The Problem
More than 117,000 people are shot in America annually. Gun homicides are disproportionately concentrated in urban areas, particularly in impoverished and underserved communities of color. Such neighborhoods are too often plagued by homicide rates on par with warzones.1
Frequently, both public and community-based systems of care fall short in their efforts to provide responsive opportunities and resources to those most involved with and affected by urban gun violence. Because those who are suspected of gun crimes in urban communities have often already been failed by the available systems of care, those who need the services most are least likely to trust the systems that provide them.2
The Costs
More than half of all firearm deaths in America occur in urban neighborhoods.4
Highly concentrated levels of violence creates a vicious cycle…Exposure to firearm violence-being shot, being shot at, or witnessing a shooting —doubles the probability that a young person will commit a violent act within two years.
A total of 90 people were killed in mass shootings in 2012. That same year, nearly 6,000 black men were murdered in shootings that rarely made the news.
Every day, the number of individuals murdered in urban America by guns equals a mass shooting.