Group Violence Intervention: what is it? Can it help with Lexington’s gun violence?

Group Violence Intervention (GVI) is a national program started in Boston in the 90's

LEXINGTON, Ky. (WTVQ) – Rising violence in Lexington is a hot topic among city leaders, many doing their best to address the problem and find a long-term solution. Some officials, like Mayor Linda Gorton and mayoral candidate and Councilmember David Kloiber, have differing opinions on what these solutions should be like the use of Group Violence Intervention (GVI).

Started in Boston the 90’s as a way to reduce homicides and gun violence, the National Network for Safe Communities started GVI to start ‘community policing’, having community resources work directly with the police. Today, the National Network for Safe Communities says GVI strategies are used in dozens of cities nationwide.

“It’s a very inclusive model that takes the power out of one person’s hands and puts it into the community’s hands,” says Kloiber.

Kloiber says it would take about four months to set up the group in Lexington and then the data would be tracked for two years.

“This is your ability to be able to have a voice, talk about what’s going on and really bring up the issues that matter in your neighborhood. So, all told, it’s a huge component of this process that doesn’t even have to do with how the police are actually going after these bad actors,” says Kloiber.

Mayor Gorton says she researched GVI when she first took office and her research gave her different results.

“What we learned is that all those cities, we were able to see their numbers and see the graphs of homicides and none of them showed a decrease in homicides, they all showed increases, and some of them told us that they had stopped using GVI because it wasn’t working for them,” says Gorton.

Gorton says her research also showed that even though the program is designed to curb racial profiling, it does the opposite.

“It’s had multiple kind of red flags for us and this is why we aren’t doing it here,” says Gorton.

Gorton says a national solution won’t solve a Lexington problem but instead something like ONE Lexington, run by community activist Devine Carama, is tailor-made for the city.

“ONE Lexington isn’t an alternative, it’s just one of the strategies,” says ONE Lexington director Devine Carama. “There are times when the community-based programs like ONE Lexington can work with police, but in a lot of ways they’re separate and that protects both.”