Baltimore's Safe Streets changing attitudes of gun violence
By Sara Michael
Examiner Staff Writer 1/14/09
In September, Baltimore City police were taking to neighbors in the North Fulton area about a shooting. This week, a report shows the Baltimore City Health Department's Safe Streets program is proving effective in reducing gun violence. — Examiner file photo Young men Baltimore's McElderry Park are far less likely to turn to guns to solve disputes, an attitude shift that suggests a Baltimore City Health Department violence prevention program is having an effect, an independent evaluation found.
"We were very pleasantly surprised to see that," said Daniel Webster, principal investigator for the evaluation of the city's Safe Streets program and associate director for research at the Center for the Prevention of Youth Violence at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health.
Safe Streets, a community-based program modeled after CeaseFire in Chicago, uses outreach workers, community members and faith leaders to intervene in conflicts and promote alternatives to violence.
The program was first implemented in McElderry Park in East Baltimore in August 2007, and has expanded to include Ellwood Park. The Union Square neighborhood was added a few months later, but the program was not well implemented there, researchers said.
Two other sites were added in 2008, including Cherry Hill.
McElderry Park provided more data for the interim review, and researchers recognized the limitations of the short time period and the need for
"We intend to look for longer term patters to see if these effects hold," Webster said.
In the evaluation released Tuesday, researchers found through surveys that young men in McElderry Park were 41 percent less supportive of gun violence as compared with other neighborhoods.
"That's really the point of the program," said Baltimore City Health Commissioner Dr. Joshua Sharfstein. "The point is to change the way of thinking about violence."
The program may have also reduced homicides in the area. There has not been one homicide in McElderry Park since Safe Streets was implemented, according to researchers, who estimated there would be four to five homicides there during an average period.
"In my mind, it's definitely money well spent," Webster said.
Safe Streets is funded through $1 million from the city and private foundation donors.
The next question, Webster said, will be how to implement it in other parts of the city. Those involved in outreach and mediation need a great deal of skill and trust among community members, he said.
Budget constraints also make it a challenge to expand the program, Sharfstein said.
"Violence is a tremendous public health problem in this city," he said. "There are not that many effective approaches to violence out there that have been demonstrated."
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Reader Comments:
POSTED Jan 14, 2009
johnn: "more bs now there creating improvements like the school system did to fool tax payers when they know nothing has changed...tell the truth for once"