Why is gun violence dropping in the United States?
Crime and gun violence is dropping because community-led strategies work.
THE ANSWER IS SIMPLE:
Across the country, violence is going down—and it’s not because of fear-based policies or mass incarceration. It’s because local organizers are leading the way with community violence intervention (CVI) strategies.
Protect CVI, powered by the Community Violence Legal Network, is here to tell the truth about an evidence based approach that is working: community-led violence prevention strategies that center healing, trust, and safety.
From Los Angeles to Birmingham to Newark and Chicago, local leaders are interrupting cycles of harm, building community trust, and saving lives.
How did we get here?
Community violence intervention is a proven, public health-based approach to reducing violence. It works because it is rooted in trust, local leadership, and accountability to the communities most impacted.
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The CVI Action Plan is the most comprehensive roadmap ever created to support and scale community violence intervention. Released in 2024 from conversations with over 300 organizers, outreach workers, researchers, and local leaders, it lays out what the field needs now—better funding, stronger protections for workers, smarter coordination, and a clearer role in shaping safety policy nationwide.
In a system where carceral strategies have failed communities of color for decades, the CVI Action Plan calls for something different: a safety approach led by those closest to the pain and the solutions. It's already helped shape investments in cities like Detroit, Baltimore, Toledo, and Los Angeles—and is charting a path forward for every community ready to lead with healing, not punishment.
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The CVI Ecosystem is a planning tool that helps cities respond with care, not punishment. It shows how to build a fully staffed, well-funded CVI strategy that connects outreach workers, trauma counselors, hospital-based responders, and community-based programs into one coordinated system. For cities with high rates of violence, it maps out what’s needed: how many people to reach, what roles to hire, and what it will take to sustain the work.
Led by national CVI experts this resource is a gamechanger for city leaders, organizers, and funders ready to invest in public safety that heals.
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Community violence intervention (CVI) is a public health approach to safety. Instead of waiting for violence to happen and responding with punishment, CVI focuses on preventing it, by building relationships, defusing conflict, and connecting people to care and opportunity.
CVI strategies are led by “credible messengers”— frontline workers who have deep ties to the community and often personal experience with the cycles they’re helping to break. These workers show up after an act of violence, talk someone out of violence, or walk with a person toward a safer path. It’s work that centers healing, trust, and safety, not fear or force.
From street outreach and peace fellowships to hospital-based intervention and trauma recovery, CVI meets people where they are and offers something powerful: another way forward.
CVI is saving lives in communities everywhere.
And you don’t have to take our word for it— here are just a few success stories from cities across the United States.
FORT WORTH, TX
From January to June of 2023, there were 25 either gang homicides, gang shootings or investigations in Ft. Worth. After federal funding enabled CVI programs to expand, in the same period in 2024, there were zero.
KING COUNTY, WA
After investments in CVI, shooting victims dropped 31% compared to the previous year and overall gun violence reached a four-year low.
BIRMINGHAM, AL
Birmingham homicides dropped by nearly half in the first 5 months of 2025 thanks to investments in local community organizations and CVI efforts.
CHICAGO, IL
One year after Chicago’s historic investment in community violence intervention strategies, the number of shooting victims decreased by nearly 28% compared to the previous 3 years.
NEW YORK CITY, NY
In the first three months of 2025, the city recorded the fewest shootings of any first quarter since 1994, thanks to investments in community-safety programs and public safety.
PORTLAND, OR
Six months after Portland opened two shelters, crime in those neighborhoods dropped 2.5%, with a 17.5% decrease in crimes like assault and robbery.
DETROIT, MI
Federal investments to CVI groups in Detroit working to reduce homicides and shootings showed reductions of 83%, 73% and 61% in some of the city’s most violent areas.
ADD YOUR STORY
Have a success story, data, strategy, or research you’d like us to consider adding? We’re constantly adding new information to help the public understand the benefits of community violence intervention.
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ARTICLES
NATIONWIDE - VOX: Something remarkable is happening with violent crime rates in the US
NATIONWIDE - REASON: Could 2025 See the Lowest Murder Rate Ever Recorded?
DETROIT - AP NEWS: Crime prevention program shows dramatic drops in homicides, shootings in some parts of Detroit
BALTIMORE - AP NEWS: How Baltimore is saving lives by offering young men resources when they put down the guns
RESEARCH
What is Protect CVI?
Protect CVI is a national effort to defend, strengthen, and expand community violence intervention efforts. We are grounded in two key goals:
1. Restore federal CVI funding
We are fighting to bring back life-saving federal dollars that support CVI workers, survivors, and local organizations.
2. Build long-term infrastructure for the CVI field
We are supporting frontline organizations with legal tools, advocacy strategies, and resources to sustain their work and protect their impact.
Share your work.
We are continuously adding new stories, strategies, and data. If you’d like to share your local CVI efforts, email us at info@cvlegalnetwork.org or fill out the form.