement activities and included the Black, Indigenous and transgender people most affected by overpolicing, police violence and the prison industrial complex? If economic policy was set in partnership with hourly, tipped, domestic and essential workers who drive so much of the economy? 
If students, especially Black and Indigenous students and students with differing ranges of intellectual and physical abilities, partnered in education policy and planning? The vision arising from these questions pushes past those in power today “reaching out” to engage the community. Rather, the vision upends traditional decision-making structures and positions everyone who will be impacted by a decision as equal partners in power, accountability and value.

homelessness: 2 women, 1 man discuss notes on whiteboard

Opinion: Youth Themselves Must Help Design Supports To Protect Them From Homelessness

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(Series: Part 7 of 7)
Part 1: How Do We Make Youth Homelessness Effort Bipartisan? Part 2: America’s Biases Marginalize Youth, Drive Them to Homelessness
Part 3: Collective Decision-making Can Neutralize Politics of Fear
Part 4: So, How Does This Collective Decision-making Work? Part 5: Youth Homelessness Is a Symptom, Not a Cause
Part 6: To Work On Youth Homelessness, Brainstorming, Decision Analysis Strong Tools
There are policies and practices that have been proven to work for communities that embrace them. Adopting such measures need not be a politicized action. In fact, all major federal juvenile justice reforms have involved bipartisan support and legislators working together across the aisle.