Wichita City Council members have voted to approve an agreement with three agencies to begin the implementation of a violence prevention program in two areas of the city.
The city began working with Chicago-based Cure Violence Global in 2022 to develop a violence interrupter program. The purpose is to detect and prevent potentially violent events, provide for behavior change and support to the highest-risk individuals, and change community norms that allow and encourage incidents in chronically violent neighborhoods.
The program in Wichita will be focused on socially and economically stressed neighborhoods that have had high rates of gun violence.
The city is contracting with the Wichita State University Community Engagement Institute in a partnership with Destination Innovation and the Institute of Development. The program will target an area in north Wichita between I-135 and Oliver, from 9th Street to 25th Street. The program will also be put in place in an area of south Wichita, between Broadway and Oliver from Pawnee to Galena and Wassall.
Rebecca Johnson with the city manager’s office said the program will begin recruiting and hiring in January with staff training in February. The city is allocating $1.5 million in American Rescue Plan Act funds for the program, which will be directed at the highest-risk youth,.
City Council member Bryan Frye is urging the community to support this program and “help us get ahead of this, because it’s not getting better.” He said this should be part of the solution, and “we need you to be our eyes and ears as much as we need these violence interrupters.”
