What It Takes for Cities to Reduce Violence
Executives from 4 cities highlighted the leadership, coordination, and focus needed to make violence reduction efforts thrive
In May, public safety leaders from Baltimore, Indianapolis, Philadelphia, and Oakland, California, gathered in Philadelphia and Baltimore to compare notes on what it takes to reduce violence and to sustain those gains over time. Across cities with different histories, governance structures, and local contexts, participants described remarkably similar challenges and lessons about what makes progress possible.
The Pew Charitable Trusts and the University of Pennsylvania’s Crime and Justice Policy (CJP) Lab, which organized the event, selected these cities because they are dedicated to not just supporting evidence-based programs but also committed to building and strengthening the governance and management capacities that coalesce these programs into a strategy that can reduce violence at the city level. These identified capacities include political leadership, data-driven problem analysis, cross-sector coordination, effective operational management, strong violence reduction infrastructure, and long-term sustainability. This shared language and framework allowed newly connected peers to quickly dive deep into the work they’re doing in different cities.
Several themes surfaced repeatedly over the course of the meeting:
Leadership. Participants made clear that political leadership remains one of the most important drivers of sustained progress to reduce violence. That leadership comes from mayors and agency heads who maintain urgency and reinforce accountability. Participants shared the importance of having an executive willing to both commit to a shared strategy and defend it publicly. As Philadelphia Police Commissioner Kevin Bethel said, “[Mayor Cherelle Parker] gave me my charge the day I walked in. And she hit me with four executive orders. So I was charged and then some. And if we stay true to that, we win.”
Data-driven problem analysis. Each city engaged in a problem analysis—a series of research activities that establish a shared understanding of who and what is driving violence. Strategies to reduce violence, attendees agreed, can achieve the most impact when they respond to the problem analysis findings.
In Baltimore, its problem analysis changed the game. Jeremy Biddle, a special adviser on the group violence reduction strategy to the mayor and police commissioner, said, “The prevailing narrative at that time was [that] it’s youth violence, it’s drug-related violence. So understandably, the city had developed a youth violence infrastructure.” However, the problem analysis found the high-risk population to be substantially older, with multiple prior arrests, and ties to groups engaging in violence, as in many other cities. That led to a “pretty rigorous system change,” to identify and engage the high-risk population, explained Biddle.
Focus. Another lesson surfaced repeatedly: Cities make the most progress when they stay relentlessly focused on the people and places at the highest risk and align partners around a shared strategy. Oakland’s emphasis on focus underscored a broader point echoed throughout the convening: Effective violence reduction requires discipline, not drift. Dr. Holly Joshi, director of the city’s Department of Violence Prevention, offered advice to other cities: “Just be unapologetically focused. The priority population has to be identified, and then you have to unapologetically continue over time to invest in that priority population, both with financial resources and attention.”
Coordination and sustainability. Participants described coordination among community violence intervention teams, law enforcement, and city agencies as essential to effective homicide reduction, emphasizing that these partnerships must be built deliberately and sustained over time. Across cities, they pointed to structured management meetings, real-time information sharing, and clear cross-agency alignment as critical to keeping partners focused on a shared strategy. Tony Lopez, deputy director of public safety for the city of Indianapolis, described their coordinated approach: “The Office of Public Health and Safety put together a partnership [with a] nonprofit agency called Indy Public Safety Foundation. With that, we founded Indy Peace, our community-based approach to our gun violence reduction strategy. We work [in] parallel with law enforcement, working on identifying and engaging with the very high-risk individuals in our city.”
Participants noted that using the language of partner agencies and giving each a clear role in public safety helped deepen shared ownership of the strategy across city government. Strong coordination also supports long-term sustainability by building community trust and strengthening partner buy-in. Without it, partners can leave key voices out of strategic decisions and miss opportunities to share information before resources are misdirected.
Legitimacy. Law enforcement leaders emphasized the importance of focusing their resources, partnering more effectively with community-based organizations, and building community trust by, in part, rejecting prior practices. Baltimore Police Department’s Col. Robert Velte said, “[Group Violence Reduction Strategy] doesn’t lead to a zero tolerance or overpolicing. So we’re able to concentrate on the very small number of folks [who are most actively involved in violence] and do so in a way that’s building trust and legitimacy with our community partners.”
What’s next
As Philadelphia Mayor Cherelle Parker said at the kickoff session, “I’m a sponge. I want to learn what you can teach me. That’s what it should be about, exchanging thoughts and ideas. I think that makes us thought leaders as well, because we’re interconnected, and we learn from each other.” All cities made offers to share resources and time moving forward, indicating this partnership is just beginning.
Pew and the CJP Lab are providing technical assistance to Philadelphia—and the CJP Lab and National Institute for Criminal Justice Reform are providing similar support to Baltimore, Indianapolis, and Oakland—to reduce community violence in the near term and sustain those reductions. The meeting surfaced concrete opportunities that each city can bring home to advance their violence reduction work. Just as importantly, it reinforced the value of ongoing collaboration—not just within each city, but with peers across the country tackling similar challenges.
Meaghan McDonald works on The Pew Charitable Trusts’ safety and justice portfolio.
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