Every year, we pour more than $100 billion of taxpayer money into policing across the nation. Meanwhile, those of us pushing for community-centered solutions to violence applaud new funding that is always a small fraction of that amount. Institutional stability needs to be a focus of this movement going forward because it is essential to promote sustainability to a reimagined conception of public safety.

In Newark, Mayor Ras J. Baraka created the Office of Violence Prevention and Trauma Recovery (OVP) in June 2020 with a public ordinance, allocating to it 5% of the public safety budget (about $12 million). The OVP’s mission is to address root causes of violence and crime, and to steer resources to deal with the resulting trauma of victimization. Collaborative efforts on the ground helped give shape to this strategy.

Having a coordinating body helps diversify city intervention in violent situations, with a component of trauma recovery and a space for workforce skills development. Programs can be built with the understanding that violence is a public health concern, and public safety is a collective effort. In Newark, the OVP promotes networks between community organizations active in conflict mediation, as it recognizes their longstanding violence interruption initiatives and their potential to become actors entitled to public budget allocation.

As one of the resources to support healing processes and diversify the interventions to violence, the OVP is gradually establishing an active presence of social workers alongside police officers (with a ratio of one social worker to every 10 cops). It is facilitating the community’s mediation efforts, creating more spaces to diversify access to economic opportunities and to formalize organized action. The aim is for the public to see healing as a structural possibility, accessible to everyone in the city. And by having one body steer many of the efforts and facilitate communication, success is far more likely.