At its March 27 meeting, The East-West Gateway Council of Governments Board of Directors agreed to move forward with a regional violence reduction plan called Save Lives Now! An Initiative for a Collaborative Anti-Violence Program for the St. Louis Region.
Save Lives Now! (SLN) aims to reduce homicides and gun violence in the St. Louis region by 20% within a three year period. The initiative calls for intensive collaboration among police, prosecutors, courts, regional and local governments, mental health providers, criminologists, neighborhoods, residents, and various community to stakeholders. It capitalizes on regional data that suggests the majority of violent crime is committed by just 0.16% of the overall population and occurs most frequently in neighborhood “hot spots” that are relatively small in area. The plan drills down directly to the known people at risk for perpetuating street violence and the relatively small areas in which the bulk of the street violence is happening.
SLN will utilize three proven strategies that have worked quickly to significantly reduce homicides and shootings in metropolitan areas like Chicago, Memphis, and Philadelphia:
- Focused Deterrence, which includes increased police communication and enforcement, prosecution and sentencing focused directly on the known perpetrators of violence who refuse to stop.
- Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (CBT) for the offenders who agree stop violent behavior. CBT therapy helps individuals better manage emotions and approach problems and conflict through higher functioning executive reasoning rather than violence.
- Street Outreach professionals deployed into high violent crime neighborhoods to de-escalate disputes and redirect those at risk of violence to CBT and other supports such as education, mental health services, employment services.
The SLN plan began to take shape in May 2023 during a regional meeting to address street violence, including the high number of homicides and shootings in our region, and, later, at a December 2023 crime summit that included 30 participants in sectors that included law enforcement, prosecution, criminology, trauma medicine, business, government, churches, and others. Participants agreed that continued street violence was catastrophic to victims and their families, traumatic for impacted neighborhoods, and further caused harm to the economic prosperity and future growth of the St. Louis region.
The St. Louis metropolitan area ranks fourth in homicides among 50 U.S. metropolitan regions.
During the crime summit, participants agreed that a plan to reduce street violence must be fast-acting, guided by data, and utilize evidence-based approaches that yield significant results. They further agreed to a balance of strategies that utilized strong policing, mental health supports, and neighborhood interventions. The said the effort must include the voices, inclusion, and involvement of the residents most affected by street violence.
- The initiative is expected to start by next winter. Immediate next steps include:
- Building a staffed anti-violence Hub at EWG to coordinate efforts among a wide variety of stakeholders
- Bringing in technical assistance from nationally recognized practitioners in focused deterrence and CBT
- Further collection and analysis of violent crime data
- The creation of an inclusive advisory council to meet monthly
- Continued coordination among leaders/agencies in police, prosecution, courts, mental health, and street outreach.
- Training
Meetings in 2023 were facilitated by EWG with assistance from the Center for the Study and Practice of Violence Reduction (VRC) with input from criminologists from the University of Missouri-St. Louis and others. EWG’s Board began discussion of the initiative in January. For more information.