Statements: Legal Experts Encourage California State Legislature to Continue Funding CalGRIP Program That Has Effectively Reduced Gun Violence
April 25, 2017 — Today, attorneys from the Law Center to Prevent Gun Violence and Americans for Responsible Solutions (ARS), the gun violence prevention organization founded by former Congresswoman Gabrielle Giffords and Navy combat veteran and NASA astronaut Captain Mark Kelly, issued the below statements to encourage the California legislature to reauthorize funding for the California Gang Reduction, Intervention & Prevention (CalGRIP) program.
Mike McLively, Staff Attorney, Law Center to Prevent Gun Violence and Americans for Responsible Solutions:
Ari Freilich, Director of California Legislative Affairs, Law Center to Prevent Gun Violence and Americans for Responsible Solutions:
About the California Gang Reduction, Intervention & Prevention (CalGRIP) Program
CalGRIP is one of the only sources of state-level funding for locally driven violence prevention strategies. In recent years, CalGRIP grantee cities across California, including Los Angeles, San Jose, and Oakland, have achieved lifesaving, cost-effective reductions in both violent crime and incarceration by implementing programs that provide focused outreach, counseling, and other services to youth identified as at-risk, and by developing coordinated agency responses to group-related retaliatory violence.
With its local matching requirement, CalGRIP has leveraged more than $18 million per year for violence intervention and prevention programs over the last decade. Eliminating this program could have dire consequences, particularly in under-resourced urban communities that need stronger and more targeted investment from the state to prevent gun violence.
About the Success of the CalGRIP Program
- CalGRIP has provided Los Angeles $3 million over the past 3 years to help fund its Gang Reduction and Youth Development (GRYD) program. Los Angeles has seen a 38% reduction in homicides and 46% reduction in aggravated assaults since launching GRYD in 2007.
- Over the past three years, CalGRIP has provided the City of Richmond $1.5 million to help fund the Office of Neighborhood Safety—a city agency dedicated exclusively to the prevention of violence. Richmond has seen a 53% drop in gun homicides and a 45% drop in non-fatal shootings since ONS launched the Operation Peacemaker Fellowship program in 2010.
- CalGRIP has provided $1.5 million to the City of Oakland to fund its Operation Ceasefire Project focused on reducing gun violence. Oakland has seen a 34% drop in gun homicides and a 39% reduction in non-fatal shootings since launching Operation Ceasefire in late 2012.
- In less than two years, between January 2015 and September 2016, CalGRIP-funded programs provided more than 511,000 hours of prevention or intervention services to 54,750 Californians at risk of perpetrating or being victimized by violence.