From Milwaukee to Gilroy: New podcast on preventing violence

Community-led movements can prevent gun violence and create peace
The mass shooting in Gilroy, California—and an additional seven mass shootings that took place last weekend—remind us of the tragic toll of gun violence. Our hearts are with the victims and their families as well as with the communities that face gun violence on a daily basis but don’t see their stories in the headlines. What keeps us hopeful for a different future is that all over the country we’re seeing community-led efforts stop all forms of gun violence. Our power will be unstoppable when all of these communities come together and when their successful strategies shape national policy.
Listen to Community Organizing to Prevent Violence
In our new Prevention Institute podcast, Community Organizing to Prevent Violence, Reggie Moore, Director of the Milwaukee Office of Violence Prevention, talks about how the Milwaukee Blueprint for Peace was created with leadership from communities most directly impacted by violence. The development of the Blueprint has coincided with a 3-year decline in Milwaukee homicides and non-fatal shootings.
“The world that you’re born into doesn’t have to be the world you die in. You can actually shape it, you can influence it. You can change the conditions that aren’t natural to what a healthy community should look like.”
-Reggie Moore
In the podcast, Reggie talks about community-driven efforts like “We Got This!” that are transforming Milwaukee neighborhoods and the growing movement behind the Blueprint. He also shares powerful stories of devastating loss, triumphant healing, and collective action to address the structural roots of violence. And he speaks passionately about the role of government in supporting community leadership, and why a culture shift is needed in government from passivity to responsiveness.

“When people ask ‘what is the cost of prevention?’ My response is, ‘what is the value of your life?’ If we can invest in stopping a young person from being unintentionally shot or a mother from being unnecessarily killed, or any other form of violence that harms an individual, a neighborhood, a school, a community, I can’t put a price tag on that. But what I do know is that we have not equitably and fairly invested in prevention to the degree that we’ve invested in cops, cages, and corpses. What we want to see as a community is a city, a county, a state that is committed to investing in prevention instead of pain.”

Cities across the United States are developing comprehensive “peace plans” like the one in Milwaukee, and the plans are working. Prevention Institute has been honored to support those efforts in cities from San Jose to Milwaukee to Kansas City.

In addition to listening to this compelling podcast, we encourage you to re-read our Recommendations to Prevent Gun Violence and choose one to take action on in your community.

This work is made possible by the Langeloth Foundation.
 

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