DC Office of the Attorney General - Community Violence Intervention Initiative

This project seeks to improve the effectiveness of the Office of the Attorney General’s (OAG) Cure the Streets (CTS) program, a public safety community violence intervention (CVI) initiative in Washington, DC, that aims to reduce gun violence. The program, launched in 2018 and based on the Cure Violence Global CVI model, utilizes a public health approach by treating gun violence as a preventable disease. CTS operates in 10 high-risk neighborhoods and employs credible community members as violence interrupters to mediate conflicts, prevent shootings, and change community norms. It will strengthen collaboration and coordination between CTS and the Office of Neighborhood Safety and Engagement’s (ONSE) violence interruption initiative, a separate CVI program launched in 2018 with operations in 25 priority communities under the Executive Office of the Mayor. Despite efforts from both agencies, there is ongoing community and political consensus that having two violence interruption programs under different agencies presents operational challenges. While there is frontline information sharing between CTS and ONSE, a key challenge remains: aligning violence reduction efforts. This comes at a critical time, as the District faces its highest homicide rates in nearly three decades. Accordingly, this initiative will involve providing supplemental training to standardize violence interruption approaches across the District. It will also advance the feasibility of combining CTS and ONSE into a unified District government violence interruption program. The initiative will also identify a streamlined process for CTS to access support services housed under mayoral agencies to connect high-risk individuals with crucial resources. The initiative will also offer paid apprenticeships to high-risk individuals identified by CTS staff to provide participants with opportunities and a path away from violence.