Safe Streets Penn North Celebrates More Than 365 Days with No Homicides
BALTIMORE, MD (Thursday, March 7, 2024) – Yesterday, the Mayor’s Office of Neighborhood Safety and Engagement (MONSE) and Catholic Charities of Baltimore announced that the Safe Streets Baltimore’s Penn North site has reached a major milestone of over 365 days with no homicides in the site's catchment area.
The site officially reached 365 days with no homicides on November 14, 2023 and, as of March 6, 2024, has continued to have zero homicides within the catchment area’s boundaries for 478 days.
In order to help achieve this milestone, in 2023, the Penn North site conducted over 86 mediations and held 46 community events to bring resources into the community and spread anti-violence messaging.
“This milestone demonstrates how effective community violence intervention and mediation work can be at curbing fatal violence in our neighborhoods,” said MONSE Director Stefanie Mavronis. “The fact that our Penn North catchment area has gone so long without a single homicide is not a coincidence. Safe Streets staff regularly put their lives on the line to mediate conflicts and build safer communities across Baltimore. MONSE and the entire Scott Administration are committed to building on our progress and strengthening these efforts across all Safe Streets sites.”
Penn North is one of ten Safe Streets Baltimore locations across the city. The Mayor’s Office of Neighborhood Safety and Engagement (MONSE) is responsible for oversight of the Safe Streets Baltimore program and contracts with community-based organizations – Associated Catholic Charities and Lifebridge Health Center for Hope – (CBOs) to serve as site administrators. Catholic Charities operates the Penn North site as well as the Sandtown-Winchester, Brooklyn, and Cherry Hill locations. LifeBridge Health’s Center for Hope serves as the operator for the Belvedere, Park Heights, Woodbourne-McCabe, Belair-Edison, McElderry Park, and Franklin Square locations.
“We are incredibly proud of this achievement in the Penn North Safe Streets post, and the work being done every day by our team of violence interrupters is truly heroic,” said Kevin Keegan, Catholic Charities Family Services Division Director. “We also realize that there are many partners working with us and around us, and it is through this network of people working to support and expand the natural strengths of the community that this achievement has happened.”
As Baltimore's flagship violence intervention program, Safe Streets relies on credible messengers with rapport amongst the communities they serve to mediate conflicts, oftentimes risking their own life to save those of their neighbors, and shift community norms around the acceptability of gun violence. This program is derived from the Cure Violence model for violence intervention.
Researchers from the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health published a report earlier this year that found that Safe Streets has reduced homicides and nonfatal shootings in neighborhoods where it is present.
As outlined in the Mayor’s Comprehensive Violence Prevention Plan, the Scott Administration has committed to supporting and strengthening Safe Streets. The program serves as the flagship gun violence intervention program associated with Baltimore’s Community Violence Intervention ecosystem.
Residents can learn more about Safe Streets and the results outcomes and impacts of work on MONSE’s website: Reports and Resources | Mayor’s Office of Neighborhood Safety and Engagement (baltimorecity.gov).
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