The Impact of Our Anti-Violence Programs

Before we took on the national cure violence model, we managed to take one of the worst neighborhoods in Jackson, MS, and reduce the violent crimes from 87% to 14% over a 3-year period by doing the Operation Good model. The model was effective in other communities in the city and helped keep the murder rate below 80 per year. Although community-based solutions were foreign to the city of Jackson, Hinds County, and federal officials, they started to crowd the areas that we targeted. Needless to say, due to the majority of our members being ex-con, they started to fade away, and the impact of our absence showed as the murder rate consistently rose from 2018 to 2021. (Note: the biggest increase was during the coronavirus pandemic.)

We were approached in 2021 to do the Cure Violence model. Because we all felt bad about the increase in violence that had started plaguing our city, we signed on to the national model. By mixing the national cure violence model with the Operation Good model, we embarked on reducing the violence in one of the most violent areas of the city.

In our first year, we went 286 days without a gun-related death.