Learn about Knoxville's controversial violence interruption contract at May 12 meeting

Yahoo

10-05-2025

After heated debate at the April 29 Knoxville City Council meeting over the city's plans for its violence interruption efforts, a public meeting on May 12 will invite community discussion of the proposed contract ahead of any vote on it.
The disagreement began due to the proposed contract extension between the National Institute of Criminal Justice Reform (NICJR) and the city of Knoxville.
After the debate at the last city council meeting, the vote on the contract was postponed for two weeks to allow a chance to discuss it further.
Community members, violence interruption groups and councilmembers will have the chance to speak to NICJR representatives, who will share a presentation with the community and answer any questions at the 6-7 p.m. May 12 meeting.
Councilmember Gwen McKenzie will lead the discussion for the public violence interruption contract meeting at Logan Temple AME Zion Church, 2744 Selma Ave.
The discussion is meant to inform councilmembers before they vote on the contract at 6 p.m. May 13 in the man assembly room of the City-County Building.
NICJR is a national community-based violence reduction organization out of California that has been working with Knoxville for almost two years, providing coaching and training to city staff and local community partners.
The new contract would go a step further by adding $519,750 to the previous contract to pay NICJR to manage community violence intervention programming in addition to what the previous contracts did. The total price tag is $826,800.
NICJR would hire and manage five messengers to serve as life coaches and outreach workers. Community partners could apply for those positions.
LaKenya Middlebrook, director of the Office of Community Safety and Empowerment (OCSE), said the contract would reduce the administrative and technical duties handled by the office as work increases and more community partners join the violence interruption efforts.
The proposed contract could last up to a year, and city officials said the goal is for a local community partner to replace NICJR. The city could end the contract early if it feels a community partner is ready, Mayor Indya Kincannon said April 29.
The resolution drew pushback from violence interruption organization leadership, including Denzel Grant, director of TurnUp Knox, and Rashaad Woods, director of Renounce Denounce, as well as from councilmembers Gwen McKenzie, Amelia Parker, Charles Thomas and Seema Sigh.
Some dissenters have accused the city of attempting to reinvent the wheel on violence interruption, despite record success in violence interruption last year.
Other concerns include a lack of financial support for local community partners, outsourcing management to an out-of-state organization, vagueness in the contract itself and hasty approval without community discourse.
"Like I said, NICJR is definitely needed for their training and technical assistance, we can benefit from those things, but I think you have to have the people doing the work, organizations doing the work, those are the ones that need to be funded and those are the ones that need to be trained and brought to the table to make sure we're putting the work together in a way that the community benefits," Grant told Knox News.
In addition, Grant said the contract should specify its terms and goals better.
Despite the concerns, Grant looks forward to the May 12 meeting to discuss the contract in more depth so councilmembers, community partners and community members can be more involved.
Renounce Denounce has developed a local network that is essential in targeting and contacting at-risk individuals, which only a local organization with boots on the ground can provide, as opposed to an out-of-state entity, according to Woods.
"For these local grassroots organizations that are already doing that type of work, there should have been more support written into the contract for that. Now, as far as the administrative piece and the training that they offer, you can never have enough training," Woods told Knox News.
If the contract is approved, ideally NICJR would provide administrative assistance and training, while funding would be distributed among local organizations to build workforce capacity for local groups, Woods said.
Myron Thompson covers public safety for Knox News. Email: [e-mail].
Allie Feinberg reports on politics for Knox News. Email her: [e-mail] and follow her on X, formerly known as Twitter, @alliefeinberg
This article originally appeared on Knoxville News Sentinel: Knoxville council, public can learn about violence interruption effort