KC town hall meeting on violence seeks answers in youth groups, smart policing, gun control, jobs

Youth activities, smart policing, gun control and jobs have all been offered as possible answers to Kansas City’s violence problem.

In a town hall meeting Tuesday at St. James United Methodist Church, residents and civic leaders gathered to talk about what is working and what more can be done.

Residents asked questions of discussion panels that included Kansas City Council members, Jackson County Prosecutor Jean Peters Baker and teenage members of Generation Rap, a leadership program and radio show on the local Hot 103 Jamz station. Missouri Rep. Gail McCann Beatty also attended and answered questions about what could be done in the legislature to help the city stop the violence.

Teenagers from Generation Rap said some existing efforts were working to get young people off the streets and out of trouble. The city already has several youth activity programs. Panel members said those programs could improve by getting more young people involved and offering more opportunities for those who aren’t athletically inclined.

Young people in neighborhoods most afflicted by violence need safe places to socialize, panelists said. The need for mentoring and peer-to-peer conflict resolution remains great.

Violence in the city also needs to be looked at in perspective, said Peters Baker. While some politicians and news reports make it sound as if violence is always on the rise, the reality is that homicide in the city has been in decline since the 1990s. And the answer, Peters Baker said, is not always brute force.

“It’s not just about the heavy hand of law enforcement. It’s also about offering services to get people out of a life of crime,” she said.

Law enforcement leaders in Kansas City had been wise, Peters Baker said, in turning away from past strategies, such as the “broken windows” theory, that advocate flooding troubled neighborhoods with police to respond to relatively minor violations. Such strategies may have some success, but they can also hurt communities and relations between citizens and police, she said.

Instead, police here have embraced a strategy that targets homicides, identifying individuals most likely to kill or be killed.

“It’s focusing on the crime that we need to focus on and not some of the smaller stuff that doesn’t actually hurt communities,” Peters Baker said.

In response to questions about gun control, Beatty, a Democrat representing the 26th District, said even discussing the issue was “extremely difficult” in Missouri’s GOP-dominated legislature. If Kansas City residents want the issue to be heard in the Capitol, Beatty said, they need to go to Jefferson City and make a demonstration.

City Council members Alissia Canady and Mayor Pro Tem Scott Wagner said city leaders understand the maxim that “nothing stops a bullet like a job” and are working to get more local residents hired on major construction projects, especially those benefiting from city tax incentives.

On some projects, only 13 percent of the workers are from Kansas City, Canady said.

Canady said she planned to push for more local hiring requirements on major construction projects in the city.

This story was originally published July 26, 2016 at 9:03 PM with the headline "KC town hall meeting on violence seeks answers in youth groups, smart policing, gun control, jobs."