“Radical Collaboration”: St. Louis Mayor Tishaura Jones Joins Forces to Make Region Safer
Crime is a regional challenge. “Our crime doesn’t stop at our borders, and neither should our solutions,” St. Louis Mayor Tishaura Jones recently told her local media. So, Mayor Jones is locking arms with neighboring communities, via the East-West Gateway Council of Governments, to launch the Save Lives Now! Initiative. The multi-million dollar joint project will reduce violent crime by uniting regional governments, businesses, law enforcement and other stakeholders.
Together, they’re deploying a research-proven strategy intended to reduce homicides and shootings by 20 percent in three years, through the program’s three key strategies: focused deterrence, cognitive behavioral therapy, and street-level outreach.
The initiative utilizes a variety of strategies, one of which centers on deterrence. First, staff use data to identify the neighborhoods where people are most likely to commit or suffer from violent crime. “Most violent crime is committed by a small percentage of the population,” said Mayor Jones in a statement. “The Save Lives Now! initiative recognizes this reality and engages these individuals with the goal of diverting them,” she said.
Police or other staff communicate the consequences of violence, including arrest and imprisonment, as well as the personal harms, such as the devastating collateral damage to loved ones.
Essential to all this is street-level outreach: developing and deploying trusted messengers who communicate with the at-risk members of the community. They are assigned certain neighborhoods, where they focus their efforts, repeatedly returning to build visibility, connections, and trust. And, they “use this earned trust to mediate and resolve conflicts so they do not result in violence,” according to the Save Lives Now program page.
Through this work, these trusted messengers can connect at-risk individuals with behavioral therapy support. People can also access drug counseling, education services, housing services, and job training. They can learn strategies to help change their behavior and how to make better choices.
Right now, staff are being hired and trained ahead of the official start, which is expected in late 2024 or early 2025. Partners are optimistic. Cities like Kansas City and Baltimore have all seen improvement after implementing these types of anti-violence tactics.
All involved recognize there is still hard work ahead. “I think it’s going to take all of us working together to accomplish that goal,” said Cynthia Danley, the head of a partner and nonprofit called Safe Connections.
“It’s going to take radical collaboration,” said Mayor Jones.
