Is KC anti-violence program worth saving? If not, council has to find replacement

A Kansas City violence prevention program is in danger of shutting down, but it’s hard to tell if Aim4Peace is worth saving in its current form. And in yet another record-breaking year for homicide in this city, that in itself is a problem.

Councilman Dan Fowler says that if Aim4Peace were making a discernible difference, we wouldn’t continue to be one of the most violent cities in the country. “That tells me it isn’t working.”

Councilwoman Melissa Robinson believes that the violence in Kansas City tells us just the opposite: “Aim4Peace does work. But you have to fund them appropriately.”

This week, the homicide count stood at 53, including fatal police shootings. At the same time last year, the city’s deadliest on record, 49 people had been killed, according to police.

Since 2008, the city’s health department has run the Aim4Peace program, which hires former offenders as “violence interrupters” to identify people at high risk of retaliatory violence and try to defuse dangerous situations.

Recently, four members of its street intervention team were reassigned or let go, and the total staff is down to seven, from a high of 21.

Aim4Peace also has a hospital intervention team, which includes social workers who are assigned to two area hospitals. That team connects the families and victims of violence with resources so the focus is on recovery rather than retaliation. Funds for the hospital prevention program end in September, health department officials said.

So are we ending a program that provides an important, boots-on-the-ground approach to reducing violent crime? Or one that won’t be missed, since it’s had little to no impact?

Last year, Aim4Peace mediated 45 conflicts and claims to have saved an estimated 139 lives. But critics are right when they say we need better metrics — and a city-led audit, to show how well the program really works.

Federal grants account for the majority of funding for Aim4Peace. When those funds dried up this year, layoffs and transfers followed.

Funding from the city budget — about $438,000 for the fiscal year that began Saturday — will not be enough to preserve the program, a spokesperson for the health department said.

The City Council could allocate federal COVID-19 relief funds to keep the program afloat.

But should it? Before deciding, they need to see some data, both on Aim4Peace and on other anti-violence programs.

Police Chief Rick Smith abandoned NoVA

Police Chief Rick Smith moved away from the Kansas City No Violence Alliance, or NoVA, when he took over in 2017, and the number of murders has been moving in the wrong direction all but one year since he took the job.

That program was based on a strategy known as focused deterrence, and on the fact that only a small number of criminals commit the most crimes. It absolutely was working. The city recorded a 40-year low for homicides and nonfatal shootings in 2014.

By 2019, NoVA had been abandoned entirely. Now, “we don’t know who the suspects or the victims are,” said Jackson County Prosecutor Jean Peters Baker. “How can we build up enough intelligence against someone to prevent them from harming others in the community? That’s the biggest thing we are missing, intelligence.”

That’s not the only thing that’s changed during Smith’s tenure; Missouri’s gun laws were also relaxed again in 2017, allowing for permit-less carry for all gun owners in most public places.

But since Smith has unilaterally taken a program that was successful off the table, it’s up to the City Council, with community input, to find and fund anti-violence programs with the best chance of stemming the bloodshed.

This story was originally published May 5, 2021 at 5:00 AM.