How the Most Dangerous Place on Earth Got Safer

A community-led security council in Jimeta combined evidence-based arrests, monthly multi-stakeholder meetings, and a two-year rehabilitation program to reduce Shila Boys gang violence and shift behavior among the gang.

Bucking the worldwide trend, Nepal continues its successful fight against poaching, thanks to a multilayered system of information gathering, enforcement, and swift justice.

In 2019, a South Sudan chief organized and empowered local “vigilante groups” (networks of households tasked with supporting each other), and since then, the community has transformed from a sparsely populated and violent neighborhood into a crowded but safe place where markets can stay open later at night. This community policing tactic has since spread to other South Sudanese areas and relies on collaboration between various authorities and ethnic groups to succeed.

Seattle has taken a comprehensive approach to police reform, including forming a community police commission, the development of policies on appropriate weapon use, more oversight on police force, and the creation of a specialty unit that focuses on mental health. While there has been pushback from officers, the safety of officers hasn’t been compromised and the use of force has decreased by sixty percent. With some calling it a success, California seeks to implement similar reform at the state level.

Residents of Rivera Hernandez, Honduras are trying to improve their community in a district that’s under gang control. One such effort is a vocational school to train children and adults in electricity and solar energy. The city – subject to extreme poverty – has also received aid from the United States to fund community policing and day camps for a small number of children, although some of that money has bolstered corruption in the region.

New Haven's Project Longevity has measurably reduced gang violence through an approach brings law enforcement, social service groups, and community leaders together to offer teenagers and young men incentives to stop the violence, and a way out for those who need help. It's a model that may provide a solution for other cities facing gang violence.

Baltimore has dramatically reduced homicides through a multi-pronged approach involving a data-driven Group Violence Reduction Strategy, credible-messenger intervention programs, and aggressive prosecution of illegal gun possession. This has resulted in a record-low murder rate in 2026, with 60 killings recorded through August compared to roughly 220 at the same point four years prior.

Women in Jos, Nigeria formed cross-religious peace networks and vigilante patrols that eliminated conflict deaths between 2014-2023 in their communities, restored inter-faith relationships, and reduced crime through nighttime security operations, though they face ongoing challenges from lack of police support and systemic justice failures.

A partnership between the local school district, police and the nonprofits the Karen Organization of Minnesota and The Urban Village is helping fight addiction and gang influence among Karen youth. Since the partnership was formed, overdoses among youth have decreased significantly, and some students have begun forming supportive relationships with specialists from nonprofits and local police whom they can lean on when they need to.

In response to public safety concerns and understaffed police departments, community ambassadors are working to improve public safety by building relationships with local business owners and residents, mitigating conflict without force or violence, providing support to people in crisis and keeping the city clean. Since community ambassadors began patrolling the area, local business owners have reported noticing fewer robberies and crime in general.