How One California City Began Bringing Its Murder Rate Down—Without Cops


Richmond, California's Office of Neighborhood Safety responded to alarmingly high gun violence levels with an outreach approach to young men at high risk of getting shot or of shooting others. Instead of a heavy-handed enforcement strategy, the office intervenes in likely retaliatory violence and enrolls men as fellows in a year-long program offering counseling, education, job training, and a $500 monthly stipend for fellows on the right track. In the programs first three years, gun homicides dropped and 65 of 68 fellows survived.

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