Reducing Trauma News Archive

NBC profiles our Save Our Streets (S.O.S.) program, which works in Brooklyn and the Bronx to stop shootings by building community relationships and connecting young people to support. Hear from Rahson Johnson, a violence interrupter and youth advocate with our S.O.S. team, who uses his lived experience with gun violence and the prison system to help guide children towards a better path. “The challenge for me was going back to the community that I wanted to destroy, that I was hurt by, and being able to make change,” Johnson tells NBC’s Maya Brown.

Robert Abruzzese recaps the official launch of our Street Action Network at the Brooklyn Public Library. The Street Action Network is a community research initiative that draws on the expertise of people with firsthand experience and high social capital in the streets to end gun violence. Hear from Co-Directors Basaime Spate and Javonte Alexander, as well as NYC Public Advocate Jumaane Williams and our executive director, Courtney Bryan. Spate and Alexander take us through their experience with street networks, community research, and growing up as Black men in New York City while exploring the mission behind this new initiative.

Summer is here, and that means our RISE team is out in the community, addressing intimate partner and gun violence by creating safe spaces for healing and wellness.

Our communities are safest when they have resources, support, and hope. This Gun Violence Awareness Month, take a look at how our teams across the Center are preventing gun violence by advancing justice in all its facets.

When our default response is to meet harm with punishment and isolation, it’s hard to imagine a different path forged with dialogue and understanding. But by taking that step, we can get closer to genuine accountability and repair.

Supervised Release prevents trauma for countless New Yorkers waiting for their day in court. That makes all of us safer.

Family courts have an important role to play in breaking cycles of trauma. The Strong Starts Court Initiative shows how.

Who winds up on Rikers Island and why? What will it take to close the troubled jail complex? Those are some critical questions raised in Vital City’s special issue on New York City’s jails. In their contribution to the issue, our policy experts Daniel Ades and Virginia Barber Rioja make the case for investing in supportive housing, not jail, for people with serious mental illness—a desperately needed alternative that is cheaper, more humane, and safer for us all.

Family members, friends, and neighbors gathered at a playground in Crown Heights, Brooklyn, to remember Troy Gill, a 13-year-old boy who was lost to gun violence on February 29. As the community stood together in mourning, they also issued a call to action to mobilize against gun violence and prioritize the safety and well-being of all young people. “We're in a time where a lot of young people don't feel seen and or loved or heard,” said Anthony Rowe, director of our Neighbors in Action program in Crown Heights. “So our path forward is to invest in the youth.”

“We don’t want to see people locked up as the solution. We want them to get the help they need, get the stability, get the path toward a healthy life.” Governor Kathy Hochul visited our Midtown Community Justice Center to share exciting news of a $33 million investment into expanded mental health support for New Yorkers in the criminal legal system. On NY1, hear from the people working on the ground to link people who have been arrested to those life-changing services, including Mel Hodor from our Midtown Community Justice Center team.