General CVI Talking Points

Advocates in the Community Violence Intervention (CVI) field are working daily to keep communities safe and save lives. Against the backdrop of a polarizing national election and ongoing policy debates in communities coast to coast, Community Justice prepared this document to support the CVI field in its ongoing work and conversations. The talking points included below, offer guidance for how to discuss the importance and efficacy of CVI, keeping conversations on gun violence focused on the solutions needed to uplift Black and brown communities.


A key talking point for the field is to connect the dots on the crime/violence rates dropping and the work of the CVI field. Check out this article here from our partners at CAPS that talk more about this. Key points from the article:

“It’s not a coincidence that gun violence declined as a result. CVI strategies are successful when implemented with fidelity and funded consistently and many cities across the country are seeing historic reductions in gun violence, with some, like Newark, boasting declines as high as 50%. The lesson to be learned here is that those closest to violence actually have a major role to play in reducing it.”

A Public Health Approach to Violence Prevention

  • Violence was first recognized nationally as a public health issue by the CDC in 1979. 

  • Applying the public health model to violence prevention means leveraging the same data-driven, scientific process that public health experts use to tackle all public health matters. This approach is powerful and effective because it systemically targets the root causes and conditions that foster violence.

  • This method not only tackles immediate issues but also builds healthier, safer communities for the long term. When backed by sufficient and sustained public investments and resources, the comprehensive, evidence-based approach has consistently proven effective in significantly reducing violence, making a compelling case for its adoption in violence prevention efforts.

About Community Violence Intervention 

  • After the COVID-19 pandemic, communities across the country understand first-hand the vital role of local, state, and federal governments in developing and implementing public health strategies to save lives. 

  • To truly curb the deadly gun violence we see across the country, we must treat gun violence as a public health crisis, implementing proven, bipartisan Community Violence Intervention (CVI) strategies to prevent gun violence before it occurs.

  • Community Violence Intervention (CVI) offers a complement to law enforcement by employing several evidence-based, community-led strategies that engage individuals and groups at the highest risk of experiencing or perpetrating violence.

  • CVI utilizes professionally trained “credible messengers” — also known as “violence interrupters” — to go into communities that are disproportionately impacted by violence, form relationships with individuals who have been identified as high risk for engaging in or experiencing violence, and leverage their relationships and personal experiences to intervene in and prevent potentially violent situations. 

    • Credible messengers employ mediation techniques to negotiate ceasefires between individuals and groups and provide personal mentorship and support to help shift the culture of conflict resolution away from violence at the individual level. 

    • Violence interrupters play a central role in numerous strategies, including outreach-based violence intervention (also known as street violence intervention), hospital-based violence intervention, and cognitive behavioral therapy-integrated mentorship programs. They also help link victims and survivors of violence with essential services and supports, including trauma-informed behavioral and mental health care, financial assistance, and legal aid. 

  • Importantly, CVI strategies must be implemented alongside long-term preventative strategies designed to address the upstream root causes of all forms of violence, including family violence, intimate partner violence, and suicide.

  • There would be no nationwide push toward community violence intervention today without the decades of work before us with Black and brown frontline practitioners, violence interruption staff, and survivors helping to lead and craft every part of our work. We are grateful to them and will continue to be guided by their work as we move into this new chapter of our organization.

  • Gun violence prevention advocates and survivors continue to lead the charge at the local, state and federal level to demand leaders act on a whole-of-government approach to curb the gun violence epidemic and keep communities safe.

Community Violence Intervention Successes

  • The successes we are witnessing on-the-ground are thanks to the people on the frontlines who risk their lives everyday for our communities and who have the lived experience of knowing this crisis. These are our heroes. 

  • Where policymakers have listened, the strategies are working. Multiple cities have seen roughly 30%-50% reductions in violence in recent years that they attribute to the scaling of CVI strategies, including Austin, TX, Baltimore, MD, Baton Rouge, LA, Detroit, MI, Indianapolis, IN, Los Angeles, CA, Newark, NJ, Oakland, CA, Richmond, CA, and New York, NY.

    • In New York, NY, an evaluation conducted by John Jay College attributes a 53% homicide reduction between 2006 and 2018 to the introduction of several CVI models, including Cure Violence and the development of the Mayor’s Action Plan for Neighborhood Safety.

    • In Newark, NJ, the city saw a 32% reduction in shootings in 2022 and has seen a more than 50% reduction in homicides in the past decade, with the city now experiencing 60-year lows. This reduction has been fueled by the Newark Community Street Team (NCST) and investments in and the establishment of the city’s Office of Violence Prevention and Trauma Recovery.

    • Indianapolis, IN launched a Gun Violence Reduction Strategy (GVRS), an initiative that identifies individuals who are at very high risk of being involved in gun violence and employs intensive interventions with those individuals to prevent retaliatory shootings. In the first year, Indianapolis exceeded its goal and achieved a 16% reduction in murders and a 14% reduction in non-fatal shootings. In 2023, Indianapolis achieved even deeper reductions, with a 19% decline in murders and a 7% decline in non-fatal shootings from 2022. Since the launch of GVRS in January 2022, there has been a 31% reduction in murders and a 20% reduction in non-fatal shootings.

    • An evaluation of the Advance Peace CVI model found a 22% decrease in gun homicides and assaults, representing a cost savings of at least $25 million. A Richmond, CA, study found the model was associated with a 55% reduction in firearm violence, including deaths and hospital visits, and 43% fewer crimes annually. By 2023, Richmond experienced its lowest levels of homicide since tracking such data in 1971. 

    • Participation in Chicago CRED has been shown to reduce individual violent crime arrests by 73.4% over two years.