Mayor Brandon Scott heralded Baltimore City’s reduction in homicides and non-fatal shootings in 2023 at a press conference Wednesday with city officials and partner organizations who collaborated to help implement city-wide violence reduction strategies.
Scott credited building Baltimore’s “community violence intervention ecosystem” and resurrecting the Criminal Justice Coordinating Council, along with using data to inform public safety strategies with the resulting numbers: a 20% reduction in homicides and a 6.8% drop in non-fatal shootings in 2023. This is the largest single-year reduction Baltimore has ever seen, according to Scott.
“These reductions are a testament to the effective interagency coordination and collaboration across community-based partners, local, state, and federal government, law enforcement, the hard work of BPD officers, community violence intervention, staff partners in the justice system, and community-based organizations working on the ground to build a safer Baltimore,” Scott said.
Scott is hardly ready to rest on this improvement, however.
“While this is meaningful progress, a disease of gun violence continues to plague our community. And none of us that you see here today are ready to celebrate. We are ready to push this work even further. Guns continue to flow from outside Baltimore into the hands of young people and other individuals who are using them to deal with death and destruction on our streets and in our neighborhoods,” Scott said.
He vowed to continue the momentum and build on the groundwork laid by 2023’s successes. Scott promised focus on maintaining and increasing pressure to remove illegal guns from the streets; engaging in proactive, community-centered law enforcement approaches; addressing the root causes of violence in communities; properly rehabilitating people returning home from prison and reentering society; and working with partners in the justice system to ensure no one falls through the gap.
Focusing on prevention and youth, Scott continued, “We also understand that young people in Baltimore continue to experience the acute levels of violence and trauma. In order to achieve and sustain long term public safety, we have to address that problem head on, which is why we continue to prioritize diversion interventions specifically tailored to supporting young people, including intensive case management for at risk youth in partnership with city schools, our safe passage program to mediate and deter conflicts while young people are traveling to and from school, school based violence, intervention, and investments into social emotional learning to show young people how to effectively resolve conflicts without feeling the need to resort to violence.”
Baltimore City Police Commissioner Richard Worley spoke on the reduction in gun violence, noting that in 2023, the Baltimore Police Department (BPD) took more than 2,900 guns off the streets. He also said there was a rapid decrease of illegal arrests, and an improvement in policing all parts of the city equally. Worley mentioned working under the federally mandated consent decree and the difficulties of staffing but focused on improvement within his department to ensure safety for city residents.
“Working collaboratively on a comprehensive approach to crime reduction with our partners has really been the change agent in moving the city and the department forward,” Worley said. “Mayor Scott and Mayor’s Office of Neighborhood Safety and Engagement have played a pivotal role in the comprehensive crime reduction prevention plan, which includes the group violence reduction strategy, community violence intervention, behavioral health, 911 diversion, and so much more. The group violence reduction strategy, or GVRS has led us to focus on both prevention and enforcement to achieve greater reductions in gun violence this year.”
Stefanie Mavronis, interim executive director of the Mayor’s Office of Neighborhood Safety and Engagement (MONSE) reflected on the comprehensive violence prevention plan, which goes beyond policing and prosecution of crimes. MONSE is halfway through the five-year plan, which employs the GVRS in the Western and Southwestern districts now, and Mavronis described MONSE as “just around the corner from full implementation” in the Central district.
“It’s directly playing a role in driving down overall violence. We engage the individuals we know are the most at risk of gun violence and offer them another way,” Mavronis said. “Since launching GVRS in January 2022, 132 people in the Western and Southwestern districts have accepted that opportunity. Getting paired immediately with a life coach at Roca or YAP and getting a range of services tailored to their needs, including cognitive behavioral therapy, education, and emergency relocation where necessary. A key goal of the strategy is to reduce revictimization and retaliation, and the low rates of both since the start of the strategy, 4.3% for revictimization and 5% for recidivism, are evidence of our success. Again, we’re talking about the individuals who we’ve identified as being most at risk of gun violence.”
In answering questions from reporters, Scott acknowledged that American Rescue Plan Act (ARPA) money helped bring some of these programs to fruition. He thanked Baltimore’s philanthropic community for helping as well. “The great thing about what we have here in Baltimore, is that yes, we’re using ARPA funding for some of it, but we’re also blessed to have philanthropic partners who are helping us already on GVRS and have invested more because they’ve seen the success of the program,” Scott said.
