GRAND RAPIDS, Mich. — Cure Violence is rounding out its second year in operation, and the program is seeing promising numbers.
Program leaders say they need one more year of data collection to definitively prove Cure Violence is helping reduce violent crime within its target area, but still, the metrics show a reduction in aggravated assault and homicide where Cure Violence is present.
“I’m seeing men and women from our community get extremely passionate and motivated to engage individuals in the community that they may know as nieces, nephews, folks that they grew up with, their family members — be involved and be excited about engaging young men and women who are at risk or highest at risk for committing crimes or having crime perpetrated on them," Cure Violence Site Supervisor Rich Griffin said.
Cure Violence's target area is specific. It's the area between Division and Fuller and Hall and Wealthy.
In that area specifically, there has been measurable decrease in violent crime.
“I can prove that folks can read between the lines, right? We’ve seen over a two-and-a-half-year period since Cure Violence has been implemented here, that we’re seeing a decline in not only aggravated assaults but homicides within our particular target area," Griffin said.
Cure Violence is an interruption program designed to prevent violence before it happens. People like Rich Griffin, site supervisor for Cure Violence, which is housed through the Urban League, say the program works because it's run by people like Griffin with lived experience in the neighborhood.
“I’m invested. Because I’ve spent time destroying the community at one point. I was one of the individuals who needed a violence interrupter and an outreach worker to engage me, to get me moving in a different trajectory," Griffin said.
Aggravated assaults are down 18% from Fiscal Year 2022 in the area Cure Violence operates.
Homicides are 86% lower than Fiscal Year 2022 and 2021.
READ MORE: Urban League ready to lead Cure Violence program that tackles ‘crime as if it were a disease’
Grand Rapids Police Chief Eric Winstrom says part of that is due to the police department's high rate of solving homicides.
“I really have a lot of praise for my detectives that are out there, taking a very small percentage of people in Grand Rapids that are willing to pick up an illegal firearm and use it against another human being … and getting those people behind bars, I think, has been really key to the dramatic drop in crime that we’ve seen this year,” Winstrom said.
Cure Violence is approaching its third year in operation. Three years of data are needed to prove the program is working, but community members say they're already seeing early positive signs of correlation.
“Whether or not we want to allocate that to Cure Violence, we’d beg to differ and say it’s because of our presence in the community. Because we are trusted individuals from that community. Credible workers from that community ... that individuals trust us more,” Griffin said.
Cure Violence is working towards expanding violence reduction efforts into the city's first and second wards, as well as securing funding for those efforts, so they can continue to operate past the initial three-year trial run.
