Beginning Dec. 12, Baltimore City will hold four sessions to gain community feedback on the city’s violence prevention plan.
The sessions will be hosted by the Mayor’s Office of Neighborhood Safety and Engagement (MONSE), the Baltimore Police Department, and the State Attorney’s Office.
The sessions build on community conversations held by MONSE throughout October and November.
In July, Mayor Brandon Scott released a violence prevention plan, outlining his administration’s plan to treat violence as a public health epidemic.
The upcoming community sessions will seek feedback on the city’s Group Violence Reduction Strategy (GVRS), a key component of the violence prevention plan.
Mayor Scott’s violence prevention strategy involves the inclusion of law enforcement, social services, and community mobilization in response to crime.
“This strategy has proven to be successful in preventing violence in other cities, but it will only produce results for Baltimore if we bring the community into these conversations,” Mayor Scott said in a statement.
Over the past two years, Baltimore City has faced multiple public health crises – an epidemic of gun violence, the COVID-19 pandemic, and overdose deaths.
Since 2015, Baltimore City has seen more than 300 homicides per year, a majority of which were related to gun violence.
This week, the city saw its 320th homicide.
And in the first quarter of 2021, the city reported 227 opioid-related deaths, according to the Maryland Opioid Operational Command Center.
The community feedback sessions will take place on Dec. 12 from 1:00-4:00 p.m., and Dec. 14, Jan. 5, and Jan. 20 from 6:00-9:00 p.m.
They will be held at the Robert C. Marshall Recreation Center, located at 1201 Pennsylvania Avenue.
The events will be facilitated by the Baltimore Community Mediation Center.
“Our residents live with trauma and its effects in their day-to-day lives,” said MONSE director Shantay Jackson in a statement.
“To repair the damage caused by gun violence, we must work together to create a geographically- and culturally-relevant solution that works for our city. These sessions are how we do that,” she said.
